Project Gutenberg's Through Night to Light, by Friedrich Spielhagen
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Title: Through Night to Light
A Novel
Author: Friedrich Spielhagen
Translator: Schele de Vere
Release Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #34598]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH NIGHT TO LIGHT ***
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2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
Through Night To Light
A NOVEL
BY
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
PROF. SCHELE DE VERE
_Author's Edition_
"Ex fumo dare lucem cogitat."
Horace
_REVISED EDITION_
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1878
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
LEYPOLDT & HOLT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
DENNIS BRO'S & THORNE,
AUBURN N. Y.
Through Night to Light.
Part First.
CHAPTER I.
The sun hung glaring red near the horizon. In the valleys of the
mountain ranges dark-blue shadows were gathering, while high on the
forest-crowned tops the warm evening light was still aglow. The trees
were gorgeous in their gay autumn livery, but in this part of the
mountain dark forests of sombre evergreens covered the narrow ravines
up and down, and all the swelling heights.
On the turnpike which led in manifold windings towards the main ridge
of the mountains, and was lined on both sides with unbroken rows of
dwarf fruit-trees, an old-fashioned carriage was slowly making its way.
It was one of those broad but clumsy vehicles, drawn by two raw-boned,
broken-kneed horses, and carefully provided with a huge drag-chain,
which are hired in the cities for a few days' excursion into the
mountains. The horses lagged, with drooping heads, heavily in their
harness, and labored painfully step by step up the hill, for the road
was steep and the carriage heavy. The driver encouraged them from time
to time with a friendly Gee, bay! up, sorrel! as he walked slowly by
their side, and the two gentlemen who had employed him for some days
had gotten out at the foot of the mountain and were leisurely following
at some distance behind him.
They were a couple of young men, evidently belonging to the best
classes of society, that is, to the middle classes, in which
intelligence and culture are nowadays almost exclusively found. They
were both tall and showed the slight build and the elasticity belonging
to their years. One, the smaller one, whose mouth and cheeks were
nearly hid under a close, deep-black beard, would probably have been
thought the more interesting of the two, as his finely-cut features,
full of intelligence, were sure to please the more careful observer,
and yet he was neither as tall nor as handsome as his companion, who at
once attracted the eyes of all fair maidens and matrons in the towns
and villages through which they had passed.
The two young men had for a time walked on in silence, separated as
they were by the whole breadth of the turnpike, which was here covered
with small broken stones, to the despair of horses and foot-passengers.
Now, when they had passed the bad places, they approached each other
again, and the one with the black beard put his hand in a kindly manner
on the other's shoulder and said affectionately: "_Eh bien_, Oswald,
why so silent?"
"I return your question," replied the latter, turning his beautiful,
earnest eyes towards his companion.
"I enjoy in full draughts the glory of this evening's landscape," said
Doctor Braun; "and enjoyment, you know, is silent, because the very
pleasure is business enough, and leaves us no leisure for talking. But
tell me, is it not a wonderful country, this Thuringia? Is it not
worthy to be the heart of Germany, and thus the heart of the heart of
our continent, in fact of the inhabited globe? Stop a moment where you
are; we have just here a view which would be unique if there were not
thousands and thousands like it in these lovely mountains. There is the
valley, which we have just left! you can now follow easily the
meandering course of the willow-fringed brook through the meadows.
There is the village, a dirty place when seen near by, but now how
beautiful it is, half veiled by its gay cloak of trees, and the blue
columns of smoke, which rise straight up from the chimneys, and
gradually dissolve on the sides of the mountains into blue, transparent
clouds. And now these beautiful heights with their evergreens! how they
rise one behind the other with their deep coloring. And now, here to
our left, the glimpse of the blue mountains which we crossed this
morning. And, above all, this marvellously fair sky, clear and deep and
unfathomable, like the eye of some one we love. Oh, there is something
divine in these outlines and these lights. They are surely intended to
be more than a mere pleasure for the eye, or even a study for the
painter: they are meant to comfort us and to admonish us. A glance at
the enchanting face of our mother nature puts our wild hearts to sleep,
makes us forget the eccentric character of our so-called culture,
brings us back to the first harmony of the soul, and awakens and
revives in us the conviction that everything true, beautiful, and
noble, is infinitely simple, and that the well of contentment gushes
forth at the bidding of every one who seeks it with a pure heart."
While Doctor Braun had spoken these words in his usual animated and
impressive manner, Oswald had looked with sad eyes into the far
distance. Now, when his companion ceased, he said--an ironical smile
playing around his lips--
"Are you quite sure of that? And suppose it were so, who will blame the
unfortunate man whose heart is not pure, who is cursed with blindness,
and never sees the well of contentment? We shall meet one of these
unfortunate men to-night. If you will open his closed eyes and restore
to him the purity of his heart, I will worship you as a god."
Doctor Braun seemed to be much affected by these words, which had
towards the end assumed a passionate tone of bitterness. He was silent
for a few moments while they ascended the mountain, and then he said,
"I thought the journey would have calmed you and made you more
cheerful, Oswald. I begin to doubt my professional skill when I see
that the old dreams are as powerful as ever in you. You seemed to be
almost cured of the fatal desire to sit down, like Heine's young man,
by the sea coast, and to ask the restless waves for an answer to the
painful old riddles of life, and now----"
"Now I am once more bored with the old complaint! No, Franz, I will not
bring disgrace upon your mental cure and try to find the world as
beautiful and reasonable as you do. That was only a recollection of the
past. Is it not natural, is it not quite intelligible, that it should
turn up just now, when we approach the end of our pilgrimage, and I am
about once more to meet face to face the noble, unfortunate man to whom
I owe so much, and that after an interval during which so much, so very
much, has changed for him and for myself! I have followed your advice
faithfully, as well as I could. I have let the past bury the past; I
have practised industriously the art of forgetting, and I have sent the
very shadows of the departed back to Hades, when they became
troublesome. But here comes the form of a living man who is dead, of a
dead man who still lives, and I find neither in my mind nor in my heart
the magic words which will lay this spirit, whom I reverence, whom I
mourn with tears, like the others."
"Then let us turn back," said Doctor Braun, with great vivacity. "If
you do not feel the strength in you to maintain the position which you
have yourself chosen, against every objection and every authority, it
would be madness to expose yourself to such danger. Let us turn back;
it is time yet."
"No," said Oswald, "that would be both cowardly and foolish. We do not
overcome danger by avoiding it. I must see Berger and speak to him.
This interview must be the test of the problem that has occupied us
these four weeks. Either I recover myself from my own insanity by
seeing this madman, or----"
"There is no _or_," cried Franz. "Really, when I hear you talk so,
Oswald, I have a great mind to let you starve and thirst till you come
again to your senses, or consent to do honor to reason. You are an
enigmatical man, a thoroughly problematic character. There are
incongruities in your character which I have not yet learnt to explain,
in spite of our long intimacy. Natural disposition and education, which
jointly make the man, must in your case have been most strangely
intermingled. I have so far always avoided speaking of your early
youth, because I felt a natural reluctance to inquire after what you
evidently did not care to reveal. But my friendship for you is greater
than such considerations, which are after all of little account between
such intimate friends as we are. What do you say, Oswald, while the sun
is gloriously setting behind those mountains, and our poor horses are
painfully dragging themselves up the hill, you might tell me something
about your early years--much or little, as you are disposed. Will you
do it?"
"Willingly," replied Oswald. "I also have been thinking much of my
youth in these last days. If one is engaged in settling his affairs, as
I am now doing, at a certain epoch of one's life, it is almost
indispensable to trace that life back to the beginning. It is true you
are the first man, and perhaps the only one, whom I could permit to
look into those dark portions of my existence; but I will do it."
"I shall be all the more attentive," replied Doctor Braun.
CHAPTER II.
"To begin at the beginning," said Oswald, after a pause, during which
he seemed to have collected his thoughts, "I was born in the capital.
My father was a teacher of languages, my mother the daughter of a
mechanic. You see, therefore, that I have no claims to nobility, and
that my hatred against the nobles is the very natural and legitimate
hatred of the plebeian against the patrician, of the Pariah against the
Brahmin.
"I have never learnt why my father left the capital, and shortly after
my birth--I was, and remained, the only child of my parents--he went to
live in the little Pomeranian port W----. It is true I never knew much
of the history of my parents and of all that happened before my birth.
I do not even know whether I have any relations on the father's or the
mother's side. If there are any, I have never made their acquaintance.
"My mother also I only recollect dimly, after the manner of a person
whom we have seen in a dream. But even now I sometimes dream of a fair
young lady, with great, sweet blue eyes. She says in a soft tone some
words which I do not understand, but which sound like the music of
heaven, and always move me to tears even in my sleep. I know that this
lovely creature of my dreams is my mother, for she never changes. She
died before I had ended my fourth year.
"If ever man succeeded in replacing a mother to an orphaned, motherless
child, my father solved that problem. When I was a little child, he
sang and talked me to sleep; when I was sick, he watched day and night
by the side of my little bed; he sat by me in the garret window and
blew alternately with me bright soap-bubbles from a little clay pipe
into the air; he taught me the alphabet and to make ships from the
bark of trees; he made me learn the first Latin words, and taught me to
swim and to skate; he gave me the first lessons in Greek, and in
pistol-shooting and fencing. I had no other friend but him, until I
went to the University."
"He was a strange, unfathomable man, even so far as his outer
appearance was concerned. Imagine a figure of dwarfish size, but
exceedingly well proportioned, very agile and active, dressed in winter
and summer, early and late, invariably in a worn-out black dress-coat,
black shorts, black stockings, and shoes with large buckles, walking in
sunshine or rain, always hat in hand, through the streets of the city.
Imagine this figure ending in a disproportionately large head, with a
well-set brow, bald on the temples, beneath which a pair of sharp eyes
sent out flashes of lightning, and a face which, though fine and sharp
of outline, either had never known how to laugh or forgotten how to do
it for long, long years. This was the figure of my father, the Old
Candidate, as he was called in W---- by everybody, even the boys in the
street, with whom I had many a battle royal, when they dared to laugh
at the old gentleman's appearance.
"The nickname, besides, had no application to my father, if I except
the word Old. He had never in his life been a candidate for any office,
clerical or political, as far as I know, and, in spite of his enormous
erudition, he would not have been fit for any office, for his
eccentricity and odd disposition would have made it impossible for him
to fulfil his duties.
"In later years I have often and often tried in vain to find out what
bitter experience of life, what sad misfortunes, could have changed my
father into such an odd character. He was a hypochondriac and a
misanthrope at once, who avoided most carefully every contact with the
world, and who, therefore, was as carefully let alone by everybody
else. Those who claimed to be men of refinement and religious
convictions called him a cynic because he had emancipated himself from
all social obligations; and an atheist, because he never appeared at
church. The superstitious rabble crossed themselves when they saw him,
as if he were standing in nearer relations to the Evil One than was
proper for a good Christian. If he had lived two hundred years sooner,
they would no doubt have burnt him as a sorcerer or a magician.
"I must confess, to be candid, that the refined and the unrefined
rabble were not so far amiss when they attributed to my father ideas
and notions which are not ordinarily met with in the brains of the
majority. He had a supreme contempt for all faith founded merely upon
authority, because he felt himself fettered by it in the freedom of his
existence; and an intense hatred for all worldly tyranny, because it
prevented him from acting freely. He openly declared a republic to be
the only form of government under which a man who had the right _point
d'honneur_ could live happily. Every prerogative granted to one, to a
few, or to the many, was to him an injustice, which could only be
explained by the insolence of the ruler and the cowardice of the ruled.
He could see no difference in the end between a flock of sheep driven
to the slaughter-house by a stupid servant and a savage dog, and a
people who allowed themselves to be oppressed and ill-treated by a
proportionately small number of men. The men, he said, only managed to
cover their disgrace with bright-colored garments, while the sheep were
not able to do the same.
"His special hatred, however, was given to the nobility. As soon as he
happened to speak of their caste, he had a whole dictionary of
opprobrious epithets at his command. He never entered the house of a
nobleman; and whenever young men of noble birth proposed to take
lessons from him, he immediately refused. Once, as we were firing at a
target--a practice in which he excelled--he told me that in his youth
he had hoped thus to engage himself against a nobleman who had mortally
offended him. Unfortunately the man had died before he could carry out
his plan. That is the only hint which I ever received as to my father's
former life.
"And thus I grew up, exclusively communing with this strange man. The
relations between us were as extraordinary as he himself. Although my
father did more for me than generally both parents jointly do for their
child, and although he apparently lived and suffered only for my sake,
I still do not think he really loved me. He was a purely spiritual man.
Either his heart had received, at some time or other, a fatal blow from
which it had never recovered, or his sentiments had all evaporated into
mere notions under the influence of his scepticism. Whatever he did, he
did from a sense of duty, from a conviction that it was right; for, as
he said himself, Justice is higher than Love; it does all that Love
does and a great deal more.
"More, and yet not quite so much," interrupted Franz, "What we do from
affection for those we love, we ought to do for others from a sense of
justice; that is, from a conviction that the interests of all men are
represented in each. Love and Justice stand in the same relation to
each other as individual and species. One can not exist without the
other, for they need each other mutually. Justice can never teach us
all the thousand little acts of tenderness which we lavish upon those
we love, as individual love does not aid us any longer when we are
called upon to help a brotherhood, a nation, or all mankind."
"You may be right," replied Oswald, "and what you say renders it easier
for me to make a confession which I was about to make. I honored my
father deeply, but I did not love him; on the contrary, I often
experienced, as I only felt clearly in later years, a fear approaching
repugnance, when I came in closer contact with the strange man. Now I
hardly wonder at it, since I have found out that nature probably never
produced two beings more radically different than my father and myself.
We were as unlike in body as in mind and in inclination. I loved
already, as a boy, with perfect passion, everything brilliant and
splendid, and whatever is beautiful in nature and the world of men. I
was enthusiastically fond of my schoolmates, who rejoiced in the
youthful ornaments of golden locks, red cheeks, and bright eyes. I
loved to visit in houses where everything was elegant and in style,
after the manner of those days. I attached much importance to my dress,
and liked to hear it when women called me a handsome boy.
"You may imagine how little a young fellow with such wants and such
inclinations must have suited, as a companion, a misanthropic
hypochondriac, whose manner of life he was nevertheless forced to share
to a certain degree. For although my father allowed me a certain amount
of liberty, which was hardly in keeping with his general views, and
although he indulged me in my love of fine clothes and the comforts of
life to a degree which I have never been able to comprehend, I knew
nevertheless that he was deeply offended by this fondness of mine for a
world which he despised. I tried, therefore, very hard, to wean myself
from such a life, and succeeded all the more readily in my efforts, as
I soon discovered in the solitude, which was at first intensely hateful
to me, a source which changes the most desolate desert into a blooming
paradise--the Castalian spring of poetry.
"We lived in a small house built against and upon the city wall. The
solitary small window from which my room received its light was pierced
in the thick wall, so that the whole looked very much more like a
prison than anything else; and yet, what marvellously blessed hours I
have spent in that room! From my window I had an unlimited view over
the wall and the ramparts of the city--upon smooth ponds, lined with
beautiful copses of trees--upon rich meadows, with willows scattered
over them here and there, far out to the sea, which glittered like a
dark-blue ribbon through the green woods.
"Here, at this window, I used to sit on summer evenings, when the sun
was setting in brilliant splendor, my heart full to overflowing of
chaotic sentiments, and my head weaving thoughts as fair and bright,
and, alas! as perishable as soap bubbles! I remember I often wrote
verses in bright summer days and in dark autumn evenings, afterwards,
while I was sitting in deep meditation over my books, to remind me of
the happy days then, which had dropped one by one from the cup of time,
bright and brilliant, into the ocean of eternity.
"But why should I any longer attempt to describe to you these relations
to my father, which appear only the more enigmatical to me the more
clearly I desire to present them to you. If I ever had felt, as a
child, true, hearty love for my father, it grew less and less as I
became older and more independent. I had to hide in my heart all the
feelings, all the tenderness, which we ordinarily lavish upon our
mother and brothers and sisters and friends, for I could not feel any
confidence in him who, as matters happened to stand, ought to have
stood me in place of all of them. The constant intercourse with a mind
so sombre and sceptical gave to my mind a coloring which was little in
harmony with my sanguine and passionate disposition. I was an Epicurean
sitting at the feet of a Stoic, a Sybarite on terms of intimacy with a
Cynic philosopher. My exuberant fancy dreamed of the most magnificent
worlds, which my cool judgment destroyed pitilessly; I exhausted myself
in subtle devices, while my hot blood was filling my heart to
overflowing; I sat in my cell and studied dusty old parchments, while
my adventurous mind was longing for the marvels of the East and for
lofty deeds of chivalry.
"Thus matters continued till I went to the University, when I was
nineteen years old. I parted without grief from my father. What he felt
at the parting I cannot tell. He spoke to me, when I said good-by, like
a philosopher who dismisses his pupil, and recalled to my mind once
more all the great principles of his harsh worldly wisdom. The letters
which he wrote to me at regular intervals were in the same tone. There
were not many of them; for about six months after I had left him I
received a letter from the authorities of my native place, in which
they dryly informed me of the death of my father. He had left me a
little property, the fruit of his long and painful saving; it was just
enough to support me in a modest way during my university course, and
perhaps some little time beyond that. No will had been found; nor had
there been any papers, letters, diaries, or anything which might have
possibly given me a clue to the former history of my parents.
"Thus I was standing alone in the world--a young man in years, with the
weary mind of an old man. I was far too old for my fellow-students, who
looked to me like children at play; and yet I was far too young and
inexperienced myself to resist the temptations of a large city, or to
wander about in such a Babel without ever and anon losing my way. How
could a young man, in whom the current of full youthful life had been
so long artificially dammed up, avoid going astray? I became the hero
of many an intrigue, of which I was in my heart thoroughly ashamed, as
I ought to have been. I was spoilt by the women, and became the
innocent victim of many a heartless coquette. I gathered much
experience without growing any wiser--the worst thing that can befall a
man. And the most remarkable of it all was that I loathed in my heart
the enjoyments to which I gave myself up; that my heart yearned after
true love at the very times when I wasted it upon women unworthy of
such a gift; and that I cherished the most extraordinary plans for the
future, while I squandered my strength in senseless amusements.
"A friend, who in those days had some influence over me, rescued me
from the whirlpool in which I would have perished sooner or later. He
advised me to go to Grunwald. I followed his advice.
"From that moment you know my life, at least in its outlines. You know
that I became there acquainted with the unfortunate man whom we are
about to visit. You will now also be able to understand why it was
utterly impossible for me to resist the charm of Berger's extraordinary
character, and how I entangled myself by my intercourse with him only
more and more deeply in the thorns and briars of internal conflicts,
which finally made my heart bleed to death.
"Berger wished me to go to Grenwitz and to take there a position in a
noble family, which suited me about as well as a dove-cote suits a
hawk. You have followed me through the great periods of my life there
with an observant eye, and at the same time as a philosopher and as a
friend. I do not know--and I do not want to know--how much you have
seen, how much you have understood, and what may have remained an
unexplained mystery for you. A part of these events I dare not touch
upon; another part I am in duty bound to leave untouched. When the
catastrophe came which you had anticipated, and the frivolous world in
which I was living, crushed me--then you stood by me as a friend; you
snatched me out of the confusion, and you laid upon yourself a burden
which has no doubt made you sigh more than once since. But no! that
cannot be! You are as clever as you are wise, and as wise as you are
kind. Tell me, Franz, what Odysseus was your father, what Penelope bore
you, that Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom, should always so manifestly
have held you under her gracious protection?"
"I believe everything in my life has happened in the most ordinary
way," said Franz, laughing. "I pray you will not think I escaped
altogether from either Scylla or Charybdis! I have been, like yourself,
on the point of despair. What has saved me is the conviction that the
world is, after all, but a Cosmos, in which everybody, be he what he
may, has to fill his modest place--a conviction which came to me first
very dimly, then more and more clearly and distinctly, and finally
filled my heart with triumphant certainty. This idea has given me that
cheerful calmness without which life would in the end become
unbearable. I said to myself: This world, of which you know after all
but very little, is such an old, solid, and well-finished edifice that
you need not give up the plan on which it was built, even if you should
not comprehend it in all its details. This race of ours, which maybe is
intended for as many millions of years as we now know thousands, is
such a marvellous and unfathomable problem of creative power that you
will never come to an end studying it, if you were to live ever so
long. Goethe tells us that no man ever possessed art, and I add, no one
ever possessed philosophy.
"Starting from this conviction, I determined to find a sense and a
meaning in life, and I cannot help saying that my efforts have been
crowned with some success. Mistrusting even as a school-boy the results
to be obtained from mere speculation, I chose a science which reveals
the processes of our soul, as it were, _ad oculos_--Medicine. I chose
it, moreover, because in its practice it brings us advantageously into
intimate contact with other men, from whom we hold but too generally
aloof--whatever may be said in praise of solitude. He who has once
understood the solidarity of all human interests--that fundamental
principle of all moral and political wisdom--knows also that his
individual existence is but a drop in the vast stream, and that such a
drop has no right to claim absolute independence. It would be different
if men fell like ripe fruit from the trees. But we are brought into
this world through the agony of a mother, in order to be the most
helpless of all created beings, entirely dependent on the faithful care
of parents; we are then allowed to grow up, if fate favors us, amid
brothers and sisters, in order not only to share with them all the joys
of life, but also to obtain them by their assistance; and, even later,
we cannot enjoy any true pleasure, any delight of our heart, except
through others and with others. All this teaches us that we are true
children of men, the offspring of this earth, with the right and the
duty to work out our life here below upon our inheritance side by side
with other children of men, our brethren, who have the same rights, and
of course also the same duties, as we ourselves.
"Thus you see, Oswald, the world becomes a Cosmos, and we cease to be
mere atoms whirling about in the infinite space without a reasonable
government, while nobody knows whence we come and whither we go. The
great fault of your life, which it is true you could hardly avoid with
such an experience as you had in your young days, is that you have
always lived for yourself only and never truly for others. Thus you
have drifted into a false position, in which you could not be useful to
the world, and the world could not be useful to you. Now, all this will
be different. From friendship for me, you have made the sacrifice of
taking a step which I know well--and better now than before--must be
very painful to your whole nature. But I am convinced you will bless
this step hereafter. The trial year which you mean to devote to the
college at Grunwald will be in more senses than one a trial year for
you. You will see whether you can obtain the hardest of all victories,
the victory over yourself--over your own arbitrary, sovereign will. I
wish you were, like myself, engaged to some good, sensible girl. That
would compel you to work and compel you to struggle, if not for your
own interest, at least for the sake of her who is dearer to you--ten
thousand times dearer to you--than your own life, and you would see how
easy the battle, how easy the victory would be to you."
Oswald made no reply. He felt convinced of the truth of what his
companion said, but at the same time he felt painfully ashamed. For the
face of truth is stern, and makes him tremble who does not worship it
at the cost of every feeling of his own.
Thus they walked side by side in deep silence, until they reached the
top of the mountain, where the carriage was waiting. They got in again,
and now they rolled in a quick trot down hill towards the little town
which was lying at their feet in the bosom of a secluded valley,
surrounded on all sides by well-wooded hills, and veiled at this moment
by the gray evening mists. It was the end of their day's journey, and
for Oswald the place of his destination--a watering-place, called
Fichtenau, renowned far and near on account of its charming position,
its invigorating baths of spruce leaves, and more recently yet its
large and admirably-kept insane asylum, which Doctor Birkenhain, a man
of great intelligence and large experience in such matters, had founded
there a few years ago.
Oswald's heart was filled with strange sensations as he saw from the
corner in which he was leaning back the rocks and the trees flit by,
and felt that every step brought him nearer to the place which had
occupied his mind during the last months so persistently and so
painfully. How unmeaning the name had sounded to him when he first
heard it mentioned at Grenwitz as the place where Melitta von Berkow's
suffering husband was living! Then he did not know Melitta yet, then he
did not anticipate that he would a few days later be enchained by the
charms of that beautiful woman. Afterwards he had heard her mention the
name, though only rarely, and always with much reluctance, and in his
state of boundless delight the place had given him very much the
impression with which the owner of a superb, brilliant house looks upon
a dark room which he does not like to open, and of which he avoids
speaking, because years ago a person who was dear to him had committed
suicide there. Then the time had come when Melitta obeyed Dr.
Birkenhain's summons and went to see her dying husband--at last the
painful, wretched days during which he knew she was at Fichtenau by the
side of her unfortunate husband, and when he received from Fichtenau
those letters in which every word was a longing kiss. In those days
Fichtenau had appeared to him alternately the grave and the cradle of
his happiness, as he at one moment fancied Berkow's death would remove
all impediments in the way of his marrying Melitta, and then again
feared the very same event might forever separate him from her. Then
came the fatal day when he found out that the man whom he had from the
beginning looked upon as his most formidable rival was with Melitta;
when malicious tongues had whispered the most hateful explanations of
this fact in his ear, and he, unhappy man, had but too readily listened
to these abominable slanders. Alas! he had even then betrayed his own
love by his own acts, and, like a ship-wrecked man, who, in order to
save himself and his treasures, pitilessly pushes his best friend from
the frail plank into the ocean, he had sacrificed Melitta in order to
justify his passion for the fair Helen before the tribunal of his own
heart! And finally, to fill the cup to overflowing, and to prove as it
were to his troubled mind that the whole world was out of joint, and
one error more or less did not matter much, the same place must hold
both the woman he loved so ardently, who sought comfort for the moments
she must needs spend at the deathbed of her husband in the arms of a
fascinating roué, and the revered friend and teacher, whose genius, so
like a bright blazing torch, had just been extinguished in the deep
darkness of insanity! Only a little later death had robbed him of the
boy whom he had learnt to love as a brother, and Fate had broken, in a
most painful manner, his connection with a great and noble family; then
he had seen his rival wounded unto death by his ball, lying at his
feet, and separating him forever by this one deed from the beloved
girl, from whom a thousand other reasons would, even without this, have
compelled him to flee. Was it a wonder that he felt as if the whole
earth had no more suitable asylum for him than a cell adjoining that of
his friend and teacher in Doctor Birkenhain's famous Insane Asylum at
Fichtenau?
Doctor Braun had originally suggested to him this trip for scientific
purposes, but now Oswald had insisted upon starting at once, although
the former had endeavored to postpone the visit under one pretext or
another for some time, and this for good reasons. He had written to
Doctor Birkenhain, without telling Oswald, and asked him to give him a
minute description of Berger's case. Doctor Birkenhain had replied,
that Berger's insanity consisted exclusively in the fixed idea of the
absolute non-existence of all things, but that otherwise he was in full
possession of all his mental powers, and would have been dismissed from
the institution long since but for his own urgent desire to prolong his
stay there. Doctor Braun knew perfectly well that under these
circumstances a visit to Fichtenau might be extremely dangerous to
Oswald's eccentric mind, excited as he was by all that had happened of
late. The sight of a madman might have restored him to tranquillity;
but the intercourse with a hypochondriac, whose genius shone brightly
even in Its aberrations, might possibly only tend to confirm him in his
extravagant ideas.
Moved by this apprehension Doctor Braun had postponed the visit to
Fichtenau till the end of their journey, instead of going there at
first, as Oswald had wished. He had hoped that the frequent intercourse
with other men, the beneficent influence of a journey through a
beautiful country, brilliant in all the glory of autumn, would bring
Oswald back to calmer and more reasonable views of life, and enable him
to meet Berger, if not with the superiority of this calmness, at least
without danger for himself.
Now Franz saw himself deceived in his hopes. He was by no means pleased
with Oswald's excited manner, and would have liked best to turn back,
if that had still been possible. He sat casting now and then an anxious
glance at Oswald, who, throwing himself back in his corner, looked with
fixed eyes upon the little town below, and he determined at least to
shorten the visit as much as possible, and to prevent his friend's
being alone with Berger while they were there together.
CHAPTER III.
The sun had already set for half an hour behind the broad back of the
well-wooded hill, which embraces Fichtenau on the western side, when
the carriage left the mountains and rolled down into the plain in which
the town is situated. The wearied horses enjoyed the level ground and
the easier motion of the carriage, and hastened to meet their good
supper of oats. They seemed to gather new strength from the shrill
notes of a clarinet which were heard high above the unfailing roll of a
big drum, from the midst of a close circle of men on the commons near
the town-gate, who surrounded a band of rope-dancers. The road passed
close by the place, and as the crowd of curious people had overflowed
upon the turnpike, the driver saw himself compelled to drive more
slowly, and at last to stop altogether, as the people were not willing,
in spite of his scolding and cursing, to give up their vantage ground,
and persisted in remaining on the spot, from which they could
comfortably look down upon the performance.
The good people thought it naturally quite hard to be disturbed just
then, as the wandering artists were at that moment engaged in
performing their masterpiece, with which they always wound up the
evening's work, so as to dismiss the audience with the most favorable
impression.
They had stretched a rope from the little circus to the top of a tall
but broad-branched oak-tree which stood upon the common, smaller ropes
ran on both sides down to the ground, and were there held fast by stout
boys, who had volunteered to perform that service for the sake of High
Art. The increased shrillness of the clarinet and the growing thunder
of the big drum announced the coming of the great moment when the
famous acrobat, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, called the Flying Pigeon,
would have the honor to perform, with permission of the authorities,
his great feat, admired by all the potentates of Asia and Europe, viz.,
to fetch down a flag fastened to the top of a steeple four hundred feet
high, on the extraordinary path of a single rope, and moreover walking
backwards all the time, a feat which he hoped the nobility and the
highly cultivated public of Fichtenau would not fail duly to
appreciate.
The tower, four hundred feet high, of which the placards at all the
street corners had spoken, had changed, it is true, into an oak of
perhaps forty feet in height, and the enemies and rivals of the Flying
Pigeon--and what great artist is without enemies?--insisted upon it
that this change in the programme diminished not only the danger but
also the interest of the daring feat. But it was not Mr. John
Cotterby's fault, surely, that in the Thirty Years' War the
Imperialists had shot to pieces the steeple of the little church on the
public square of Fichtenau, which was then held by the Swedes. Nor was
he to be blamed if the paternal government had now for two hundred
years annually determined to rebuild the steeple, but never
accomplished it yet. What could he do, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, if,
for want of better times to come, the church on the square was to this
day without a steeple? Certainly, if the conscience of the Flying
Pigeon was as innocent of every other crime as of this, he could
perform his great feat, even with the change of the programme,
unblushingly before the potentates of Europe and Asia, and the nobility
and highly cultivated public of Fichtenau.
And without blushing--unless the carmine of his rouge should be
interpreted as the flush of modesty--the Flying Pigeon now presented
himself upon a little scaffolding, hung with soiled linen sheets, to
begin his journey heavenward, accompanied by desperate efforts of the
clarinet and the big drum, which were at that solemn moment reinforced
by the tinkling of a triangle and the squeaking of a tuneless fiddle.
He was a handsome, well-made man, and quite young; his dark curly hair
was confined by a narrow band of brass, and his whole costume consisted
of a suit of stockinet which had long lost its first color of innocent
white, and a jacket of the same material, to which on the shoulders two
wings had been fastened, which, however, had evidently performed such
very hard service that they had lost many a feather on previous
occasions.
Encouraging applause greeted the artist and drowned easily the hissing
of the opposition; he bowed gracefully all around, with an air which is
only found among circus riders, rope-dancers, and other members of that
airy guild, while other mortals in vain endeavor to imitate it, and
thus to rob them of their exclusive secret. But the applause ceased
suddenly, when to the astonishment of the whole audience a huge,
shapeless figure was seen climbing after the courteous artist upon the
platform, and presenting him, after a hearty slap upon the place
between the Icarus wings, with a long slip of paper! The white
nightcap, the large blue apron, but above all the enormous, deep-red
nose, left no one who was learned in such matters long in doubt
as to the nature of the man; they saw at once in him the owner of a
beer-shop, or something of the kind, and in the paper an unpaid bill.
The artist would not have been a true artist if he had not been deeply
embarrassed by this sudden intrusion of stern reality upon the bright
regions of art. There followed a pretty pantomime; the Flying Pigeon
shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the place in his stockinet where
people with trousers of larger dimensions indulge in pockets, in order
to express his very evident inability to pay, and seemed to implore the
landlord with much wringing of hands and plaintive gesticulating to
have patience. The latter replied, however, as it seemed, only by
making fearful faces and by striking his hand with his closed fist, and
thus made it very clear that he was inexorably hard-hearted.
The highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country
looked upon the scene as a very serious affair, and showed their
amazement and deep interest in every feature. But the excitement rose
to a painful intensity when next, upon a sign from the red-nosed
landlord, two fellows with huge moustaches, in blue coats and black
tri-cornered hats, came climbing up on the stage, and filled the hearts
of the innocent spectators with horror as they raised their arms upon
the bidding of injured Justice, and, seizing the unlucky artist with
fearful grimaces and gesticulations, bound his impecunious hands behind
his winged back.
And now, at this most painful moment in the earthly career of an
artist, it was to be shown that the great god Apollo knows how to lead
his saints wonderfully out of troubles and trials, and to secure to
them the well-earned apotheosis, if not in this vale of tears, at least
in heavenly regions.
For, from the thickest of the oak-tree, where the rope had been
fastened to a mighty branch, there suddenly appeared the figure of a
lovely genius, winged like the Flying Pigeon, with a wreath on the hair
and a bright banner in the right hand. This was evidently the flag
which Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, usually fetched down from a steeple
four hundred feet high, and which he saw himself on this day forced,
for want of a suitable tower, to bring down from heaven itself. For was
not the winged genius one of the heavenly choirs?
When the messenger from Olympus showed himself so opportunely, the
servants of earthly Justice and the wine-colored dispenser of
abominable beverages were, as in duty bound, seized with sudden terror.
They abandoned their victim and fell with all the signs of deep
contrition upon their knees, while the Flying Pigeon relieved himself
of his fetters and began to ascend the narrow path that leads to
heaven, with all the swiftness and agility which had won such honor
for his name and reputation. When he had gone up half-way he knelt
down before the heavenly apparition, who had beckoned him on with
unceasing waving of the flag, rose to his full height and made there,
far above the earth and all earthly fear, a gesture towards his
conscience-stricken pursuers, which is universally understood upon the
earth. Loud applause and cheerful laughter accompanied the humorous
artist up to the very heavens, where the genius handed him the flag,
crowned him with the wreath, and then disappeared once more in the
branches. Mr. John Cotterby then returned to the stage, where the
constables had in the meantime learnt to appreciate the value of the
ideal and of the divine nature of art, and now received him with deep
bows, while the red-nosed landlord yielded to the impulse of the
moment, and with most praiseworthy repentance tore the enormous bill
from end to end, thus giving the spectators a comforting assurance that
the Flying Pigeon was, at least for the present, safe against all
attacks upon his freedom.
The performance was at an end. The generous landlord, who now appeared
in the character of manager of the company of artists, alone remained
behind on the stage, and in his epilogue promised the nobility and
highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country on
the next day a far more splendid representation. The audience dispersed
very suddenly, for a suspicious ringing of money on tin plates reminded
them suddenly of a duty which the ungrateful among the spectators did
not hold themselves bound to perform, while many grateful admirers
regretted deeply their inability to prove their gratitude.
Nevertheless the majority of those unable to pay were still honest
enough to allow the unwelcome plate to come quite near to them, and
those who were not kept by honesty remained from curiosity to find out
how the genius who dwelt in the branches of oak-trees might look when
seen near by. For it was Apollo's own messenger who deigned to make the
collection for the benefit of his children upon earth.
The cunning director could not have made a better choice. The
genius--it was hard to tell whether it was a boy or a girl--had a pair
of magnificent brown eyes, which looked with such bewitching modesty
and so imploringly into every face that the purses opened together with
the hearts. Kindly words followed the child everywhere, and one or the
other of the well-to-do citizens seemed to think himself entitled by
his gift of a few cents to pinch the brown cheeks; but the genius
appeared by no means disposed to appreciate the caress.
The driver had been on the point of leaving as soon as the crowd
allowed him to pass, but Franz and Oswald, who had followed the drama
of the artist's earthly career and his apotheosis with great interest,
and now and then with hearty laughter, ordered him to stop till the
genius should have made his way through the dense crowd to the
carriage. They had not to wait long, for a travelling carriage with two
gentlemen inside was surely worth more than a dozen of poor citizens of
Fichtenau.
Franz was looking for some small change in his purse when he was
startled by a loud exclamation.
"What is the matter?" he asked, looking wonderingly up at Oswald, who
had jumped up and uttered the cry.
Oswald did not reply, but leaped with a single bound out of the
carriage, and hurried to meet the genius, who no sooner recognized the
young man than he dropped the plate with all the silver and copper
coins, and fell into his arms.
"Czika, is it really you?"
"Yes, man with the blue eye," replied the child, eagerly and
affectionately, still hanging on his neck; but then suddenly tearing
herself away and anxiously looking toward the carriage:
"Is the other one there also?"
"No, Czika," said Oswald, knowing very well that the other of whom she
spoke was Oldenburg. "But are you quite alone?"
"No, mother is with me; mother does not leave the Czika. Come and help
me to collect the money again." And the child stooped down to pick up
the coins that were half hid in the dust.
"Oldenburg's child among rope-dancers," said Oswald to himself,
mechanically obeying the child's injunction and unconscious of what he
was doing, kneeling down and picking up here and there the scattered
pennies.
The highly-cultivated public thought this meeting of an apparently
great personage with a rope-dancer's child, and their warm embrace,
more remarkable than anything they had seen that evening. Young and old
they crowded around them, forming a close circle, and apparently
determined not to leave the place till they had solved the mystery of
this extraordinary meeting.
Franz, who had witnessed the scene from the carriage, had scarcely been
less amazed than the crowd. Very soon, however, he recollected the
mysterious reports about a gypsy girl whom Baron Oldenburg was said to
have harbored at his lonely house for several weeks, until she had
escaped from him one fine day, and, with that rapidity of combination
which is often found in strong heads, he at once concluded that Oswald,
who no doubt was in the baron's secret, had recognized the gypsy girl
in the beautiful genius. His next thought was to shorten the scene, for
Oswald's sake mainly, and in order to diminish as far as possible the
sensation which it had already produced. He jumped, therefore, from the
carriage, hastened to Oswald, and said,
"Let us go on! At least till the crowd has dispersed."
At the same moment the director of the company, who had also observed
the scene from the stage, on which he had harangued the public, pushed
his way through the assembly. His curiosity to know what was going on,
and his indignation at seeing the important business of collection
interrupted at the critical moment, had made him forget that he still
wore the costume of the red-nosed landlord, and that he, therefore,
ought not to have mingled with the people unless he wished to sacrifice
the dignity of his art. Franz was justly afraid that the tragi-comic
scene might become decidedly disagreeable if that personage should join
them, and therefore anticipated his questions by meeting him before he
came near, and whispering to him in a tone just loud enough to be heard
by the bystanders,
"I am a physician, sir. This young man (pointing over his shoulder at
Oswald, who was still kneeling down with Czika) is rather eccentric.
You understand. Here is something in compensation for the loss he may
have caused you."
The man considered this explanation, which was given in a very solemn
manner, perfectly satisfactory, since the possible loss was amply made
up by the two silver dollars which Franz had slipped into his hand. He
smiled cunningly, and said, pulling off his night-cap and bowing low,
"Understand, understand, your excellency. Only pray get him away
quickly, so that the Czika can go on with the collection."
"Where are you staying?" inquired Franz.
"At the Green Hat, your excellency. Your excellency will rejoice a poor
artist's soul if you will bestow upon him your gracious patronage."
"Well, well," said Franz, and then turning to Oswald, who had risen in
the meantime,
"I pray you, Oswald, let us go on now. I know where these people are
staying; you can go and see them some other time."
Oswald, who had recovered from his first overwhelming astonishment at
finding Czika in such company, now saw very clearly the extraordinary
character of his position, and knew too well how sensible his friend's
advice was to neglect it any longer.
The Czika had shown the wonderful self-control which this remarkable
child never lost but for a few moments, and was going on with the
collection as if nothing had happened. She did not even cast a glance
at Oswald as he went back to the carriage, almost forced to do so by
Franz.
The carriage drove off. The crowd had quickly seized upon the fable of
Oswald's insanity, which Franz had invented with such admirable
presence of mind, and dispersed all the more rapidly as the increasing
coolness of the evening air reminded them forcibly of the warm supper
that awaited them in their warm rooms at home.
CHAPTER IV.
It was a few hours later. The evening had come completely. The
mountains of Fichtenau were wrapped in their double veils of night and
mist; on the dark sky a few lonely stars peeped here and there through
the drifting clouds. The narrow streets of the little town were
deserted; lights, however, were shining from the windows of the low,
simple houses. People were sitting around the stove after their frugal
suppers, and the husband told his wife, who for good reasons had not
been able to venture into a crowd, what wonderful feats of strength,
agility, and skill he had seen outside of the town on the great meadow;
how an insane gentleman had driven up with his physician (who no doubt
was bringing him to Doctor Birkenhain's great institution), and how he
had embraced the pretty gypsy girl, who was going around with the
plate, before all the people. The old, half-deaf grandmother, who was
nodding in her arm-chair near the stove, and only heard half of what he
was saying, remarked,
"Yes, yes! gypsies are the devil's children; everybody knows that. My
sainted great-grandfather lent a hand when five of them were burned on
the great meadow."
There was great feasting that night in the Green Hat, a low drover's
inn near the gates of the town, and not far from the great meadow. The
Green Hat was also the headquarters of all wandering rope-dancers, and
therefore a most attractive place for all lovers of art among the
people of Fichtenau.
The long table in the public room, which was filled with tobacco
smokers, could scarcely hold the number of guests, although they were
sitting closely enough on the hard benches. At the upper end,
especially, the crowd was great, for there the artists sat and drank in
the full consciousness of their dignity and the hearty enjoyment of a
free treat. The director, Mr. Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, presided
as a matter of course. He had laid aside all the insignia of the last
part he had played, except a few patches of rouge which still adorned
his bloated face; he had taken off his nightcap and the blue-checked
apron, together with the pillow with which it was stuffed. He appeared
now in the comfortable and elegant costume of a gentleman who has
relieved himself of his coat and waistcoat, and who forgets, in the
consciousness of his artistic fame and of his broad, richly-embroidered
suspenders, that his linen is not of the cleanest. Mr. John Cotterby,
of Egypt, who sat on the right hand of his lord and master, had been
compelled to make a greater alteration in his toilette, especially
since the artistic wardrobe boasted only of a single suit of stockinet,
and it was therefore of the utmost importance for him to do all that
could be done in order to preserve its delicate whiteness. Mr. John
Cotterby, of Egypt, wore a short, gray coat with green trimmings, and
would have looked, all in all, far more like a handsome Tyrolese (which
was, by-the-by, his real character) than the son of the land of mystery
through which the Nile rolls its waves, if the narrow brass band which
still confined his dark locks, and the broken German which he composed
most artistically for the occasion, had not vouched for his mystic
descent. There were two other artists sitting a little further down the
table; one a modest, silent, tall man, who took his craft in earnest,
and meditated deeply how he might introduce a new feature in his
far-famed performance, the Gigantic Cask; the other, the clown of the
company, a round, odd-looking creature, who produced a new grimace at
every glass which he drank with a new guest, and thus proved the
immense stock of those valuable commodities which he owned, since this
process of touching glasses occurred on an average every five minutes.
Mr. Casper Schmenckel, director, etc., had been a fine-looking man
until the abundance of his potations had injured the fair symmetry of
his person, and he loved to recall the many gallant adventures of which
he had been the hero, and in which even great ladies, whose eyes had
been well pleased with the gigantic proportions of the Hercules, played
a prominent part. When Mr. Schmenckel had emptied his third glass he
was apt to become eloquent about this heroic age of his life, and
tonight he had already more than doubled the mysterious number which
loosened the chaste seal on his lips. The young men who pressed around
him glass in hand would have fared better, probably, as far as their
morals were concerned, if they had not honored the Green Hat on that
particular evening with their presence.
Mr. Schmenckel's fancy was exuberant, and where ordinary eyes saw but a
number of midges dancing in the air, his rolling orbs beheld a host of
elephants. He calculated with incredible boldness upon the credulity of
his listeners; above all he endeavored to surround himself and the
members of his company with a nimbus of adventurous glory. The accident
on the great meadow, which had brought the madman and the Czika into
contact with each other, was far too useful for such a purpose not to
be fully employed by Mr. Schmenckel. It is true the gypsy and her child
had joined his troop quite accidentally a few days ago, as they were
making their way across the mountains towards Fichtenau, and Mr.
Schmenckel knew as little of their former history as any one in the
company; but his imagination was only the more perfectly free to rove
at random, and he invented a magnificent story in order to satisfy the
curiosity of the guests, who continually came back to the beautiful
child and the gypsy woman who had appeared as a dancer in the first
part of the performance.
"Yes, you see," said Director Schmenckel, "that is a very mysterious
story, and I should be quite ready to tell you all about it, but it is
so very incredible."
Mr. Schmenckel dived with his red nose into his beer and slowly
absorbed the remaining half, while his eyes twinkled with delight as he
looked by turns through the swollen lids at one and the other of his
friends.
"Tell us, tell us, Director!" cried half a dozen voices.
"Another bumper for the Director!" cried another half dozen.
"It may be about ten or twelve years," began Mr. Schmenckel, after
having diminished the contents of the new glass to a considerable
extent, "when I was making a trip to Egypt----"
When he said Egypt all eyes turned to Mr. John Cotterby, who leaned
back in his chair and smiled mysteriously.
"What were you going to do in Egypt?" asked a voice.
"May I tell, Mr. Cotterby?" asked Mr. Schmenckel.
"Fideremkankinsavalilaloramei," replied the Egyptian, who could not
imagine what his lord and master wanted to be allowed to tell.
"Thanks, Cotterby," said Mr. Schmenckel, "modesty adorns a man, but why
should I conceal it that it was on your account I was making that
journey? You must know, gentlemen, that the fame of Mr. Cotterby was in
those days filling the whole Orient, and that nobody spoke of anything
but the Flying Pigeon. I said to myself: You must induce this man, the
greatest artist whom the world ever saw, to join your company, as sure
as your name is Caspar Schmenckel. No sooner said than done. I went to
Egypt, where I was told Mr. Cotterby was then residing, but Mr.
Cotterby was nowhere to be found. At last I learnt from an old Dervish
who had sold me the talking serpent, which I shall have the honor of
exhibiting to-morrow, that Mr. Cotterby was staying somewhere far away
in the desert near the pyramids. May I tell why you did so, Cotterby?"
"Framtebaramta! Tell what you wish to tell," replied the Egyptian, with
a generous, modest smile.
"Mr. Cotterby, you must know, had retired for some time into the
desert, and sworn a fearful oath that he would not again appear in
public till he had ascended every one of the pyramids on a rope."
"What are those pyramids?" inquired a voice.
"Pyramids!" said Mr. Schmenckel, dictatorially, "are immense heaps of
stone, which the old Egyptians raised in honor of their gods, a
thousand feet high, or more, and so steep that a cat can hardly get to
the top. On the top there is a pointed stone pillar, called obelisk; to
this Mr. Cotterby fastened one end of a rope, while the lower end was
held by two thousand black slaves of his, and thus he walked up and
down, so that those who saw it felt their hair stand on an end. That
was the way I found Mr. Cotterby engaged in the desert, and of course I
became more anxious than ever to engage him for our company; but he
refused. What was I to do? I had nothing left but to climb at night to
the top of the pyramid at the risk of my life, and next morning, when
Mr. Cotterby arrived there, to seize him around the waist and to cry:
Either you consent to an engagement for three thousand a year, or I
send you head over heels down this pyramid, as sure as my name is
Caspar Schmenckel. May I tell what you replied, Cotterby?"
The Egyptian nodded assent.
"If you are Mr. Schmenckel from Vienna," said Mr. Cotterby, "you need
not have made such an ado about it. I should have come to you any way
to Vienna, as soon as I had done with this pyramid. There is only one
Schmenckel, as there is only one Cotterby; both ought to be together,
like bread and butter. But that was not exactly what I was going to
tell you, gentlemen," said Mr. Schmenckel, emptying his glass and
holding it up to the light, as if he wished to convince himself that
there was really nothing left in it.
"A glass for Director Schmenckel," cried a dozen voices.
"Thanks! thanks! gentlemen! Your health!--but how I made the
acquaintance of Madame Xenobia--or Kussuk Arnem, as her true name
is. But that story is almost still more incredible, and contains
certain episodes which I can only touch upon in the way of delicate
allusions----"
"Oh, never mind! Just go on and tell us!" exclaimed the listeners,
crowding more closely around him.
"Well, then, I will tell you! A short time after I had thus secured Mr.
Cotterby for my company, I was giving a few representations at
Constantinople on the great square before the Sultan's palace. He took
uncommon interest in our art, and had given us permission to fasten our
rope to the uppermost turret of his palace, upon the flat roof itself.
Now, you must know that the upper story of this palace contains the
rooms of the wives of the Sultan, and on that account it is called the
harem. I had always felt the most intense desire to make my way some
time or other into such an harem, which otherwise is utterly
inaccessible to everybody. And now Cotterby had told me that whenever
he came by the top story the most beautiful black eyes in the world
were glancing at him through the narrow crevices between the planks,
which are nailed over the windows of the harem. What could I do? I say
to Cotterby: 'Cotterby,' says I, 'you can do anything. Suppose you take
me to-morrow in the wheelbarrow which you carry up and down the rope,
and then let me get out on the roof. I must see how things look up
there. You can bring me back the same way the day after. Will you do
it?' 'Why not?' says Cotterby, 'if you wish it particularly.' The next
day the thing is done. I hide myself in the wheelbarrow. Cotterby
carries me up to the roof; he turns the barrow over and there I am, on
the roof, quite alone, for Cotterby had gone back immediately, so as to
create no suspicion. Now you may believe it or not as you choose,
gentlemen, but I assure you I felt rather peculiar in that position.
How easily the head of a black guardsman might pop out through one of
the openings in the roof--and then farewell to my sweet life! But there
I was, caught in the trap, and I was determined not to leave again
until I had a taste of the bait. While I was still considering what I
had better do next, I suddenly hear the rattling of spears and of
swords on the staircase which leads up to the roof. It was the Sultan
himself, who wished to admire Mr. Cotterby from that elevation. I, in
my terror, run up to the nearest chimney which rose out of the roof,
creep into it, and--I had not time to think for a moment--down I go
some twenty feet deep--and where do you think, gentlemen, I came out
again? In the fire-place of the bed-room of the Sultan's first
favorite. But here I must ask the pardon of all the gentlemen present
if, to spare the honor of a great lady, I can only assure them that the
next twenty-four hours were among the happiest which Caspar Schmenckel
has ever enjoyed in this life. On the day following, Cotterby brought,
as a matter of precaution, a much larger wheelbarrow, and carried me
safely down again. We left Constantinople that very night, and from
that moment our company was richer by one great artist, and the harem
of the Sultan had lost its fairest flower."
Mr. Schmenckel looked around him triumphantly. He could well be
satisfied with the impression which he had made by his stories on his
audience; they sat there listening with breathless attention. At that
moment a lady came running into the room; it was the same one who used
to sit at the ticket office, and who attended to all the domestic
affairs of the company; she whispered a few words in the director's
ear, of which the company only heard one or two, which sounded like
"woman--run away." The director did not seem to be pleased with the
information. His face darkened perceptibly. He grumbled something about
the devil and his luck, and left the table without finishing his
glass--a proof that the news he had just received must have been of the
utmost importance.
And the news was important, for it amounted to nothing less than that
the fair flower, which Mr. Schmenckel had stolen ten years ago with so
much daring and such cunning from the palace of the Lord of the
Faithful, had been lost again. Alas! he had allowed her to rest ever
since on his broad bosom, he had seen the tender bud of the beauteous
flower unfold itself under his watchful care, and now both flower and
bud had been torn away by a storm, carried off by the deeply-injured
Sultan, or at least they could not be found anywhere in their chamber
or in the whole house! Mamselle Adele had made the discovery as she was
about to invite the gypsy to the common supper of the ladies of the
company, which was laid in another room. Mamselle Adele, a lady with an
abundance of black curls, the genuineness of which was strongly
suspected by envious rivals, a dark face full of energy, and a voice
chronically hoarse and rough, informed Mr. Schmenckel of her discovery
with that gift of the gab and that dramatic power which is given to
ladies who are in the habit of addressing the public from the open
steps of a wooden booth. The news was soon confirmed by the result of a
thorough search of the whole house, in which he himself took the lead;
it fell upon him like a flash of lightning from a clear sky. The escape
of the gypsy woman was to him what the death of his best lioness and
her cub would have been to the owner of a menagerie. He lost in the
mother and child a capital which had cost him next to nothing, and
which yet promised to produce abundant interest--the ornament, the
glory, the poetry of his establishment. Even Mr. John Cotterby, of
Egypt, might have been replaced more easily. Flying Pigeons are rare,
but after all they can be procured; but a genius with such eyes, such
deep, brown eyes, with such a kindly, serious smile, that could tempt
the stingiest green-grocer to lavish profusion, was not to be found
again. Mr. Schmenckel would not have been a man and a director, and
above all he would have had to drink, instead of so many glasses of
bitter beer, as many gallons of the milk of human kindness, if he had
borne such a loss with stoic repose. Mr. Schmenckel was a man, he was a
director, he had been drinking beer and not milk--and Mr. Schmenckel
gave himself up to fearful wrath. The first explosion fell very
naturally upon the bearer of the bad news, especially as Mr. Schmenckel
had had full opportunity during the many years of their intimacy to
become aware of the jealous temper of this lady, as well as of her
other foibles. He accused her in terms which ought t© be impossible
even among the most intimate friends, of having compelled the gypsy by
her intrigues to seek safety in flight. Mamselle Adele, whose temper
was naturally not of the gentlest, and who found herself in this case
considered guilty when she was really quite innocent, replied in a tone
which betrayed her inner excitement but too distinctly. Mr. Schmenckel
belonged to that class of heroic men who, in the consciousness of their
superiority--especially when they have drunk deep--allow of no
contradiction, and whose proud motto in decisive moments is: "Works,
not words." Mamselle Adele no sooner felt the heavy hand of her master
upon her cheeks than her burning heart burst forth in flames, and her
tongue began to ring the alarm-bell with such loudness and shrillness
that the guests inside started up from their seats and hurried to the
door, apprehending that some dire calamity had taken place in the hall,
where the scene between Mr. Schmenckel and Mamselle Adele was then
under way.
The sight of so many uninvited and undesirable witnesses brought the
director, who was always anxiously concerned for the good name of his
troop, very quickly to his senses; but the poor lady, who saw her honor
thus compromised before a great crowd, was exasperated beyond
endurance. So far she had only threatened to let the director feel her
nails; now she added the act to the threat. The highly-cultivated
public of Fichtenau, as far as it had assembled at the Green Hat, were
unspeakably shocked when they saw the celebrated artist, the hero of so
many adventures, the master of the far-famed pyramid-climber, the
robber of the Grand Sultan's own palace, in such a state of suffering.
Mamselle Adele's attacks did not cease for a moment; they were even
carried out with irresistible energy, force, and agility. Some wished
to come to the assistance of the defeated general; others laughed and
encouraged her; still others, men in blue blouses and heavy hob-nailed
shoes, who were regular customers at the Green Hat with their wagons
and horses, and bore no good-will to the rope-dancers, because they
interfered with their accustomed comfort, spoke loud of "rabble," and
"turn them out," a sentiment which in its turn displeased a few
enthusiastic admirers of high art. Angry faces, threatening arms lifted
high, and curses loud and many, formed a tableau, which in the
twinkling of an eye was changed into another, in which even the
landlord of the Green Hat, who was leaning against the kitchen door in
phlegmatic composure, his pipe between his lips, could no longer
distinguish any details. Dense clouds of dust half concealed and half
revealed a heap of struggling men, rolling to and fro on the floor of
the inn, while everybody was striking out with his natural weapon of
the fist, or the artificial weapon of a leg of a chair, against his
real or imaginary adversary.
CHAPTER V.
Oswald had been hospitably provided for in the elegant "Kurhaus" of
Fichtenau, but he had not been able to resist the desire to visit
little Czika that same evening. He hoped to learn from the Brown
Countess how they had become mixed up with such strange company, and at
the same time to persuade her either to return to Baron Oldenburg, or
at least to give up the child to him. He thought he should be able to
accomplish by management what the violence of the baron had rendered
impossible, and this all the more readily as the Brown Countess seemed
to be kindly disposed towards him, and little Czika evidently felt more
confidence in himself than in the "other," who was her father. And then
there was still another feeling besides the personal interest which he
felt in the beautiful child and the gypsy, whom he had first met on
that eventful afternoon when he was lost in the forest on his way to
Melitta, and who, therefore, had in a manner been the instrument to
bring him to Melitta, to say nothing of their subsequent connection
with Oldenburg, all of which prompted him to act energetically. He felt
the burden of the gratitude which he owed to Oldenburg for his
chivalrous assistance at Bruno's death, and in the duel with Felix. He
did not like to be under such obligations to a man against whom he had
felt a strong antipathy from the beginning, and whom he had afterwards,
in the days of his love for Melitta, feared as his most dangerous
rival--a man whose determined strength of will had something imposing
to him in spite of his reluctance to acknowledge it, and whom he yet
accused--heaven knows with what justice!--of duplicity and
inconsistency!--a man who had betrayed him all these days in the most
humiliating manner, if the relations between Oldenburg and Melitta were
at all like what they were represented to be by the Barnewitz family
and other friendly spies and gossips. If he could now succeed in
rescuing the child whom he had almost given up, and render him the very
great service of restoring her to him--then the oppressive debt of
gratitude would be paid, he would have acquitted himself of all he
owed, and Oswald Stein would have no reason to cast down his eyes
before Baron Oldenburg, if fate should ever array them against each
other as foes--and the young man apprehended that such a moment might
come.
These thoughts and feelings filled Oswald's heart as he followed a
servant from the Kurhaus through the silent streets of the town towards
the Green Hat, where he had been told by Franz that he should find the
rope-dancers. Franz himself had remained at the Kurhaus, as he was too
discreet to intrude upon a secret which was apparently kept from him.
For when he had laughingly endeavored to explain to his friend how he
had managed to interpret, for the benefit of the crowd, the strange
scene with the rope-dancer's child, Oswald had remained perfectly
silent, and Franz had seen no other way to explain this reticence than
by supposing that his companion was either not willing or not at
liberty to give any further explanations about the matter. When Oswald,
therefore, remarked that it would probably be too late that evening to
pay a visit to Berger, he had simply answered: "I think so!" and
refrained from offering his company when Oswald, after walking up and
down in his room for a quarter of an hour in perfect silence, had at
last declared his intention to take a walk in the cool of the evening.
Franz adapted himself all the more readily to the fancies of his
companion, as he was busily occupied at that moment with his own
affairs. He had hoped to find in Fichtenau a letter from his betrothed,
but his hopes had not been fulfilled. This disappointment caused him
some apprehension, as Sophie generally wrote very punctually, and they
had come to Fichtenau several days later than they had originally
intended. He consoled himself, however, with the hope that the last
mail, which was expected every moment, might yet bring him the
much-desired letter.
In the meantime Oswald arrived at the hospitable shelter of the Green
Hat at the very moment when it sent a part of the odd crowd that had
assembled there that evening through the open house-door into the
street, where the conflict in large masses, as it had been carried on
in the hall, changed into a fight between isolated groups. For a moment
they blazed up, like the remains of an exhausted fire, only to sink the
next moment into utter night for want of fuel. Peace was soon restored,
for nobody knew exactly why they had been fighting each other with such
rage, and there were quite enough closed eyes and bruised limbs for
such an intangible cause of war. The excitement, it is true, was not
allayed, and there was still a good deal of noise, but it was only the
long swell of the ocean after the violence of the storm has been
broken. They cursed and swore, they bragged and threatened--but they
sat down again and drowned the last remnants of hostility in beer.
Oswald was so anxious about Czika that he had not been so much
disgusted with the horrible scene as he would have been under other
circumstances. Fortunately he saw neither the child nor Xenobia in the
crowd, but the mere thought that they might have been mixed up with
such a pandemonium was terrible to him, and he determined to remove
them at any hazard. He pushed his way through the noisy fighting crowd,
who did not notice him at all, and inquired of the one and the other
why they were fighting, and where Xenobia the gypsy was, with her
child? No one had time or inclination to answer his questions, until at
last he happened to speak to a young man who looked a little less
rowdyish than the rest, and who told him that some members of the
rope-dancer's troop had run away, a gypsy woman and her daughter, and
that this had given rise to a general fight. He pointed out to him a
man who was wiping the blood off his face and speaking with most
animated gesticulations, intimating that that was the director, and
that he would probably be able to tell him all he desired to know.
Oswald felt greatly relieved when he heard this. Xenobia and Czika were
gone, and it mattered little where they had gone to, so they were free
from this association. He considered for a moment whether he had better
return without having anything more to do with the rope-dancers; but
the desire to hear more, and to ascertain, perhaps, the place to which
the fugitives might have escaped, overcame his reluctance, and he
addressed the person who had been pointed out to him as the director.
Mr. Schmenckel was a man of remarkable elasticity of mind, and had
readily recovered the imperilled harmony of his soul after the battle,
from which he had come forth covered with honorable wounds. As soon as
the first storm of his passions had subsided a little, he generally
exhibited a high degree of that philosophic resignation which submits
with dignity to the inevitable, and makes every effort to adapt itself
to the circumstances. Since the gypsy woman was gone, all lamentations
about his loss would only make him ridiculous, and it became a noble
character to forgive and forget. He pretended, therefore, to ignore the
whole occurrence, and treated it as something by no means unexpected.
"Ingratitude is the world's reward--easily won, easily lost--to-day it
is I, to-morrow it is another. Let us sit down again, gentlemen.
Director Schmenckel is not so easily thrown out of gear. We have other
means still in reserve to entertain a highly-honored public, and you
shall see that the performance which I shall have the honor to give
to-morrow--what does the gentleman wish?--you wish to speak to me? I am
at your service--a director must be always ready." Mr. Schmenckel
followed Oswald, who had asked him for a few moments conversation, very
readily, since the circumstance that an elegantly-dressed gentleman
came all the way to the Green Hat in order to have an interview with
Director Schmenckel, was well calculated to make a sensation.
"What does your excellency desire?" inquired Mr. Schmenckel, when they
were in the hall.
"I should be glad if you would give me some information about the gypsy
woman, who, I am told, has left your company this evening."
Mr. Schmenckel was startled; the question sounded suspicious. He
availed himself of the light of the lamp before the house--for they had
reached the street by this time--to examine Oswald's face more
carefully, and he now recognized in him the gentleman whom the Czika
had embraced. Mr. Schmenckel knew at once how the matter stood. This
young gentleman was an immensely rich lord who had a mania for gypsies,
and was in the habit of buying up young gypsy children for his
amusement. Mr. Schmenckel reflected that the woman might possibly
return, and that the greater his claims were upon her, the higher the
price he might ask for the child.
"Well," he said, in order to gain time for consideration, "why would
your excellency like to know?"
"That does not matter," replied Oswald; "it will suffice for you that I
do not mean to leave the man who gives me the information I desire to
obtain unrewarded," and he slipped a dollar into Mr. Schmenckel's hand.
"Thanks, your excellency," replied Mr. Schmenckel, whose suspicions
were only confirmed by Oswald's liberality, "nevertheless I should like
to----"
"But I do not understand why you should hesitate to tell me what little
you may possibly know about the woman?"
"Well," replied Mr. Schmenckel, "perhaps it is not so very little I
know about her. When one has had somebody thirteen years in the
company----"
"But I have met the gypsy only this summer at--never mind, not very far
from here, and quite alone."
"That may very well be," replied the cunning director; "it is not the
first time to-night that Xenobia has run away, but she has always come
back again."
"Thirteen years!" said Oswald, who did not think for a moment of
doubting the fable; "how old was the child, then, when she came to join
you?"
"How old?" said Mr. Schmenckel. "Why, your excellency, when she came to
us, she had no child. I know that, as a matter of course, ha, ha, ha!"
"You?" said Oswald, and he shuddered. "You?"
"Well! why not? Do I look to your excellency's eye as if a pretty young
woman could not possibly fall in love with me; and did not this girl,
moreover, take wages from me? I can tell your excellency that I have
made very different conquests in my time. Has your excellency ever been
in St. Petersburg? There is the Princess--but, after all, I am not at
liberty to speak as freely of such a great lady as----"
"In one word," said Oswald, scarcely able to restrain himself, "the
Czika is your child?"
"I couldn't swear to that," said Mr. Schmenckel, smiling, "but I can
take my oath that she might be my child, and that I have always looked
upon her in that light."
"And you think the gypsy will come back again?"
"Oh, your excellency may rely upon that; she is never as well off as
when she stays with me."
"But why does she run away so often, then?"
"Yes, just think of it, your excellency; women are a strange kind of
people," said Mr. Schmenckel, philosophizing, "and the kinder you are
to them, the sooner they will play you some trick or other. There is no
truth and no faith among them, and especially these gypsies----"
"Very well," said Oswald, who was overcome with disgust, "we will talk
about that some other time." And he went away quickly.
Director Schmenckel followed him with his eye for awhile, shook his
head, put the dollar, which he was still holding in his hand, in his
pocket, laughed and returned into the public room, feeling very happy
in the pleasant conviction that he had cheated a greenhorn. Within
peace had in the meantime recovered its sway, and the whole company had
joined in singing the favorite ballad: "Blue blooms a blossom."
While Oswald was receiving this doubtful information about the true
history of poor little Czika from the truth-loving lips of Director
Schmenckel, Franz was waiting for his return with painful impatience.
The mail had really brought him the long-desired letter from his
betrothed, but unfortunately had also confirmed the vague apprehensions
which had of late troubled his mind. Sophie wrote in a hand almost
illegible from anxiety, that her father had had a stroke of paralysis,
from which the physicians feared the very worst. Her father, she added,
was at that moment, several hours after the attack, still speechless
and unable to move. If there were any hope for her father, help could
only come from Him whom she looked up to with trusting confidence and
perfect submission.
Franz had formed his resolution instantly. As the driver who had
brought them to this place declared he was unable to go any further, he
had at once ordered post-horses, in order to reach the nearest railway
station that night. To think of his sweet love in such bitter need and
sorrow--watching and weeping by the sickbed, perhaps already by the
coffin of her father--and he, her comfort and her hope, some four
hundred miles away--all this was enough to disturb even so firm a heart
as that of Doctor Braun was under ordinary circumstances. He felt as if
the ground was burning under his feet. The few minutes before the
carriage could be made ready, seemed to him an eternity.
At last he heard the horses coming, and Oswald also returned. Franz
told him the sad news he had just received, and what he had determined
to do. He begged his friend, in a few parting words, not to prolong his
stay at Fichtenau beyond what was absolutely necessary, and above all
to be punctually at the appointed time at his post in Grunwald. Oswald
had been so thoroughly excited by the many extraordinary occurrences of
the last hours that he apparently expected nothing but surprises, and
thus he received his friend's communications with an air of
indifference. He promised, however, what Franz asked of him, as he
accompanied him to the carriage.
"What do you say, Oswald," said Franz, who had already settled himself
down in the carriage; "Come along with me! You may find my proposal
somewhat extraordinary, but the strangest way is often the best way."
"I cannot do it, Franz," said Oswald. "I cannot leave here without
having seen Berger, and besides----"
"I know all you can possibly say on that subject," replied Franz, "and
I must tell you frankly that I have no good reason whatever for making
the proposition. But I feel as if I ought not to leave you here
alone--as if there was something in the air here that boded you no
good. Come with me, Oswald!"
"I will follow you as soon as I can."
"Then farewell! Go on, driver!"
Franz once more pressed Oswald's hand. The carriage rattled over the
uneven pavement of the little town and disappeared around a corner.
"What a pity the gentleman had to leave so soon," said Louis, the head
waiter at the Kurhaus, who was standing near Oswald, a napkin under his
arm and a pen behind his ear. "A most pleasant gentleman--would you
like to have supper now, sir? You will find very agreeable company in
the dining-room, sir."
Oswald went back into the house. If Franz could have repeated his
request at that moment, Oswald would not have again refused to
accompany him. For since Franz had left him he felt as if his guardian
angel had abandoned him, and as if the air of Fichtenau was really
laden with mischief.
CHAPTER VI.
On the next morning Oswald awoke late from his broken slumbers, which
had been much disturbed by strange haunted dreams. Melitta, whom he had
so ardently loved but a short time ago, had appeared to him, her fair,
pale face disfigured by sorrow, her brown, gentle eyes overflowing with
tears, and looking at him with an expression of ineffable sadness. Thus
she had sat by him--her sad, sweet smile on her full lips, which he had
so often kissed, intoxicated with love! And Oswald's heart had been
overflowing with love and pity! He had forgotten all that had come
between her and himself the bad weeds sown by whispering tongues which
had grown up to maturity so suddenly, thanks to the fickleness of his
own heart; he had forgotten everything except the remembrance of those
sunny days of inexpressible happiness. And he had thrown himself at her
feet and shed tears, bitter-sweet tears, upon her knees, and stammered
words of repentance, and implored her forgiveness. Then an icy-cold
hand had been laid on his brow, and as he looked up it was no longer
Melitta, but Professor Berger; but not the man of the melancholy humor
and the biting satire, who had so often sat opposite to him with his
sardonic smile on the mysterious lips when they met at æsthetic teas,
but a gruesome mask of wax, motionless and silent. And of a sudden
there had begun a quivering and a stirring in the cold, rigid face of
the mask, as when one tries to speak and the tongue refuses to serve
him; then the mask had actually spoken, not in human language, but in a
mystic idiom, of things half intelligible, half mysterious, of
unspeakable, fearful things--awful secrets of another world.
Oswald had not been able to endure the horror any longer, and his soul
had made a desperate effort to rise from the intolerable twilight into
the bright light of day. But the light of day had not brought him the
right kind of cheerfulness, for the visions of the night still cast
their spectral shadows upon the day. Woe to him whose heart is not
clear of sin! Woe to him whose heart conceals recollections, which he
drives away with a slight frown, when they obtrude upon him in moments
of wakefulness and preparation! He may well see to it. What dreams are
coming to him in his sleep?
Oswald spent the whole forenoon in this heavy state of mind. He could
not summon courage to undertake the painful task of going to Doctor
Birkenhain's Asylum; he postponed the visit till the afternoon, and
tried to persuade himself that he would then be in better humor, and
better prepared to stand once more before Berger, face to face. He went
down to take his dinner at the table-d'hôte, where he found, in spite
of the advanced season, quite a number of persons still, who, were
either drinking the waters of the place or travelling for their
amusement. He sat quietly sipping his wine, and amused himself with
listening to the brilliant conversation of some commercial travellers,
as it flitted to and fro, touching a thousand subjects, and among them
also the escape of the gypsy woman and her child, and the "enormous
row" which had arisen in consequence, disturbing the peace of the Green
Hat and the nightly rest of a considerable part of the little town.
Some of the young gentlemen who had witnessed the exhibition on the
great meadow enlightened more recent arrivals as to the beauty of the
gypsy, and regretted eloquently the disappearance of that "famous
person." The little one, also, was represented as a "famous" thing,
with really "famous" eyes. An eccentric Englishman, who had been near
the stage, they added, had instantly fallen in love with her, and there
was no doubt at all but that this Englishman, of whom no one had
afterwards seen or heard anything more, had eloped with the gypsy girl.
Oswald was rather troubled by these authentic reports of the fate of
Xenobia and the Czika, and left the table for the purpose of returning
to his room. He was naturally less than ever disposed now to call upon
Berger, and he had therefore to make a great effort at last to ring for
the waiter, and to inquire of him the way to Doctor Birkenhain's
institution.
"Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, sir? Quite near by, sir. The best way is
through our garden up the hill, then always turning to the left, on the
height along the river, until you come to a large house. That is Doctor
Birkenhain's asylum. You have perhaps a relation of yours there? We
have many people coming here who have relations at Doctor Birkenhain's.
Only this summer there was a lady here from your country, who stayed
several months at the house. Very beautiful lady, sir, perhaps you may
know her; a Frau von Berkow, with her brother, a Baron Oldenburg--very
tall gentleman, with a black beard----"
"Is Baron Oldenburg a brother of that lady?" asked Oswald, not without
some reluctance.
"Why, certainly, sir. The gentleman and the lady were at least two
weeks here, and always together. But the brother had to leave before
the lady's husband died--what a misfortune for such a beautiful lady!
Will you be back in time for supper, sir? No? But you will certainly
stay over night, sir? Oh, I thought so--of course. Nothing else I can
do for you, sir? How far is it? Oh, at most, ten minutes' walk. I'll
show you the way, sir."
When the loquacious waiter had at last left him, Oswald walked slowly
along the path which followed the slope of the low range of hills. On
the left hand prattled merrily a clear mountain brook, rich in trout,
which gave its name to the town, and flowed evenly beneath tall trees.
Here and there the water peeped out from between the dense foliage, but
only to disappear again, like a playful child that likes to tease. At
one point the brook had been stopped and forced to turn the wheels of a
mill. The little vagabond did not seem to like the delay. It poured its
waters wrathfully into the mill-race, shook and struck the buckets with
all its might, and then rushed off, foaming and pelting, in angry
haste.
Oswald sat down on the low railing opposite the mill, and looked
wearily into the water, as it played and purled, drawing wide circles
and pushing wave after wave. He thought of Melitta, how often she had
probably come down this way, hanging on the arm of "her brother," and
stopping no doubt frequently at this very spot, whose picturesque
beauty could not have escaped her attention.
He felt sad unto death. His feelings boiled within him as the waters
did in the mill-race; his thoughts were whirling around like the
foam-bubbles on the surface. Was his hatred to be as blind as his love?
Was there anything wrong and anything right in the world?--the world to
be a cosmos? Yes, for him whose glance was content with skimming the
surface, where the waters flowed merrily over the level ground in the
shade of beautiful trees--but also for him who sounded the depths,
where all was rushing and roaring chaotically? Up! up! to him, the man
of sorrow! He had sounded the depths of life, he shall tell me what he
has seen there, what masks and spectres, that he should ever after
close his eyes in horror and disgust!
Oswald rose and continued his journey; the path became steeper until it
led to a large building, which lay at a short distance from the
highroad on a moderate hill, amid gardens. Surrounded as it was on all
sides by high walls, it looked too much like a castle to be a private
residence, and yet too much like a prison also for a castle. It was Dr.
Birkenhain's asylum.
Oswald rang the bell by the side of the iron grating, with some
palpitation of heart. A window opened in the porter's lodge; the
gate-keeper looked out and asked what he wanted. Oswald wished to see
Doctor Birkenhain.
"Do you come by appointment?"
"Yes."
"Your name?"
Oswald gave his name.
The man looked at a table, on which the names of those who were to be
admitted seemed to be written; then he put his head out again, and said
through the small window,
"Go straight across the court to the main entrance; there ring again!"
The gate opened, and closed again when Oswald had entered. He went
towards the house across the large court-yard, which was covered with
gravel and adorned here and there with groups of trees and shrubberies.
On a bench under one of the trees, amidst a group of several persons,
sat a young man remarkably well dressed. When Oswald passed him he rose
very politely, and taking off his hat and making a deep bow, said,
"I surely have the honor of addressing the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"
As Oswald answered No! to the strange question, the young man shook his
head sadly, and looking at Oswald with a vacant stare, he added,
"It is very remarkable! the emperor had promised me solemnly to come
for me this summer; and now the summer is nearly gone and the emperor
has not come yet. I shall have to wait till next summer. But then he
will be here most certainly. Don't you think so?"
"I do not doubt it for a moment," replied Oswald. A faint ray of joy
flashed across the pale face of the unfortunate man. He bowed again,
put on his hat, and went back to his seat on the bench.
Oswald went to the front door, rang the bell, and a servant who
appeared at the summons opened the door for him and showed him into a
parlor. Then he took his name, and begged him to wait a few moments.
Doctor Birkenhain would be in directly.
It was a handsome, lofty apartment. A few excellent oil-paintings hung
on the walls; antique heads and busts stood about on brackets, the
Apollo Belvedere, the Zeus of Otricoli, the Ludovisi Juno; upon the
centre-tables lay books and portfolios with engravings. All breathed
the highest kind of enjoyment, and nothing reminded the visitor that he
was in a house of disease and death.
After a few minutes the door opened and Doctor Birkenhain entered.
Oswald had of course formed to himself some idea of the man who had
recently become so very important to him, and was grievously
disappointed when he found that there was not a feature of his portrait
in the man before him. He had imagined Doctor Birkenhain to be a
venerable old man, full of dignity and gravity, and now he found
himself standing before a man little older than himself--he had surely
not passed his thirtieth year--tall and thin, with spare, light-brown
hair and carefully-trimmed moustache and beard, a pale face of a
sickly, sallow color, a lofty brow, and large light-blue eyes, in which
one could instantly see that they were accustomed to read the hearts of
men, and whose intense piercing sharpness became after awhile almost
unbearable.
Doctor Birkenhain greeted Oswald with due politeness, and then
expressed his regret that he should have been deprived of the pleasure
of making Doctor Braun's acquaintance, whom he had wished to
congratulate upon having secured to himself a place among the first
physicians of Germany by his admirable treatise on typhus. Then he
added:
"I have looked forward to your visit with the greatest interest,
because I hope great things for Berger from the effect of your meeting
with him. I know through Mr. Bemperlein, and also from Berger's own
lips, that you are the most intimate friend, and, so to speak, the
favorite, of the unfortunate man--that you were so at least before the
breaking out of his disease. If anything can succeed in reviving once
more the interest in life which has been almost entirely extinguished
in Berger, it is love--not the universal love of mankind, which is only
another kind of egotism, but the special love for a single individual,
with whose joys and sorrows he can heartily sympathize. Love is the
most vigorous of all feelings; it resists annihilation better than any
other and outlives all others. The greatest psychologist who ever
lived, and to whom we physicians are deeply indebted, Shakespeare,
makes Lear say to the fool shortly before insanity overwhelms him: 'I
have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee.' This one part of
the heart is the sound part, where the cure must begin, and so it is
with Berger. I beg, therefore, you will try to interest Berger by all
means in your own fate. Tell him all about your plans and purposes,
your hopes and your wishes--about your joys and your sorrows; speak to
him especially of your griefs, if you have any--and you will pardon
such an indiscretion in a physician--I think your confidences will be
particularly ample in that direction. You smile! Well, perhaps I am
mistaken, and what I thought I read in your face is the result of mere
bodily uneasiness, and not of mental suffering; but, however that may
be, do not conceal from Berger the shady side, and even the night side
of your life. On the contrary, complain--and the more impressively, the
more painfully, you can do that, the better--only mourn and grieve like
a sick man, who longs after health like an imprisoned bird that yearns
after freedom. The sufferings of those we love are a thousand times
more touching to us than our own, and the burden which Berger hardly
feels in his own case will appear to him unbearable when he sees it on
the shoulders of one who is dear to him. For, I repeat it, that is the
only way to approach such a man. He is too deep a thinker, too subtle a
philosopher, not to be clad in impenetrable armor against all
reasoning. If you prove to him the dignity and usefulness of life, he
meets you with ten arguments which prove the contrary; and if you split
a hair, he splits each half over again. On the other hand, you need not
fear that he will involve you, as formerly, in long philosophic
discussions. The science which was once his delight, is now a horror to
him; he will hear nothing of it and see nothing. And now, one thing
more: how long do you propose staying in Fichtenau?"
"Four or five days at most."
"Very well; I was just about to ask you not to extend your visit beyond
that. The purpose is to make a deep impression upon Berger; and after
the pleasure he will feel at seeing you again, he must experience the
pain of parting so soon. Perhaps we may thus lure him back into the
world, from which he now turns away in disgust."
"Has Berger been made aware of my arrival?"
"No. I wished to profit even by the surprise. I shall not go with you,
so that there maybe nothing to diminish the surprise. You can tell me
afterwards how he received you. He generally takes about this time a
walk in the mountains, which he occasionally extends into the night. I
give him perfect liberty, as any restraint would only be injurious. You
know, besides, that his coming here was his own wish and resolution. Go
with him when he takes his walk; heart opens to heart more readily
under the great dome of heaven than under the ceiling of a room."
"One thing more," continued Doctor Birkenhain, as they were rising.
"You will find Berger much changed in appearance; try to influence him
in that direction also, though of course you will have to use your
discretion. Such apparent trifles are of great importance; a missing
glove-button may make a dandy lose his composure, and we have a
different temper in our dressing gown and in evening dress. Now let us
go, if you like; I will show you the way to Berger's door."
The two gentlemen went from the reception room across the hall, with
its tessellated floor, up the wide stone steps, through lofty, airy
passages.
They were met by several persons whom Oswald would not have taken for
patients if Doctor Birkenhain had not told him so; they gave such
sensible answers to the casual questions of the physician.
"This wing is for the slightly-affected patients," said Doctor
Birkenhain; "as it is such fine weather most of them are in the garden
or in the court-yard. How do you do, counsellor?"
"Thank you, doctor," replied an exceedingly corpulent, good-looking
man, whom they met passing with a watering-pot in his hand, "thank you,
I should be perfectly well, if----"
The counsellor cast a glance at Oswald, and then came quite close to
the doctor, whispering something in his ear, of which Oswald could only
catch the words, "bundle of hay"--"in my side." "Oh, that matters very
little," replied Birkenhain, in a tone full of confidence, which
sounded as if it must have been inspiring to the greatest
hypochondriac; "we'll soon settle that." The patient gratefully shook
hands with his physician and went on, evidently quite comforted and
delighted with the probable victory over his imaginary ailment.
"I wish Berger's case were as easy as that man's," said Doctor
Birkenhain, as they were walking down the long passage; "but pills and
ointments have no effect on his complaint. Here we are; now you go to
the end of the passage, and the last door to the left is Berger's room.
I am very curious to hear what you will have to tell me. Will you dine
with me to-morrow? I shall take great pleasure in presenting you to my
wife. At three o'clock. Will you come? _Au revoir_, then!"
Doctor Birkenhain shook hands with Oswald and went into one of the
rooms which they had passed. Oswald went alone to the end of the
passage, full of the deep impression which the man who had just left
him had made upon him, and at the same time very much troubled about
the part which he was to play. He was to help Berger to recover his
interest in life, and he had himself lost all such interest! Was he not
of all men the least fitted for such a mission? And yet he had accepted
it! He must fulfil it!
Oswald came to the door which had been pointed out to him. Upon the
brown panel was something written in chalk, and evidently in Berger's
hand:
"_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate_."
Oswald shuddered as he read it. He remained standing undecided before
the door, and it was some time before he could make up his mind to
knock. He listened to hear if anything was stirring within; he heard
nothing. At last he summoned courage and knocked with a strong hand. As
no answer came, he knocked still louder; again no answer. A great fear
overcame him; he hastily opened the door and entered the room.
CHAPTER VII.
Oswald need not have feared. Berger was sitting in the centre of the
darkened room, all the curtains being closed, before a table covered
with books. He was resting his head in both hands, and seemed to sleep,
for he did not stir even when Oswald stepped up close to the table.
Oswald did not dare wake him. He remained standing by the table and
looked at the poor sufferer, his eyes filling unconsciously with tears.
What havoc these few months had made with the face once so proud, so
full of energy; the dark curling hair was grizzled; the massive brow,
hewn apparently out of the live granite, appeared even more powerful
and imposing, thanks to the increased baldness at the temples. A full
beard, formerly an aversion to Berger, now flowed, silver-gray, from
cheek, lips, and chin, so that the end nearly touched the table. His
hands, once so plump and carefully kept, had become so thin, so
transparent! And what a costume! A blue smock-frock, instead of the
black coat which was never allowed to show a particle of dust; a
coarse, ill-fitting shirt, instead of the fine, dazzling white linen
upon which he formerly insisted. On the table a worn-out slouched hat
and a stick, which had evidently not long ago formed part of a hedge of
thorns, in place of the smooth silk hat from Paris, and the clouded
cane with its gold head! If the outer man could change to such an
extent, what a revolution must have taken place in the lowest depths of
the soul!
Berger stirred. He raised his head, opened his eyes, and looked at
Oswald. His eyes were deep and clear, and looked larger than usual; he
did not start nor betray astonishment, wonder, or fear, at the
unexpected sight.
"I had but just now dreamt of you, Oswald," he said, rising, with a low
voice, from which all former sharpness and energy seemed to have
departed.
Oswald could restrain himself no longer. He sobbed aloud and threw
himself into Berger's arms. Now only, lying on the bosom of this man,
he felt all his sufferings fully, as he thought; now only, in the arms
of this man who had endured so much, he fancied he need not be ashamed
any longer of the tears which his heart had bled when his eyes refused
to weep.
Berger held him in his arms, as a father holds his son who comes home
from a far country in which he has fed with the swine.
"Weep on," he said, "weep! Tears relieve a young, overflowing heart.
When I was as young as you, I wept as you do; now my eyes have
forgotten how to weep."
"Berger, dear, dear Berger!"
"I knew I should see you again. I expected you long ago. I did not
think you would stand it so long in the great desert outside. Weep on!
Tears are the price with which we buy our souls back again, when we
find what a wretched bargain we had made before we knew better. Ere we
give up life we have to learn that it is better not to live. Some learn
that sooner, others later. Be glad that you are one of those who during
the bitterness of the Sansara have already a foretaste of the sweetness
of the Nirvana."
He left Oswald, and took his hat and cane from the table.
"Come!" he said.
Oswald was so deeply moved by this scene that the recollection of
Berger's odd costume only suggested to him the conviction how utterly
impossible it would be to speak to such a man of such things. He would
as lief have reminded a mother who was weeping over the body of her
child of some defect in her toilet, a bow out of place, or a ribbon
which had come loose.
They passed through the long passages, down the broad stone staircase
and out into the court-yard. As they went across the latter, the young
man who was sitting on the bench came up to them and repeated the
question which he had before asked of Oswald:
"I certainly have the honor to address the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"
"No!" replied Berger, "The emperor is not coming; you may rely upon
it."
"Is not coming!" repeated the young man; and his pale face became still
paler, and his eyes wandered restlessly to and fro; "is not coming! how
do you know that?"
"Because, if he should come it would not be for your happiness, as you
imagine, but for your final ruin. Why do you wish him to come? To bring
you gold, which you will gamble away? and jewels, which you will lavish
upon your mistresses; to afford you the means of continuing a life
which you ought to thank God on your knees you have escaped from--if
you believe in any God? What appears to you a star of promise, is a
will-o'-the-wisp from the moors. Do not trust in its glimmer--it lures
you hither and thither, and each time deeper into the moor. Turn
resolutely back from it! I tell you once more, the emperor is not
coming! and it is fortunate for you that he does not come!"
"Do you know his majesty so intimately?" stammered the young man.
"Very intimately," said Berger, and a peculiar smile played on his
features, "only too intimately. I also was misled by his majesty. You
expect from his promise money and lands. I was promised--never mind
what; and thus he promises everybody something else, in order to fool
and trick everybody. The conviction that his majesty's promises are
nothing but wind--that is the beginning of wisdom, and the last
conclusion of wisdom into the bargain."
Berger had uttered the last words with a suddenly-sinking voice, as if
he were speaking to himself. He paid no further attention to the young
man, who was standing there, hat in hand, with an indescribably sad
face. Nor did he seem to notice Oswald, who followed him silently, and
most painfully affected by the touching scene.
Berger apparently felt what was going on in his companion's heart, for
they had left the gate which was opened to them without delay, and
found themselves on the turnpike, which followed first one bank, and
then, after crossing the river on a bridge, the opposite bank, rising
higher and higher into the mountains. He suddenly broke his silence and
said,
"You are wondering why I did not treat the poor fellow more tenderly,
instead of destroying so rudely his absurd illusions? This apparent
cruelty was in reality a great kindness."
"Who is the unfortunate man?"
"A Count Mattan, from our country. He has spent during the last few
years a fortune of half a million in senseless extravagance. Now he
hopes for the fabulous emperor, who is to restore to him all his
losses."
"But if your robbing the young man of his last consolation should
deprive him of the last feeble remnant of sense----"
"You speak like Doctor Birkenhain. It makes me laugh to see how these
optimists blindly try to arrest the power which drives man irresistibly
into destruction, like children who try to stop a river with their
little hands. My study here is the observation of this peculiar
struggle, which would be grand if it were not so ludicrous. These
doctors move in the dark, as if they were playing blindman's buff, and
think they have cured the disease when they have gotten rid of the
symptoms. They do not know, they do not even suspect, that life itself
is the shoe that pinches, the garment of Nessus which burns our living
body--and that to pull off this shoe, to throw away the garment, is not
only the best but the only remedy by which we can escape the
wretchedness of existence."
They had left the highroad and reached a clearing in the forest, which
was thickly overgrown with moss and heather. Before them was a view
over the tops of pine trees into the plain from which they had
ascended, and far into the land of hills; behind them the forest
extended upwards. It was quiet, perfectly quiet, around them. Long
white gossamer floated through the thin, clear air. The flowers were
gone; the birds had forgotten their songs, the locusts their chirping;
summer itself had died, and Nature sat in silent grief by the corpse.
Even the autumnal sunshine had something sad in it, like a widow's
smile; the blue of the sky was sickly, like the tearful eye of a
mourner.
Berger had seated himself on the low stump of a tree, and Oswald lay
down close by him on the thick heather. In this silence of the forest,
which reminded him so forcibly of the woods of Berkow and Grenwitz, and
of the painfully sweet days he had spent there, he felt that
irrepressible impulse to speak which at times overcomes us all of a
sudden. As the Catholic is moved to whisper his deep-hidden secrets
into the ear of the priest, his personified conscience, so Oswald felt
impelled to confess to the unhappy man by his side, in whom he had ever
seen another self, all that he had experienced, tried to obtain,
suffered and sinned, during these last eventful, fatal months. He did
not think of Doctor Birkenhain's suggestion to interest Berger by all
means at his command in his own fate, and thus to play the part of the
physician to his patient. Was he not a very sick patient himself? But,
whatever might agitate his heart--the man by his side had suffered
worse things; what, he hardly dared confess to himself--the man who was
wandering with lowered head in the dark labyrinth of his soul, and
could find no way to light, he could hear all, all. And thus he told
him, first hesitatingly, then with animation, with passionate
excitement, all he had to tell: his love of Melitta, his love of Helen,
his friendship for Bruno, and how jealousy and sickness of heart had
robbed him of the one, and strange circumstances and death of the
other.
Berger had listened in silence, supporting his chin in his hand, and
looking with his large eyes fixedly at the distance, without once
interrupting Oswald. At last, when the young man wound up with the
painful complaint "Why did you send me into this troublesome world? Why
did you let me wander about so long in this darkness?" Berger raised
his head, turned his eyes towards him, and said slowly, thoughtfully,
"Because you had to learn this also; because, as long as you were with
me in Grunwald, you still believed in that great falsehood which we
call life; because the pride with which you insisted upon its being a
truth had to be broken. I have led you the shortest and safest way to
wisdom. I knew you would allow yourself to be dazzled by false
splendor; I knew you would hasten with beating heart, with parched
tongue, through the lonely, white sand of the desert, towards the blue
lake with the wooded shore, which drew back further and further as you
thought you were coming nearer, until you would at last break down,
cursing your sufferings and your existence. Be joyful! You have gone
through with it; you have finished your first and hardest course in as
many weeks as it took me years. You have opened your eyes and looked at
what was there, and behold! it was not good! The value of life, the
purpose of life, has become doubtful to you. You have begun to
understand that the assertion of superficial optimists: Life is the
purpose of life! is hardly correct--unless one could find satisfaction
in striving after a purpose which can never be accomplished, or which,
if it be accomplished, is worth nothing. You have seen how indissolubly
untruth, stupidity, and vulgarity are interwoven with truth, honesty,
wisdom, and majesty. This knowledge, which only the brutalized slave,
grinning under the lash of the driver, receives with indifference, but
which saddens noble hearts unto death, is the beginning of wisdom, the
entrance to the great mystery."
"And the great mystery?"
Berger made no reply; he looked again with fixed eyes at the distance.
Oswald dared not repeat his question.
Deep silence all around. Silently the light gossamer floated through
the clear air; silently the evening sunshine wove its golden net around
the heather and the dark-green tops of the pine-trees.
They sat thus speechless side by side--silent and sad, like two
children lost in the woods. But while the one, who had wound up his
life, and who was fearfully in earnest with his contempt of the world,
suffered himself to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of his grief,
the young, fresh vitality of the other struggled mightily towards light
and air.
"What is this in me which rouses me at this very moment, when I least
expected it, to oppose your wisdom?" he inquired, looking up at Berger.
"My reason tells me you are right, but my eye drinks with delight the
beauty of this evening landscape; drinks it down into the heart, and
there, in my heart, a voice whispers: 'The world is so fair, so fair!
and even if life makes you suffer bitter things without end, it is
still sweet.' Tell me, Berger, did you ever love with all the strength
of your heart? and can love die, as the summer dies, and the flowers,
and the warm sunlight?"
Berger smiled--it was a strange, weird smile.
"Did I ever love?"
He cast down his eyes, and took off with his stick a piece of the thick
crust of moss at his feet.
"What good does it do," he said, "to lift the veil which so many years
have spread over the past? You see what is below--decay and
destruction."
"And yet," he said, after a pause, "it is but right you should learn
that also. Hear, then:"
"It is now thirty years. I was then at your age, but without having
made your experiences; clinging to life in full, unbroken strength, and
thinking it as sweet and precious as a love of my heart. If ever man
was enthusiastic about liberty and beauty--about all those fail fancies
with which we try to beautify our miserable existence here, and to hide
its wretched hollowness--if ever man was raving about those bloodless
images which we call ideals--I was that man. In my madness I fancied
that eternal bliss might be won even here below wherever men were
living in a free country. I believed in my native land, and sealed my
faith with my blood on the battle-fields of Leipzig and Waterloo. I
returned full of burning zeal to complete the great work. But before I
could undertake to heal the wounds which my country had received during
the war, I had to think of healing my own wounds. They sent me, when I
recovered, to Fichtenau.
"In those days Fichtenau was not what it is now. There was no Kurhaus
then, and no asylum for the insane; nevertheless the town was always
full of visitors, for the poetic halo with which the great men of
Weimar had surrounded these valleys attracted the crowd. I kept aloof,
and lived only for my health and my studies.
"I boarded in the house of an old schoolmaster with whom I had become
acquainted, and whose friendship I cultivated because he possessed
quite a large library, and books were not so easily accessible then,
especially in this remote part of the world. But the old gentleman
possessed yet another treasure, besides his library--a most beautiful
daughter. The daughter soon became more interesting to me than the
library. You asked me if I had ever loved with all my heart. If you had
known Leonora, and seen how high and how powerfully my heart then beat,
you would not have asked me that question.
"It was a summer day--a marvellously beautiful summer day. We had gone
out into the woods after dinner--a mixed company--young and old. We lay
down on the swelling moss in the shade of the pine-trees. How my eye
dwelt upon her graceful form as she did the honors of the company with
merry modesty; how my ear drank in the tones of her silvery, sweet
voice! It was the old song of the sirens, which was heard thousands and
thousands of years ago, and which will yet be heard thousands and
thousands of years hence--till the time is fulfilled.
"After the coffee we strolled about in the forest--in groups, by pairs,
as accident and inclination brought it about. I had followed Leonora,
who was gathering a bunch of wild-flowers. I helped her, although I did
not know much of these things, and was often laughed at by the teasing
girls on account of my odd selection. She however became more and more
silent the deeper we went into the wood and the further we left the
others behind. As she became more silent and anxious, I grew more
animated and pressing. Her silence and the blush on her cheeks told me
what I had long since desired in secret, what I had prayed heaven to
grant me, and what I had yet never hoped to obtain.
"Then we stepped out upon this clearing. The same mountains which are
there lying before us looked as blue to us, and the same sun which
looks down from heaven now poured a dazzling light lavishly down upon
us. And the golden light shone brightly on her dark, curling hair, and
played upon her round, white shoulders; and here, on this very place,
we fell into each other's arms and swore each other eternal love, amid
hot kisses and hot tears.
"The stump on which I am now sitting was then a tall, slender, powerful
pine-tree, and I was young and slender, and full of exuberant strength.
The tree has been cut down and burnt in the fire; I--I have become what
I am----"
Berger paused and stirred up the moss at his feet with his cane. Oswald
looked with reverence at the unfortunate man; but he dared not speak,
nor even seize Berger's hand, which was listlessly hanging down by his
side. Lofty calmness rested on Berger's face; not a gesture betrayed
what was going on in his heart; but he did not look like one who
requires sympathy or expects sympathy.
"Not at once," he suddenly continued--"the strength within me was great
and could only be broken by piecemeal. I spoke, after our return home,
to the old gentleman; he liked me and was heartily glad to see our
affection. A few days later I returned to the University in order to
resume my studies, which the war had interrupted. I studied with
increasing diligence, for my thirst of knowledge was hardly less of an
incentive than my desire to be able as soon as possible to carry
Leonora home with me as my wife. I therefore went only rarely to
Fichtenau, and then stayed only a short time to sun myself in Leonora's
love, and to return to my work with new courage and new strength. But I
had another lady-love, whom I worshipped with no less ardor--Liberty. I
shared that passion with many other noble young men. We did not mean to
have shed our blood on the battlefields in vain; we were not willing to
become the prey of so many jackals and wolves, after we had
successfully overcome a lion. But the jackals were on their guard, and
the wolves broke in our fold.
"I had been engaged in teaching for a year; I had prepared everything
for the wedding; the day was fixed; I was counting the days and the
hours. Suddenly, one night, I was seized in my bed by armed men. My
papers were sealed up; and the next night I slept in a casemate of a
fortress.
"Or, rather, I did not sleep--I was enraged, I was maddened; my hands
bled from my efforts to break the bars of my cage. Gradually I consoled
myself with the hope that this captivity could not last long, and
Leonora--well! she would bear her hard lot like a heroine. A second
Egmont, I saw freedom and my beloved hand in hand. Through night to
light! Through battle to victory! That was the mystic word with which I
tried to frighten back the serpent-haired monster. Despair, when it was
pressing upon me and about to strike its fangs into my heart. The
mystic word had ample time to prove its power. I remained in prison for
five years!
"You may imagine if my faith in the so-called divine nature of the
world's government was shaken during this time, which I measured by the
beats of my heart, and the drops which fell, one by one, from the damp
ceiling of my cell. But, I told you before, my strength was great, and
I was sternly determined to live. I had heard, to be sure, in the
silent nights which saw me tossing restlessly upon my hard couch, the
great word that releases us, but I had understood it only half, and
perhaps not quite half. I had but just begun to spell the letters in my
long apprenticeship; life itself was to be my school, before I should
be able to read it fluently.
"I had scarcely been set free when I hastened to this place--you may
imagine with what feelings! In the beginning of my captivity I had
received one or two letters from Leonora, in which she conjured me to
endure patiently, and to remain faithful, appealing to the God to whom
she was hourly sending up her prayers for my release. Her letters had
become rarer, and after about two years none had come any more. That
was my greatest sorrow; but I always believed that it was the cruelty
of my jailors which denied me this consolation, and I ground my teeth
and cursed my tormentors.
"I had done them injustice.
"It was far in the night when I reached Fichtenau. I drove directly to
the familiar house. I jumped from the carriage and pulled the bell. A
window was opened up-stairs; an old woman looked out and asked what I
wanted? I inquired after the schoolmaster. 'He died three years ago,'
was the curt answer. 'And where is his daughter?' 'You must ask the
great gentleman who eloped with her three years ago,' said the woman,
and shut the window with violence. I stood thunderstruck. Then I
laughed aloud; but I was silenced by an intense pain in the heart--for,
Oswald, I had loved Leonora.
"I never knew how I reached the inn. Late in the night I roused the
good people from their slumbers by my wild laughing and furious raging.
They broke open the door of my room--I was in full delirium. The air of
the prison had affected my health, and the fearful blow, finding me
utterly unprepared, had shaken the weakened edifice to the foundation.
I struggled four weeks for my life, but I clung to it fiercely, and
Death had to give up its prey. Woe to me! That death would not have
been the ordinary death to me--it would have restored me to life! If I
should die now I would die for ever!"
Oswald shuddered. What was the meaning of these mysterious words: "Die
forever!" Did they contain that great mystery which was yet hidden from
him by a thick veil?
"My convalescence," continued Berger, "lasted long, for my strength had
been utterly exhausted. I crept through the streets of the village,
leaning on a stick, and rejoiced to find that I could climb, day by
day, a few steps higher, until I succeeded at last in reaching this
spot here--the scene of an oath, which I had fancied to be sworn for
eternity, and which had passed away with the breath of her lips. I came
every day here to weep over my lost happiness, and to quarrel with
Heaven who lets his sun shine upon the unjust, and hurls his lightnings
at the just. For I was, like King Lear, a man more sinned against than
sinning. I had meant well and faithfully in all I had hoped and striven
for in life. I had loved my native land as a child loves its parents,
with a simple, believing heart; and in return it had made me suffer
five years in a dungeon. I had loved Leonora with every drop of blood
in my heart; and in return she had betrayed me. Up to that moment I had
so lived in the world that I could face all and say: Who can accuse me
of a sin?--and yet! and yet! I racked my brain to solve the mystery. I
had never yet understood fully that life itself is the great sin, from
which all other sins flow necessarily, as the stone, once set in
motion, must roll inevitably down the precipice. Thus only I gradually
comprehended that He cannot be a God of love who created and still
creates a world in which the sins of the fathers are punished down to
the third and fourth generation--a world, the whole government of which
rests on the fearful Jesuitical principles that the end sanctions the
means. So far I had always tried to find out only what was good in the
world and in men; now my eyes had been opened by sore sufferings for
the sufferings of my fellow-beings. I now saw how every page of our
history bears the record of some fearful deed that makes our hair stand
on end, and our blood curdle in our veins; I saw that there is a dark
corner in every man's heart which he never dares look into; that no man
yet has lived who did not wish once in his life that he had never been
born; I saw that the life of countless multitudes is nothing more than
a desperate struggle for existence; that sickness and sin, repentance
and sorrow, undermine our life most thoroughly and eat their way to the
core like worms in ripe fruit; that at best our pleasures are a dance
upon graves--that, if life really ever was precious, death, inexorable
death, is forever scorning and scoffing at this precious life. And I
looked around on nature, in which poets see an idyll, and I found that
it was either dead and insensible, or, when it does feel and
sympathize, only repeating the bloody drama of human existence in a
ruder and more shocking form. I saw that the different races of animals
are engaged in fierce, implacable warfare against each other,
uninterrupted by a moment's peace, and that their wars are carried on
with a cruelty by the side of which even the most refined tortures of
the Inquisition appear at times very harmless proceedings.
"And whilst I thus tore the gay rags to pieces, under which cowardice
and stupidity try to conceal the wounds and sores of society, there
arose in my heart a feeling which I had not known before--hatred. It
was only my love in another form, although I tried to persuade myself
that I had forgotten the faithless one; it was only another expression
of my fondness of life, although I had fancied that I had forever
closed my account with life. When we really give up life, we know
nothing more of love or hatred.
"At that time, however, I did hate. Passionately as I had loved, my
whole being was concentrated in the one, burning desire to be revenged.
Revenge! revenge! on him! on her!--this was the cry of a voice within
me, which I could never silence again. They all knew my misfortune in
Fichtenau, and felt for me with that cheap sympathy which is composed
of delight in scandal and the pleasure we take in the failures of
others. They told me, unasked, all that was known about Leonora's
flight.
"About the time when my letters had first failed to come to me, a young
Polish count had arrived in Fichtenau and taken the rooms in the old
schoolmaster's house which I had occupied. Soon the whole town had been
full of him, of his beauty and his wealth. They had teased Leonora
about her handsome lodger, but she had rebuked all such jests on the
part of her young friends with great indignation. Soon, however, they
no longer dared to say openly to her what they thought about her
relations to the young count, but only whispered it about with bated
breath that they had been seen together late at night at such and such
places, and that the gold chain which she was now wearing had not been
in her possession before. And then came a day on which they had no
longer whispered, but proclaimed aloud in the streets, that the
schoolmaster's Leonora had eloped the night before with the handsome
count, and that her poor old father, a confirmed invalid, had been so
deeply affected by the news as to be dangerously ill. A few days later
the old man had really died. Of Leonora nothing had been heard since
that night.
"Fortunately the name of the count was well known, and that was all I
desired in order to carry out my plan of revenge. I took what little
remained of my fortune and began my travels--first to Warsaw. There the
count was very well known; they described him to me as a profligate
young man, who made it the business of his life to seduce beautiful
women. An acquaintance added, that he had seen him about two years
before in Venice in company with a beautiful lady, who might have been
Leonora from his description.
"I went to Venice. There also he was well remembered; he had lived
there several months and had then moved to Milan. From Milan they sent
me to Rome. There I met with a friend of my youth, a painter. He had
seen the count and Leonora very frequently, and pitied the poor girl
long before he knew that she had ever been dear to me. He told me that
the count had treated her very badly, and laughingly told everybody
that no one could do him a more valuable service than by relieving him
of this burden. Then the painter hesitated and declined to say more. I
conjured him to tell me all, assuring him that I was prepared to hear
the worst. At last he yielded, and told me that after some time the
count had really found a successor in the person of a French marquis,
or at least a pretended marquis, who had taken Leonora with him to
Paris. This had occurred about a year ago. The count was said to be
living in Naples. I went to Naples, with my friend the painter. I had
told him my purpose to have my revenge. He thought it would be very
difficult, since the count was as cunning and brave as he was
dissipated and cruel. But when he saw me firmly bent upon my purpose,
he offered to accompany me. I accepted the offer; for the painter had
many acquaintances among the great men of the world, and could
introduce me into the circles frequented by the count, to which I would
not otherwise have found access.
"We reached Naples. The count was still there, the spoilt pet of the
women and the horror of fathers and husbands. The painter succeeded
without any trouble in introducing me in good society. For some time
chance seemed to defeat every effort I made to meet the count at one of
the parties where he was expected. At last I met him at a great soiree
given by the Russian Minister. I saw him standing in the centre of a
group of ladies and gentlemen, and could not deny him the praise of
really superb beauty and an almost irresistible charm of manner. I
approached the group, with the painter by my side.
"'Count,' said the painter, 'Doctor Berger, of Fichtenau, desires to
make your acquaintance; permit me to present him to you.'
"At the mention of Fichtenau the count had turned pale, and changed
countenance in such a manner that all the by-standers were struck by
it.
"'I shall not detain you long, count,' said I, stepping forward, 'I
only desire to learn from you the present place of residence of that
young lady whom you carried off from her paternal home three years ago,
and whom you finally sold to a French adventurer in Rome.'
"I said these words calmly, slowly, weighing every syllable. My voice
was heard all over the room, for at the first words I uttered everybody
had become so silent that you could have heard a pin drop.
"The count had turned still paler, but he soon recovered himself and
said:
"'And what right have you to ask such a question at a time and place
which you have chosen marvellously well?'
"'I had the misfortune of being engaged to the young lady.'
"'And if I decline giving you the information----'
"'Then I declare you before all these ladies and gentlemen to be from
head to foot nothing but a vulgar blackguard.'
"With these words I threw my glove into his face and left the company,
after having asked their pardon for the necessity that had forced me to
provoke so unpleasant a scene.
"An insult of this kind could only be wiped out by blood, according to
the views of the society in which the count moved. To prevent his
pleading too great a disparity in social rank I had taken the
precaution of wearing my officer's uniform; and besides, the well-known
name of my friend, the painter, secured me against the suspicion of
being an unknown adventurer. The very favor which the count enjoyed
with the ladies had, moreover, made him very hateful to the men, so
that everybody was glad to see him thus publicly exposed, and if he had
refused to fight me he would probably have lost his standing in
society. His few friends had, therefore, shrugged their shoulders, and
his enemies had smiled with delight, when he had left the house soon
after my departure, and an hour afterwards I received a challenge for
the following morning. That was all I desired. I was delighted; and the
few hours still wanting till I should see the seducer of Leonora, the
murderer of my earthly happiness, at the mouth of my pistol, seemed to
me an eternity. I could not bear the confinement of my hotel; I wanted
to cool the fever of revenge that burnt in me in the balsamic night
air. My friend begged me not to do so, since I might easily take cold
during my nightly promenade, as he called it, with an ironical smile.
But excited and maddened as I was, I insisted on my purpose, and he
accompanied me, but only after having provided daggers for both of us.
"I was soon to learn how much better the painter knew the character of
my enemy and the manners of the people among whom we happened to be. We
had scarcely gone a few hundred yards from the hotel, and were just
turning into Toledo street from a narrow lane, when four men suddenly
jumped forth from the deep shadow of a house and fell upon us with
incredible fury. Fortunately the painter was a man of gigantic
strength, and I also had my good arm and presence of mind. The
murderers seemed to be surprised by our resistance. After a few moments
they took to their heels. I was going to follow them. 'Let them run,'
said the painter, wiping his bloody dagger; 'I fear I have scratched
one of them rather too deep. But the fellow was really too zealous to
earn the few dollars which the count had given him.'
"I had lost all desire to continue my walk. We returned by the nearest
way to our hotel, and awaited the appointed hour with impatience.
"The painter tried to persuade me that I ought not to fight a duel with
a man who had resorted to assassination, but should knock him down like
a mad dog; but I replied to him that that was exactly what I meant to,
do, and that the duel was only an empty ceremony. We became quite warm
in the discussion.
"Very unnecessarily so. Morning broke at last; we were the first on the
spot; no adversary was to be seen. At last, an hour later, the count's
second appeared--a young Italian nobleman--pale and overwhelmed with
shame. He told us how sorry he was to have kept us waiting so long, but
that it was not his fault. The count had left his house late at night,
after having arranged everything with his second, leaving orders for
his man servant not to sit up for him. Since that moment he had not
been seen again. It seemed to be highly probable that some accident had
befallen him, for of course it would be ridiculous to presume for a
moment that a man of the count's high social position should have
escaped by flight from a duel.
"The painter replied that we could very well afford to wait, and that
delay was not defeat. The young nobleman promised to inform us of
anything he might learn concerning the count's movements. But the count
remained unseen, and I had at last to take the painter's view, which he
had already mentioned on the night of our encounter with the assassins,
that the count himself had led the attack, being in all probability the
very person whose violence had been most conspicuous, and who had been
so severely punished by the strong arm of the painter. Either he had
died in consequence of the wound received on that occasion, or, what
was more probable, he was only wounded and remained concealed in order
to avoid giving an explanation of his condition. Perhaps, also, he
wished to escape the investigation of the affair by the police, who
showed an unusual activity in the matter, as if they had been
stimulated by the enemies of the count, and at the same time to escape
from an adversary who attached such vulgar importance to matters which
in his circle were passed over with a slight smile.
"However this might be, my adversary did not re-appear, and after the
strange affair had been for four weeks the favorite topic of
conversation all over town--for it had created an enormous sensation--I
saw myself compelled to leave Naples without having accomplished my
purpose.
"I went by way of Rome--where I took leave of my friend--to Paris. I
felt that I had fulfilled my duty only half; the hardest part was yet
to be done. I was afraid to meet Leonora again; and yet I wished it
almost as earnestly. You will ask how I could take so deep an interest
in a person who had so frivolously trifled with my happiness, and who
had lost the last relic of respect which might have remained alive for
her after her elopement with the Pole, by running away with the
Frenchman. But I told you I had loved Leonora with an ardent,
demoniacal love, the fire of which had never yet burned out, and which
was to burn, alas! long after all was consumed. Besides, I knew that
Leonora, however recklessly she might have acted, was in reality not
ignoble, but had probably in Rome been forced by a most fearful
necessity to leave the man whom she had followed so far from love. I
felt that now, if she was still alive, she must most assuredly be
wretchedly unhappy.
"I reached Paris. The city was quite familiar to me, for I had already
paid two visits there, in company with a few thousand armed friends.
Moreover, I had provided myself in Naples with letters of introduction
from the painter and several distinguished Italian and French
gentlemen, whose acquaintance I had made there. A few inquiries
confirmed at once the painter's original suspicion, that the marquis
who had carried off Leonora from Rome was an adventurer. A marquis of
that name did not exist, had never existed, at all events not in the
Faubourg St. Germain. I had to continue my search in other less
aristocratic quarters.
"A young Frenchman, an author, whose acquaintance I had made years ago,
was my faithful companion in all my wanderings. He was a pleasant man,
warmly attached to myself, and has ever since remained my best friend.
I had, of course, told him the whole of my sad story; and he, who was
far superior to me in knowledge of the world, and especially of that
little world which makes up Paris, had first suggested to me to carry
my investigations into the Quartier Latin, and other still more modest
parts of the city. 'Paris,' said the Frenchman, 'is a place where men
and things rarely preserve their original value long; they rise and
fall in price with amazing rapidity. During a whole year the poor girl
may have passed through very sad changes. If she has not committed
suicide--and this is hardly probable, as she would probably have killed
herself already in Rome, if she had had the courage to die--she has
certainly sunk very low. I pray you prepare yourself for the very
worst.'
"You may imagine how my heart bled when I heard these words, and felt
how true they were likely to be. I felt like a man who is grappling in
a lake for the body of his drowned child.
"One evening, as we were wandering about at haphazard through one of
the most crowded suburbs, my companion surprised me by asking me: 'Did
Leonora have any talent for dancing?' When I told him that she had
always been perfect in that art, he said, 'We ought to have thought of
that before. How strange that I never thought of asking you before.' He
was so taken up with his new idea that he did not deign to answer when
I inquired what the art of dancing had to do with our search. He hailed
a cab; we went back into the city. We stopped at one of those
dancing-halls which were then less brilliant, perhaps, but certainly
not less crowded than nowadays. 'Look around, if you can see Leonora
anywhere! We searched the whole establishment; Leonora was not there.
'Then let us go on.' We drove to another dancing-hall, and, when our
search was here also fruitless, to a third, and a fourth. All in vain.
I was so exhausted by the sad scenes I had witnessed, by the dust and
the heat which filled these crowded rooms, by the efforts to find one
certain person among so many, who were constantly changing from place
to place, and by the excitement, the anxiety, and the very fear of
finding what I was looking for, that I begged my companion to abandon
the search, at least for to-night. 'Only one more locality,' he
replied; 'I have on purpose left it for the last, because the
probability of finding her there is strong enough, but also very
painful.' 'How so?' 'The establishments which you have seen so far,'
replied the Frenchman, 'are after a fashion quite respectable in spite
of what is going on there. The visitors are beyond measure reckless,
arrogant, frivolous, but after all not exactly vicious. They are
students with their ladies, clerks with their grisettes, well-to-do
mechanics who want to have a frolic, in company with their girls. The
society into which I am now going to introduce you is far more elegant,
but not quite so harmless. It is a house frequented mainly by wild
young men of rank from the aristocratic quarters of the town, who seek
here compensation for the dullness of their own saloons, and by
foreigners who come to Paris to ruin their health and to waste their
fortune. The fair sex is such as suits these people. You find here the
most beautiful, but also the most corrupt of women, men-catchers, who
drive to-day a four-in-hand, and die to-morrow in the hospital--mainly
foreigners: Creoles, English, Italian, or German girls, who here find
countrymen in numbers. Prepare yourself to look for her--I trust in
vain--in this pandemonium.
"We reached the place. Broad marble steps led up. My heart beat
violently; I could scarcely stand, for something within me told me that
I had reached the goal of my wanderings; that the disfigured, swollen
head of the dead body would the next moment rise from the black waters.
"We entered the brilliantly lighted hall. The orchestra played
bacchantic music, and in bacchantic madness the dancers rushed by each
other. The dazzling lights, the loud trumpets, the crowds, the heat,
the narcotic fragrance of exotics, with which the room was adorned, and
the fearful excitement under which I labored, took away my breath. I
had to lean for a moment against a pillar, and closed my eyes in order
to collect myself. As I was standing thus, faint and nearly falling, a
voice fell upon my ear which stung me at the first note like an adder.
The ear is a faithful monitor; it never in all this life forgets a
voice whose notes have once been sweet and dear to it. It had not
deceived me.
"Close before me, so close that I could have touched her with my hand,
stood a girl, talking fast to a handsome young man; she was tall and
slender, had large, brown eyes, which shone with feverish brightness,
and a face far too sharply accented, too much worn out by life for so
young a person, but nevertheless still very beautiful--and this girl
was Leonora.
"Strange! when I had first heard her voice my heart had trembled as at
the moment when I stood at night before the house in Fichtenau, and the
old woman called down to me that Leonora had eloped. But after the
first spasm I felt calm, quite calm. The chord had been stretched too
far, it had broke; it now uttered not a sound of joy or of grief. I
looked down upon Leonora as coldly as if she were a picture on the
wall. I heard every word she said to her partner, as we hear words just
before we are going to faint--as if they had been spoken at the other
end of the hall. I examined her from head to foot, even her costume,
with the calm criticism of an artist. I noticed that she was rouged,
and that her dark eyebrows and lashes were dyed still darker. I noticed
that she wore her hair exactly in the same manner in which I had myself
once arranged it, after an antique, and as she had ever after worn it
as long as I knew her. I heard everything, I saw everything, and yet I
heard and saw nothing; for I had no clear perception of what I saw and
heard.
"My companion, who had looked all around the hall in the meantime, now
returned to where I stood. 'I have not been able to find any one
corresponding to your description,' he said. 'God be thanked! I breathe
more freely; I should not have liked, for the world, to have found her
whom we look for in this place. But, _mon Dieu_, what is the matter?
You look like a corpse!'
"'I have found her.'
"'Where?'
"'There!'
"He took his glass and examined Leonora for a few moments with most
intense interest. She was still perfectly unconscious of those who were
so near to her, and chatted and coquetted with her dancer.
"Then he shrugged his shoulders with pity and dropped his eye-glass.
His face had become very serious.
"'_Pauvre homme_!' he whispered to himself.
"The music was breaking forth louder than ever; a new figure began in
the Française, and it was Leonora's turn. She had evidently made great
progress in her art since the day when I had seen her last dance at a
club-ball in Fichtenau. I can candidly say I have never before or
afterwards seen anything more perfect. It was the enchanting
gracefulness of a jet-d'eau swaying to and fro in the light breeze, and
yet at the same time a passionate rapture, such as we find nowhere else
except perhaps among the Zingarellas of Spain or the Ghawazees of
Egypt. At one moment it was the soft longing and yearning of gentle and
subdued love, at the next moment it was the very soul of passion,
trembling in every nerve and vibrating in every muscle, but here as
well as there, a beautiful rhythm of marvellously complicated and yet
ever harmoniously united movements was never wanting. This dance was a
song--a song of love--but not of German love, dreamy, fragrant with the
perfume of blooming lime-trees and softened by the pale light of the
moon, but of sensuous Oriental love, hot with the burning rays of a
Southern sun, and breathing narcotic voluptuousness. And with all that,
her features were calm, not a muscle moving, not a trace of that
repulsive, stereotyped smile worn by so many far-famed artists. Only
her eyes burnt with uncanny fire, which blazed up brighter with every
step, with every motion. Her partner rather walked than danced all the
steps required with much elegance, but with a lofty carelessness, as if
he looked rather ridiculous in his own eyes while performing the
ceremony, and this calm composure seemed to make the passionate woman
almost desperate, and determined to rouse him from his weary apathy by
all the arts of which she was master. Perhaps this was really so;
perhaps it only looked so--at all events this gave to the dance a rich
dramatic interest, and afforded the by-standers a most attractive
sight.
"'_Ah, la belle Allemande_!' cried an enthusiast near me.
"'_Grand Dieu, qu'elle est jolie!_' cried another; '_Brava! brava!_'
and he applauded energetically with both hands till all the by-standers
followed his example. '_Brava! brava! Vive la reine Eléonore! Vive la
belle Allemande!_'
"My friend seized my arm and drew me further back under the pillars
near which we had been standing. 'Come!' he said. 'Where?' 'Away from
here!' 'Never!' 'Why, it is impossible you can feel an interest in such
a creature! What can you do with her? I tell you she is lost!
irreparably lost!' 'We will see that!' I murmured. The Frenchman
shrugged his shoulders. 'You Germans are a strange people. But, at
least follow my advice. Do not make a scene here; you would most likely
have to fight half a dozen duels. Call upon the girl to-morrow, or
whenever you choose. I will find out in a few minutes all about her
residence, and whatever else you may want to know.'
"I saw that his was sensible advice. While he slipped away through the
crowd, I threw myself into a chair and rested my head on my hands.
Those were terrible moments. My temples were beating, my limbs were
trembling--and yet within me all was calm, deadly calm and quiet. And,
Oswald, in those moments, while I sat there alone, my face hid in my
hands, in silent, unspeakable sorrow, amid the noisy crowd; and while
my idol, the beloved of my youth, the woman whom I had worshipped in my
dark dungeon like a glorious saint, was dancing a few steps from me,
after a wicked, voluptuous music, the voluptuous dance of Herodias--in
those moments, Oswald, I bid an eternal farewell to happiness, to life.
It was then that the curtain which had so long concealed from me the
Great Mystery suddenly parted in the middle, and I stood shuddering at
the threshold, which I yet dared not cross, and which I only crossed
many, many years afterwards, for then I had not yet drained the cup to
the dregs.
"The dance had come to an end. It became very lively all around me;
laughter and joking, the rustling of rich dresses close to my ear. They
took seats at the small tables, to cool their fever with ices and
champagne. To my table also came a couple, who either could find no
other place vacant, or thought the sleeper was not likely to be a
dangerous listener.
"'_Et vous m'aimez vraiment, Eléonore?_' said a soft but manly voice.
"'_Oui, Charles!_'
"'_De tout votre coeur?_'
"'_De tout mon coeur!_'
"I thought what an impression it would make upon Leonora if I should
suddenly raise my head from the table and say to her: 'Did you not tell
me precisely the same thing on the meadow in the forest of Fichtenau?'
But I checked myself and listened to the conversation, which continued
for some time. At last the gentleman said:
"'And when shall I see you again?'
"'Whenever you wish.'
"'What does that mean?'
"'That I am always at home for my friends.'
"'And where is at home?'
"'_Boulevard des Capucines, Numéro Dix-sept_. You have only to inquire
after Mademoiselle Eléonore----'
"'Or rather _la Reine Eléonore_. _Adieu, ma reine!_'
"'You won't go already?'
"'Unfortunately I have to go.'
"'Why?'
"'My betrothed is waiting for me at her mother's, and she will be
inconsolable if her faithful shepherd keeps her waiting much longer.'
"'You are engaged--oh, poor man!'
"'I hope, _ma reine_, you will help me bear my misfortune?'
"'_Nous verrons._'
"And the two went off laughing; Leonora's silk dress struck me as she
passed.
"My companion came back and put his hand on my shoulder.
"'I have learnt everything,' he said.
"'So have I,' I replied, raising my head.
"'How?'
"'She has told me all herself.'
"My friend thought I was delirious. 'Come,' he said, 'the heat has been
too much for you.'
"You may imagine that I did not sleep much that night. I formed a
thousand plans and rejected them again. Only one thing was certain: I
must save Leonora from this hell. I did not doubt what was my duty for
a moment.
"And yet I rose next morning without having formed a resolution. I was
not afraid for myself, for my heart could not be torn more fearfully
than it had been torn the night before. I was afraid only for Leonora,
that a sudden meeting might humiliate her too fearfully, might kill her
perhaps. A few days passed, and I found no better plan after all than
to go straight to her. My friend shook his head whenever I spoke of my
project. 'But, _mon cher_,' he said again and again, 'don't you see
that you still love her?' Was he right? I do not know. At all events,
this kind of love was very different from ordinary love, for it knew
nothing of humiliated pride, of mortified vanity--nay, nothing even of
the fear of possibly becoming ridiculous, by attempting to save a woman
who did not at all desire to be saved.
"When I had at last decided in my own heart, I went one forenoon to the
house on the Boulevard. The porter smiled as he gave his customary
reply: '_Qui, monsieur, au troisème!_' to my question if Mademoiselle
Eléonore was living there. But he added: 'Mademoiselle will hardly be
at home for anybody; she only came home towards daybreak.'
"I ascended the staircase covered with costly carpets; in the third
story I read on a china plate near a bell-rope: '_Mademoiselle Eléonore
de Saint Georges._' How many names had the poor girl had, since she had
laid aside the honest name of her father?
"I rang the bell. An ugly woman, half waiting-maid, half companion, and
looking all the uglier because of the neatness of her dress and the
affected respectability of her manner, opened and asked me what I
wanted, I wished to see Mademoiselle Eléonore.
"'Mademoiselle is indisposed and cannot see anybody to-day.'
"'But I must see her.'
"'Impossible,' said the woman, 'I have just sent for a doctor.'
"'But, madame, I am the doctor.'
"'_Ah, c'est autre chose, entrez, monsieur le docteur._'
"She led me through a small entry into a lofty, stately apartment,
furnished with almost princely splendor, and asked me to wait there a
few minutes, until her mistress should be able to see me.
"'Has mademoiselle got up yet?'
"'Yes; I shall be back in a moment.'
"She disappeared behind a thick curtain.
"I remained standing in the centre of the room, and looked upon all the
splendor by which I was surrounded--the luscious paintings by Watteau
and Boucher in their broad, gilt frames; the Chinese pagodas upon the
marble mantelpiece; the vases and cups of finest porcelain, the
luxurious divans and sofas--and I felt like the physician who is
looking upon the lace cuff of a hand which he is called in to amputate.
Had I not come here as a physician? Was I not here now under the
pretext of being a physician?
"The maid returned, and begged me to follow her. She drew back the
curtain to let me pass. I entered a half-dark room, covered like all
the others with thick, soft carpets, and hung with deep red-silk
hangings, the chamber of the mistress of the house, and then through
another curtain into a second room, light and bright. Of the furniture
of this room I saw nothing; I saw only the slender, white form which
rose when I entered from the divan on which she had been resting, and
now advanced a few steps to meet me. And this slender, white form, with
the pale, worn-out, beautiful face, in which the large dark eyes shone
with almost ghastly brightness--this beautiful being, broken in body
and soul, lost for eternity, was my Leonora, whom I had worshipped, and
who had once been blooming like a rose in innocence and youth!
"'I have sent for you, doctor,' she said in a low voice.
"Then she raised her eyes and looked at me. Her lips grew silent; she
stared at me with eyes which seemed to leap forth from their orbits;
then she uttered a piercing cry and fell down, before I or her maid
could seize her in our arms.
"We carried her back to the divan. She was deadly pale and cold; I
thought for a moment the sudden blow might have snapped the frail
thread on which her life was hanging. I should have hailed her death as
a rescue from hell, as a mercy from heaven. But soon I became convinced
that life was not going to let her loose for some time yet. I knew
enough of medicine to remember what was to be done in such an
emergency. While I was busy with the fainting girl, I asked the maid if
Leonora was at all subject to such attacks; what was the general state
of her health? The woman thought it her duty to drop her assumed
respectability before a physician. 'She had been only about six months
in the service of mademoiselle. Since then matters had gone down hill
very fast indeed. But mademoiselle was really living too fast in all
conscience. Dancing every night till three or four o'clock in the
morning, drinking champagne without stopping--no one could stand that
long, least of all a lady of such delicate structure. She was begging
mademoiselle every day to abandon such a life, but she received always
the same answer: the sooner it is over the better. And over it will be
very soon,' cried the woman; 'and I shall lose my poor dear mistress,
whom I love like my own child, although she does not lead a life such
as she ought to lead.'
"The invalid began to recover. I sent the maid away, ordering her to
buy some salts at the druggist's; for I did not want to have any
witness present when Leonora should fully awake. The old hypocrite had
hardly left the room when Leonora once more opened her eyes and looked
at me with a confused, incredulous glance. I noticed that in proportion
as her mind returned her horror at my presence increased anew, and
threatened to make her faint a second time. This painful shrinking from
one whom she used to meet with open arms was harder to bear than all
the rest, and nearly moved me to tears. I felt not a trace of hatred,
of anger, in my heart, not even of contempt--no, nothing but pity,
boundless, unspeakable pity. I do not know what I said--but I must have
spoken good, mild words of love and of forgiveness, for her rigid
features began gradually to become softer; her eyes, dilated with
horror, filled with tears, and at last she broke out into passionate
weeping, hiding her head on my bosom as I was kneeling by her side. It
was a terrible weeping; it was as if all the tears of the last years,
which she had concealed under laughter and jests, were breaking forth
from their deep, deep cells and would never cease to flow; and between
a sobbing as if her heart were breaking, a crying as if her innermost
soul were pierced by two-edged swords. I have never in all my life,
either before or afterwards, witnessed anything like this fearful
breaking forth of repentance in a soul stained with sin, but noble by
nature.
"We seemed to have exchanged the parts allotted to us. It looked as if
she had been offended, and I was the criminal. I exhausted myself in
prayers, in implorations, to pour soothing oil into her wounds, to calm
the terrible grief that was raging with such violence. Gradually I
succeeded in calming her after a fashion. She wept, quietly resting her
head on one hand, while I spoke to her holding the other hand--how
white and slender and transparent her fingers had become!--spoke to her
as a brother would speak to his sister in such a case. I begged her to
look upon me as a brother, to confide in me as her best, perhaps her
only friend. I conjured her by all that was sacred to her, by the
memory of her youth, by the memory of her parents--who were both now
resting under the green turf--to tear herself away from this whirlpool
which must swallow her up sooner or later, and to follow me. I promised
to take her, if she wished it, into a desert--to the very ends of the
world--only away, away from this gilded wretchedness.
"'It is too late; too late!' she murmured. 'You are kind, I know;
inexpressibly kind; but it is too late, too late!'
"I do not know how long this struggle might have lasted if a strange
episode had not occurred, which decided it to my great astonishment
quickly in my favor.
"While I was yet kneeling at Leonora's side, I suddenly heard somebody
say behind me: '_Mais vraiment, c'est superbe!_' I rose, full of
horror. Before me stood a young man elegantly dressed, who examined me
through his eye-glass from head to foot and back again, and then
repeated: '_Superbe! mademoiselle_, I congratulate you on this new
conquest.'
"The young man was one of Leonora's friends, whose lavish liberality
had procured for him the privilege of being looked upon by her as her
only lover. He knew that Leonora was by no means rigorously faithful to
him, and did not mind it much; but he did not like to meet his rivals
at her house, which he had furnished at his own expense, and with
princely magnificence.
"'I beg you will explain this scene, mademoiselle, he said, turning to
Leonora, in a tone of insulting indifference, which drove all the blood
from my cheeks to the heart.
"I was opening my lips to give him an insulting answer, when Leonora
anticipated me. As soon as she had seen the new comer she had risen,
and stood now, pushing me gently back, between him and myself.
"'This gentleman,' she said, pointing at me, 'has a right to be here.'
"'What right?'
"'The right of one who has been unfortunate enough to love me once.'
"'Ah, mademoiselle,' replied the young man, smiling ironically, 'the
gentleman shares that misfortune with many others.'
"'Sir,' said I, 'whatever claims you may have upon mademoiselle, I have
older claims, and I cannot allow you to insult a lady to whom I was
once engaged in my presence.'
"'Ah,' said the young man; 'you were engaged to mademoiselle. It is not
possible! and now, I dare say, you propose to marry her, after I'--with
a glance at the furniture--'have had the folly to provide mademoiselle
with a trousseau. Very well conceived, upon my word!'
"'Stop, sir!' cried Leonora, rising to her full height, 'enough has
been said. You think you can control me, and insult me, because I have
accepted your presents. Here, I return you all you have ever given me.
There, and there, and there!' and she tore with feverish excitement the
gold bracelets and all the jewels she wore from her and threw them at
the feet of the young man.
"The passion with which she did this was too deep to be for a moment
misinterpreted, and evidently made a great impression upon the dandy.
'I have had enough of this.' he said. 'I shall see you again,
mademoiselle, here is my card, sir!' and he hastened to leave the room.
"'Come! come!' cried Leonora; 'not another moment will I stay here.
Rather at the bottom of the Seine than here!'
"'I took her at her word. I begged her to change her dress while I
wrote in her name a few lines to the Marquis de Saintonges--this was
the name of Leonora's lover--and placed the lodging, which he had
rented for Leonora, and everything he had ever given her, once more at
his disposal. We left the house, handed the keys to the porter, and
gave the letter into the hands of a messenger, who promised to deliver
it immediately, and a few hours afterwards I had settled all my
affairs, said farewell to my friends, and the city was several miles
behind us.
"Our journey was for the present not to be a very long one. A few
stations beyond Paris, Leonora became so unwell, we had to stop in a
little town. The physician who was called in was fortunately an able
man, and told me that mademoiselle, my sister (for such Leonora
appeared to be), was threatened with inflammation of the brain. His
diagnosis was unfortunately but too correct. The very next day the
terrible disease showed itself clearly. The poor sufferer raved in her
delirium of the hot orgies in the _Jardin aux Lilas_ and of the cool
shades in her native woods, of the Marquis de Saintonges, and other
Paris acquaintances, and of myself, now appearing as her guardian
angel, and now as an avenging demon, while I sat by her bedside and
meditated on our strange position. During my eager pursuit of Leonora I
had followed rather a blind impulse than very clear motives, and never,
in all my dreams, had it occurred to me that we might be placed in a
situation like that in which I now found myself. But amid all my
troubles one thought rose high above all doubt: I must never again quit
Leonora, if she should recover.
"After a little while symptoms appeared which gave us hope, and one
fine morning the physician brought me the news that a crisis had taken
place in the disease, and that Leonora was for the present out of
danger. 'Nevertheless,' he added, with a very serious expression, 'I
must not conceal it from you that, according to human calculations,
your sister is not destined to survive this attack very long. I
apprehend that her lungs are seriously affected; she must have been ill
a long time before I saw her. I do not know your circumstances, and
cannot tell, therefore, whether you will be able to follow my advice.
My advice is this: Go with your sister to a southern climate--to Italy;
if you can, to Egypt. In a less genial climate mademoiselle would
succumb in a very short time.'
"My resolution was instantly formed. I had nothing more to win and
nothing to lose in Germany, where my political cure was to be completed
by a prohibition to teach publicly during the next five years. My means
had been nearly consumed during my long wanderings; there was only a
small remnant left, but I might spend that sum just as well in Italy as
elsewhere; besides, I hoped to derive abroad some advantages from my
knowledge of languages; and, finally, I had no choice. I would have
rather endured extreme suffering than to omit doing anything that could
benefit Leonora. A few days later we were on our way to Italy.
"I settled down a few miles from Genoa, upon the coast of the glorious
Mediterranean. I was fortunate enough to obtain a few lessons in the
family of a rich Englishman, who had come to the place for the same
reasons which brought me there, and thus I was relieved of all anxiety
on the score of money. All the greater was my anxiety for Leonora.
"Our flight from Paris had been so sudden, and was for Leonora so
entirely the result of a momentary impulse--her sickness, following
immediately afterwards, had so completely broken down all her energies
that she had willingly acceded to all my arrangements, and was only now
coming to a clear understanding of our situation--I had not thought of
it at first, and became aware of it only now through Leonora's manner
towards me--that in this dependence on a man whom she had shamefully
betrayed, and in the constant company of him before whom she would have
loved to hide herself in the lowest depth, she suffered probably the
severest punishment that could have been inflicted upon a person in
whom the last spark of honor and self-respect was not extinguished.
Leonora did not hesitate to say so; but she added, 'the punishment is
severe but just; it was the only way, perhaps, to teach me how
grievously I had sinned against you.' While Leonora found thus a
soothing comfort for her conscience in her deep repentance, I had in my
unspeakable sorrow only one very modest consolation: to act towards
Leonora as my conscience dictated. I was at liberty to drain the cup of
sorrow to the very last drop. That was the fulfilment of all the
precious happiness of which I had dreamt so much in the golden days of
Fichtenau, and even later in the dark nights of my imprisonment in the
fortress! This pale, feeble form--that walked slowly along the
sea-coast in the evening sunlight, hanging on my arm and never lifting
up the weary head--she by whose sick-bed I sat watching day after day,
when sickness confined her in her room, and in whose broken heart it
had become my duty to pour soothing balm, of which I stood so much in
need myself--this was the girl whom I had chosen to be my wife, and in
whom I had worshipped, full of bright hopes, the mother of my children.
Oh, Oswald! Oswald! the most fanatical optimist might have been
appalled--the most orthodox soul might have been led to doubt if there
were not after all a great deal of truth in Voltaire's assertion, that
life was nothing but a _mauvaise plaisanterie_.
"And yet it was good for me to pass through this trial also. It was a
bitter medicine; but it cured me thoroughly of that disease which
others call joy of existence and pleasure in life.
"Leonora's humility in bearing her sufferings put me altogether to
shame. In proportion as the disease was destroying her bodily form, the
original beauty of her soul began to reappear. She had led a sinful
life; when she died, she died like a saint.
"It was late in the evening. I had carried the poor sufferer, who was
specially excited on that day, and anxiously yearned after air and
light, in my own arms from the fisherman's cottage which we occupied,
to the edge of the black basaltic rocks which here hang over the sea.
She was resting on a couch formed of cushions. The sun was setting in
resplendent magnificence, and just sinking into the sea. Not a breath
stirred the smooth surface of the waters, and the emerald and golden
lights which shone in the sky were purely and calmly reflected below,
as in a mirror. Upon the pale face of the patient also fell an
enchanting sheen--a rosy lie--the lie with which the sun and life scoff
at the night and at death. And in that hour Leonora took leave of the
sun and of life. She told me that she had always loved me, even at that
moment when vanity and folly had blinded her; that her whole life since
that day had been but a continuous effort to drown her remorse. She did
not desire to live, even if it were possible that I should ever love
her again. She felt herself to be unworthy of being my slave, much more
so of being my wife. She was shuddering at the mere thought. 'Oh never,
never more,' she continued, and her beautiful eyes shone with a
supernatural fire, 'never upon this earth, where I have so tearfully
sinned against you. But when this desecrated body has crumbled into
dust, and the soul has been freed from the fetters that bound it to the
dust, then I will hover around you, I will wait for you; and when you
come, your soul will kiss my soul, and by that kiss I shall know that
all has been atoned for, that all is forgotten and forgiven.'
"I told her that I had long since forgiven her fully, and that I now
loved her with a purer and holier love than in the days of our
happiness.
"I kissed, weeping, her white hands and her pale lips.
"'This is our wedding-day,' she whispered--'poor, poor man.' She sank
back upon the cushions.
"I carried her, quite exhausted, back to the cottage and to her bed.
"It was the last time.
"That night Leonora died."
Berger had risen, and Oswald had followed his example. The former was
entirely filled with the recollections which had just passed before his
mind's eye, clothed by his powerful imagination with all the accuracy
and clearness of reality; the latter thought of nothing but what he had
just heard; and thus both hardly noticed the road which led them
gradually higher and higher through the dark pine forests.
Thus they found themselves suddenly upon the bare top of the mountain,
which the people of the neighborhood call the Lookout, and which is by
far the highest all around among all the brothers and sisters.
The sun had set, but the western sky was still glowing in all the
splendor of the evening glory, and a faint reflex gave even to the
eastern horizon a faint, rosy tinge. Here and there one of the higher
mountain-tops, steeped in purple, looked after the parting light of the
day; but the larger valleys were already filled with gray shadows of
the evening, and whitish mists floated in the narrower glens. The
pine-trees, whose heads rose from below to a level with the travellers'
feet, stood calm and rigid, like a breathless multitude in anxious
expectation.
Berger gazed into the glow of the setting sun, resting on his stick,
and watching it as every instant some tinge vanished and another turned
pale. Oswald's eye hung upon his features, which seemed every moment to
become more and more spiritual. Was it the effect of the ghastly light,
or merely the expression of what was going on within? Suddenly Berger
dropped his cane, spread out his hands as if in prayer, and said:
"Mother Night, all-powerful original Night, from whose bosom the
creature tears itself away in mad desire to live, only in order to
return after long wanderings, penitent and humiliated, to your faithful
maternal heart, I hail you, even in this faint, earthly image! Yon
bottomless bourn of oblivion, yon sweet cradle of unbroken rest, how I
long for you with my whole heart! Oh, take it from me, this intolerable
burden of life; spare me the daily returning grief to open these weary
eyes to a light which they hate; take from me this remnant of dust,
which weighs me down with its sinfulness, and which becomes only the
more painful as it daily dwindles away! Let it, oh, let it quickly be
consumed! I know I could quickly come to you if I but took a single
step beyond the edge of this rock; but even if my bones were broken
into atoms below, my soul would find no rest, for it has still a few
drops left in the cup of life; perhaps--who can tell?--the very
bitterest of them all. No! no! get thee away from me, Satan, who
allurest me down into the abyss! The abyss is not death; life in all
its splendor, is true death. I know thy old tricks; thou didst try them
with the carpenter's son of Nazareth! But he rebuked thee and thy
temptations--honor, power, and the favor of women--all he rejected, in
order to hunger, to thirst, and not to have where he might lay his
head, to wash off the last remnant of earthly life in the bloody sweat
of the night on the Mount of Olives, and in order to die the death of a
murderer on the cross at Golgotha! Oh that I could go forth into all
the world, to preach the word, the sacred word, that frees us now and
forever--the word that leads us back again to our good, mild, dear
Mother Night, whom we have left in order to suffer infernal punishment
in the bright sun-glow of life, while our tongue is parched and our
temples are beating! The word, the holy, mysterious word, which has
become a mere mummery, a derision, and a mockery, in the vain show with
which they fancy they serve their God. Forgive them, oh Mother, for
they know not what they do; they would willingly come to you if they
had but ears to hear your sweet voice, and eyes to see your mild
beauty. I can see your holy face; its smile fills me with hope and
comfort. I can hear your voice; it whispers, 'wait, wait but a little
while, and you shall sink back into my faithful arms, back to eternal
peace.'"
The rosy hues had vanished from the sky; gray twilight was spreading
over the valleys, and the evening breeze began to whisper and to murmur
in the tops of the pine-trees.
Oswald was seized with vague terror. He felt as if that mystical Night,
which Berger had invoked in his strange prayer, was chilling him
already with a breath from the grave--as if the sun had set never to
rise again But this fear was not without a strange admixture of
delight. The narcotic fragrance of thoughts of death which had been
borne to him on Berger's ecstatic words, filled his heart, together
with the perfume of the heather and the aroma of the pines.
He thought of Helen and of Melitta, but not with the restless anxiety
of the morning, but in calm melancholy, as we think of the departed
whom we have loved. He thought of the troubles and blunders of his gay
drama in the château of Grenwitz, but it looked to him like a
puppet-show for children. He thought of the future, but it had no
longer any charms for him; it filled him neither with hope nor with
fear; it was as if his whole life were withdrawing from without, as if
the world were not worthy of so much love or so much hatred.
Thus he sat, resting his head on his hands, upon a large rock, and
looked out into the evening, which was spreading its dark wings wider
and wider over the heavens.
A hand was laid on his shoulder.
"Come!" said Berger, "let us return to the dead!"
They descended from the summit and plunged into the damp darkness of
the forest. Berger seemed to know every path and every stone in the
mountains. He went on, supporting himself every now and then with his
stout cane, at a pace which made it difficult for Oswald to follow him,
though he was considered a good pedestrian.
Thus they had reached a meadow lying in the very heart of the forest.
As they followed the edge of the wood they suddenly saw a light
glimmering on the opposite side. It came from the flame of a pile of
briars which had just been kindled. Within the bright circle of the
flames two persons were visible--a woman, as it seemed, and a child.
Oswald's sharp eyes confirmed him in a suspicion which had entered his
heart at the first glance.
They were Xenobia and Czika.
He hastened as fast as he could across the meadow towards the fire, but
he had hardly accomplished half the distance when he sank up to his
ankles into the morass. He saw that he could not go any further. He
cried as loud as he could: "Xenobia! Czika! it is I! Oswald!"
But his call had scarcely broken the peace of the silent forest when
the fire vanished, and with the fire the two forms he had seen.
All was quiet--quiet as death. Oswald might have imagined that his
fancy had played him a trick.
"What was the matter?" asked Berger, when Oswald joined him again.
"Did you not see the fire!"
"It was a will-o'-the-wisp in the swamp," replied Berger. "Let us go
on."
CHAPTER VIII.
It was completely dark when the two wanderers left the last spur of the
mountain, and reached the first houses of the village. Oswald, who was
for the first time in this region, and whose sense of locality was not
strongly developed, had of course allowed himself to be entirely guided
by Berger, and had expected that the latter would return by the nearest
road to Doctor Birkenhain's asylum. He was, therefore, not a little
surprised when he found out that they were approaching the town from
the opposite direction. There were the huge wagons laden with bales,
there was the wide court-yard with its hospitably open gates, there was
the green lamp burning in dismal dimness over the door of the house,
and casting a mournful light upon one-half of the leaden hat which had
once shone in all the splendor of oil-paint, but which had since passed
through many a storm, losing its youthful freshness under the action of
wind and weather and rain. There they heard in the low room to the
right of the hall, with its four tiny windows and its dim light, the
clinking of glasses, as thirsty guests knocked them impatiently against
each other, and the concentrated noise of some twenty male voices,
which were by no means delicate, and yet insisted upon being all heard
at once.
It would scarcely have needed all these unmistakable signs to convince
Oswald that he was near the hospitable roof of the Green Hat.
The sudden meeting with the gypsies in the forest had reminded him most
forcibly of this whole affair, which Berger's recital had nearly driven
from his mind.
He should have liked much to consult Berger in this matter, as the
latter had in former times given him frequent opportunities to admire
his skill in unravelling intricate situations and problematic
characters; but he was loth to trouble a mind which was constantly
seeking the truth in the mysterious depths of mysticism, with stories
in which Director Schmenckel was playing the most prominent part.
What was his amazement, therefore, when Berger suddenly stopped at the
door of the Green Hat, and said:
"I am thirsty; let us go in here for a moment!"
"Here?" inquired Oswald, who shrank from the idea of introducing the
dreamy, delicate man, with his horror of the mere odor of tobacco, to
such vulgar society. "The company in there is hardly suitable."
"What does that matter?" replied Berger. "Are they not the children of
men?"
With these words he entered through the open house-door into the halls
where yesterday the enthusiastic admirers of art had fought their
battle royal with their adversaries, and through the door of the room
which was also open into the coffee-room.
The appearance of the latter was nearly the same as on the previous
day, before and after the fight, only that the table at which the
artists had their seats was to-day much less sought after by the other
guests. The glory of artists is apt to fade quickly in the eyes of men
who still feel the smarting of the blows which they have received a day
before on account of this very glory, and who are prosaic enough to
recollect the number of glasses of beer which the artists have drunk at
their expense, solely for the purpose of not interfering with the
general good-temper of the company. Thus it came about that many who,
in their enthusiasm for art, had utterly forgotten their old friends in
the blue overalls and the heavy shoes, to-night joined them once more,
and granted to new comers the privilege of listening to Director
Schmenckel's long stories, and of paying his long bills.
Mr. Schmenckel was far too great a philosopher to lose his good humor
and his temper on account of this insulting desertion by his friends.
His fat face shone as bright as ever--it was redder than usual, even,
because its original color appeared still richer and more intense in
contrast with a few patches of black which had become indispensable in
consequence of his fight with Mamselle Adele. His swollen eyelids
winked at everybody as cunningly as ever, his linen was perhaps a shade
less white, but the suspenders had not lost a line of their width, and
none of the embroidered roses seemed to have suffered in the least.
And as rosy as this indispensable part of his wardrobe, was also the
temper of the man whose broad bosom it adorned.
"How do you like the beer, Cotterby?" he said, laying his broad hand
upon the shoulder of the man of the pyramids.
"Sour!" was the laconic reply; for the hero had received but meagre
applause to-day, since the genius in the oak-tree had not been there to
hallow his flight.
"Pshaw!" said Mr. Schmenckel, "you are spoilt, Cotterby. It is of
course not as good as you drink it in Egypt, but nevertheless it is
good, very good indeed. Your health gentlemen."
The director put the glass to his lips, but only swallowed a moderate
quantity, a circumstance which might have convinced the impartial
observer of the correctness of the judgment of the Flying Pigeon, whose
beer had not been paid for to-night by enthusiastic admirers of art.
At that moment Berger and Oswald entered the room and approached a
table at which the artists sat, because it had some vacant seats. Mr.
Schmenckel's observant eye had scarcely seen the new comers--whom he
recognized instantly as the insane young count of the day before, and
an old gray-bearded fellow of curious appearance whom the count had
picked up for his amusement after the escape of the gypsies--when he
rose from his seat, went up to Oswald, bowed low before him, and said,
with a voice which he intended should be distinctly heard all over the
room,
"Ah, your excellency, count, that is nice in you, that you come to call
upon a poor artist in his lowly inn. Sit down here by the side of
Director Schmenckel! Move on a little, Cotterby! That's it! Now,
gentlemen, take your seats; delighted to make your acquaintance, old
fellow, much honor. Two fresh glasses of beer for the gentlemen, and
one for Director Schmenckel! Empty your glass, Cotterby! So, now bring
four glasses! Who would have thought that we should have such excellent
company to-night?" and Mr. Schmenckel rubbed his hands with delight as
Oswald and Berger took seats in his immediate neighborhood.
"Well, here is the beer--fresh from the cask, my angel--well, all the
better! Here gentlemen! Your health, count, and your health also, old
man! Ah! that was the first mouthful I have relished this evening. Odd!
is it not? Bad company spoils good beer; good company makes bad beer
good! Am a lover of sociability, count. See that you are another. Will
you have the kindness to introduce me to the old gentleman? Director
Schmenckel likes to know with whom he has to do."
Oswald glanced at Berger to see what impression was made upon him by
this company and these surroundings, and to judge from that what he had
better do for Director Schmenckel. To his astonishment, Berger seemed
to listen to the prattle of the rope-dancer with some interest. He had
hung his hat upon the back of the chair, placed the cane by his side,
and was now leaning with both arms upon the table, exactly like one who
does not intend to leave the place very soon again.
"My name is Berger," he answered to the director's question.
"Professor Berger," added Oswald, with the good intention of making an
impression upon Mr. Schmenckel by the title, and to put, if possible, a
check upon his familiarity.
"Professor!" repeated Mr. Schmenckel, with a look at Berger's blue
blouse and ill-kept beard. "Ha! ha! ha! Very good! May I make you
acquainted with my friend Cotterby? Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, known
as the Flying Pigeon. Mr. Berger, known as Professor! Ha! ha! ha!"
"Shall we go again," inquired Oswald, who was seriously embarrassed by
Mr. Schmenckel's conduct.
"I think we had better stay a little longer," replied Berger.
"Your fist, old boy!" said Mr. Schmenckel, seizing Berger's small thin
hand and shaking it warmly. "I like you prodigiously. When your tile is
losing its glue, and your blouse is going to tatters completely, you
must come to me. Director Schmenckel will be delighted to receive a man
like you as a member of his company. Your beard alone is an ornament
for the whole land. You would create a sensation in a pantomime. What
did you think of our performance to-day, count?"
"I was unfortunately unable to see it," replied Oswald, encouraged by a
smile upon Berger's lips to continue the strange conversation.
"Oh, you have lost much, indeed very much," said the director in a tone
of sincere regret, shaking his huge head slowly to and fro. "The
performance was by far the finest we have given for a long time.
Director Schmenckel has convinced everybody that the absence of
a few estimable members of his company could in no wise impair the
general efficiency of the same. I do not mean myself--although the
world-renowned Schmenckel-act, with three cannon-balls of forty-eight
pounds each, has never yet been imitated by anybody in this world, and
my _fontaine d'argent_, with ten silver balls, is as yet unequalled.
But, gentlemen, you ought to have seen Mr. Cotterby on the trapeze; I
tell you the ring-tailed apes of the Island of Sumatra are miserable
bunglers in comparison--absolutely miserable bunglers! And then Mr.
Stolsenberg with his gigantic cask! I tell you--come nearer,
Stolsenberg. An artist such as you are need not be so very modest, and
the count here does not mind another glass of beer, or even several he
is not like ordinary men. And then Mr. Pierrot, as contortionist!--come
this way, Pierrot! Artists ought always to keep to each other. I tell
you, count, your penknife is a ramrod in comparison with Mr. Pierrot. I
have said it again and again: Pierrot, if we ever should travel by rail
together, I mean to pay only for myself; I shall put you in my hat-box.
Ha! ha! ha! A clever idea! Is it not, count? But the professor's glass
is empty; and by all the Powers! mine is empty too! I verily believe
that man Stolsenberg has secretly emptied my glass, and his own into
the bargain! You had better drink yours too, Pierrot. You will save the
pretty waiting-maid some trouble. Here, my angel, five fresh glasses;
but really fresh, my beauty--fresh, like the roses on your cheeks. Fond
of pretty women, count?--such a pretty child, with brown eyes, dark
hair, and a slight, graceful person, like Czika? Eh? Just let her grow
a few years older and you'll see something; she'll give you pleasure!"
"Have you any news about them?" asked Oswald.
Mr. Schmenckel, who had not the remotest idea of what could have become
of the two gypsies, but who considered it wrong to destroy all hope of
meeting the last object of his mad fancy in the heart of a man who was
immensely rich and passionately fond of young gypsy-children, winked
cunningly with his swollen eyes, put his fat finger against his nose,
and said: "Are not far from here, in the woods--have certain
information--can get her when I want her--don't want her, though--women
must have time to get over their tantrums--then they come of their own
account, and are thoroughly cured of their fancies. Yes, you have to
know them well! Women are troublesome people to deal with, only they
are all alike--and yet not one is like the other. What do you think
about that, old boy?"
"I think you a great philosopher, from whom one might learn a great
deal yet," replied Berger, looking with a curious smile into Mr.
Schmenckel's face.
"Well, I should think so," said the director, throwing out his
capacious chest and resting his hands on his hips. "Mr. Schmenckel, of
Vienna, knows where the hare burrows, and the man who wants to lead him
astray has to rise early in the morning. But, by all the Powers! it is
no wonder after all if I know rather better than others how the world
wags; I have been shaken about in it, upside and down, round and round
and round, like a cork in an empty bottle."
"An empty bottle," said Berger. "That's a capital comparison; perfectly
correct. How did you get hold of that?"
"How I got hold of it?" replied the director with an air of
astonishment. "How I got hold of it? Probably, because I have an empty
glass standing before me. Ha, ha, ha."
"It looks as if you had not been displeased, so far, with the beverage
of life," said Berger, while Mr. Schmenckel made use of the interval,
till the new glass of beer could come, to fill his short clay pipe.
"Well, and why not?" replied the director, lighting his pipe at the
flame of the tallow candle that stood near him on the table, and
disappearing for a few moments from the sight of the by-standers in
thick, blue clouds. "Life is a prodigiously funny thing for a man who
knows what's what, like Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna. Thanks, my
angel!"
"I am not your angel, sir," said the girl, snappishly, as she pushed
back violently the arm with which Mr. Schmenckel had embraced her
waist, and cast a stolen glance at Oswald.
Mr. Schmenckel's only reply to this insulting correction was this: he
pressed the five finger-tips of his right hand against his thick lips
and cast a kiss after the girl as she slipped out, and then, closing
his left eye, winked cunningly with the other at Oswald, who was
sitting on the opposite side.
"Nice girl, your excellency, isn't she? Pretends to eat me up alive,
and is head over ears in love with me."
"You seem to be very successful with ladies," said Oswald, merely in
order to say something.
"Well, can't complain, your excellency," said Mr. Schmenckel, laughing
complacently. "Women are like the weather. To-day too hot, and
to-morrow too cold; to-day sunshine, and to-morrow rainy weather. Must
take everything as it comes from them, just as from the Great One
above."
"I should think that depended solely upon yourself," said Berger, whose
look dwelt imperturbably upon his jovial companion, as if his mind
could not comprehend so remarkable a phenomenon.
"How so, old fellow? You think I should let them alone, every one of
them? Well, old gentleman, that might do very well for you; but of
Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna, you cannot expect such a thing. The
deuce! Leave them alone? Why, I had rather be dead and buried!"
"That would certainly be the best of all," said Berger.
"Look here, old gentleman," replied the director, with an effort to be
serious, which sat very oddly upon him. "Don't commit such a sin! I
tell you again, life is a mighty good thing, and we must not paint the
devil's likeness on the wall. Oh, pshaw! Why do you let your beer grow
stale, and make a face like a tanner whose skins have been washed down
the stream? Come, drink a glass with Caspar Schmenckel! Well, that's
right! Schmenckel is a merry fellow, and likes to be in company with
merry fellows. Well, gentlemen, what do you say, shall we have a nice
song? Cotterby, you have a voice like a nightingale! Come, fall in!
Does your excellency know the song of the midges?"
"No; but let us hear it."
"Well, here goes; Stolsenberg, Pierrot, fall in!"
And Mr. Schmenckel took the pipe from his mouth, leaned back in his
chair, and began with a tremendous bass voice, while his three friends
sang chorus:
"Good morning, fiddler,
Why are you so late?
Retreating, advancing,
The midges are dancing,
With the little killekeia
With the big cumcum.
"Then came the women,
With scythe and sickle,
To keep the midges
From dancing like witches,
With the little killekeia,
With the big cumcum."
"Well, gentlemen, isn't that a fine song?" cried Mr. Schmenckel, after
having finished off the remarkable air by pummelling the table with
both hands so that the glasses began to dance.
"Very fine," said Berger; "do you know any more?"
"Hundreds," replied Mr. Schmenckel, "but Mr. Cotterby knows the best.
Sing us a solo, Cotterby."
The Egyptian smiled complacently, twisted his small, jet-black
moustache, and passed his hand through his dark, well-oiled hair,
leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes half, and began in quite a
pleasant tenor voice:
"A peasant had a pretty wife,
She loved to stay at home,
She begged her husband by her life,
To go abroad and roam,
Through the grass and through the hay,
Through the grass--alas!
Ha, ha, ha; ha, ha, ha; hideldeedee!
Hurrah! hurrah!
To go abroad, and in the grass."
"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the director. "That is a good song--very good.
That reminds me of a pretty story, which I will tell if you say so,
gentlemen. You can finish the song afterwards, Cotterby."
The Egyptian seemed to take it rather amiss that he was thus
interrupted; but Mr. Schmenckel did not notice it, or did not choose to
notice it. He took a long pull at his glass of beer, and said to the
waiting maid, whom the song or the presence of the young, distinguished
stranger had brought back to the table,
"You go a little outside, my angel. The story which Director Schmenckel
is going to tell is not made for young girls."
The pretty girl blushed up to her ears and ran away, looking back for a
moment at Oswald. Mr. Schmenckel cleared his voice, leaned over the
table, and began with a voice which sounded all the hoarser for his
efforts to subdue it:
"Gentlemen, you know that all thinking men divide women into two
classes--such as serve, and such as are served. But love knows no such
distinction, for love masters them all. I have myself experienced this
very often in life, but it has never become quite so clear to me as
some----" Here Mr. Schmenckel looked almost anxiously around, to see
that no unauthorized ear, especially no female ear, should catch the
chronological fact which he was about to mention. "Some twenty years
ago, in St. Petersburg. Have any of the gentlemen ever been in St.
Petersburg?"
They said no.
"How did you get to St. Petersburg?" inquired the hopeful son of a
citizen of Fichtenau, who had in the meanwhile joined the company.
"Schmenckel, of Vienna," replied the director, in a dogmatic tone of
voice, "has been everywhere. You may expect him, therefore, at any
place on earth. St. Petersburg, gentlemen, is a beautiful city, as you
may judge from the fact that the palaces of the emperor and of all the
great nobles are cut of blue and white ice, which shines brilliantly in
the sun."
"How can that be," inquired again the man from Fichtenau; "don't they
melt in summer?"
"In summer," said Mr. Schmenckel, by no means taken aback; "in summer?
Why, what are you thinking of? I tell you, sir, in St. Petersburg there
is no summer. Snow and ice, ice and snow, all the year round, from one
New Year's Eve to the next New Year's Eve. You have no idea, in your
country here, of such a cold; the human mind can't conceive it. I tell
you, the breath from your mouth falls instantly as snow to the ground,
and when two persons have been talking to each other for some time in
the street, a heap is formed between them so high that when they part
they have to climb up in order to be able to shake hands. Why, it is so
cold there that the milk freezes in the cow; and when you say: here,
give me a glass of beer, or a little mug-full, the Petersburg people
say: give me a slice, for the beer freezes into a thick syrup, and is
not poured out, but cut into long, thin slices, put upon buttered
bread, and eaten in that way."
"That must be quite uncomfortable," remarked the oldest guest of the
Green Hat.
"Every land has its ways," replied Mr. Schmenckel.
"But we know that expression, too," said the fat landlord, who had come
up to the table.
"Well, then, just let me have a slice, my good man," said Mr.
Schmenckel, draining his glass and handing it over his shoulder to the
landlord, "but Christian measure, if you please!
"In one word," continued the director, after he had graciously accepted
the applause which his wit received as a tribute due to his
superiority, and after trying cautiously the contents of the new glass,
"in a word, St. Petersburg is a fine city, and when you see how the sun
glitters on all the ice palaces, and how the Russians, wrapped in their
bearskins, drive furiously through the streets in their sleighs with
four reindeers abreast, you feel as if your heart was laughing within
you with delight, and you must go into the nearest shop to take a good
glass of gin.
"Well, then, we were in St. Petersburg, and liked it mightily. We--that
is to say, the famous circus company of my uncle, who was the director,
Francis Schmenckel, and myself, who had the honor to be engaged as
Hercules--I can say that we created a sensation, especially our horses;
for the Russians know horses only from hearsay. The emperor alone has
two or three shaggy creatures that look like big dogs in his stables.
Everybody else, as I said before, drives only reindeer--even the
cavalry is mounted in that way; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that a
Russian cuirassier of the guards, mounted on his reindeer stallion, is
not so bad a sight after all.
"We had immense audiences. The emperor and the whole court were every
evening at the circus. His majesty applauded so furiously that he had
to put on a new pair of white kid gloves every five minutes, because he
had torn the others to pieces. During the entire act I had to be on my
post at the door of the Imperial box, so that I could show his majesty
the way behind the scenes and into the stables, where his majesty
condescended to pat the best animals most graciously on the neck, and
to pinch the cheeks of the handsomest ladies in the company, with his
own hand. But more than anybody else did I enjoy the emperor's favor. I
cannot tell exactly why! I only know that the emperor sent for me to
his box the very first night, and said to me before the whole court:
'Mr. Schmenckel, you are not only the strongest but also the handsomest
man I have ever seen. Ask a favor!' 'Your majesty,' I replied, bowing
gracefully, 'I ask only for a continuance of your favor, which I esteem
above all things else.' 'That you shall have, and patents of nobility
into the bargain,' exclaimed his majesty, most enthusiastically. 'Give
me your strong hand, Mr. von Schmenckel; with a company of men like
yourself, I would dictate laws to the whole world.'
"From that moment we were sworn friends. 'Mr. Schmenckel, come this
evening and take a cup of caravan tea with me! Will you drink a glass
of wutki punch with me to-night, after the performance is over? dear
von Schmenckel. You know, quite _entre nous_, perhaps, a few ladies and
gentlemen of my court. Will you come?' That was the way, day by day.
"Well, gentlemen, Mr. Schmenckel, of Vienna, is not a proud man, but he
likes to be in good company----"
Here Mr. Schmenckel made a courteous bow to the bystanders, and
continued:
"And an emperor is, after all, always an emperor, and it is a pleasure,
which I will not deny, to be on such terms of intimacy with such a man.
"Those were famous evenings which I spent, so to say, in the bosom of
the imperial family. The gentlemen of the court were very pleasant
people, and the ladies----"
Mr. Schmenckel closed his eyes, kissed his hand toward! the ceiling,
and sent a deep sigh after the winged messenger of his love. "The
ladies! I tell you, gentlemen, he who has not seen the women of Russia,
has not seen any women at all. Such hair, such eyes, such figures, such
fire; and if Schmenckel of Vienna, was to live four thousand years, he
would never forget the winter in St. Petersburg!
"The Russian women are beautiful, and you may feel a little twitch of
envy, gentlemen, when I tell you that I had the pick among the fairest
of the fair. You may think that sounds like brag, gentlemen, but I
cannot help it, it was so. They sent me whole wagon-loads of locks of
hair, bouquets and little notes, which always began thus: 'Divine
Schmenckel, or Apollo Schmenckel,' and always ended thus: 'Meet me at
such and such a place, at such and such an hour.'
"But, as it happens most frequently in such cases, she whose favor I
should have valued most highly was not one of my admirers. This was a
young and very beautiful lady, whom I saw every evening at the circus;
but she always assumed a prodigiously haughty and reserved air,
although I invariably made her a special bow when they applauded.
"'How do you like our ladies?' the emperor asked me one evening as we
were walking, arm-in-arm, up and down the reception room.
"'So so! your majesty,' I replied, for discretion was always Caspar
Schmenckel's special gift.
"'You are hard to please,' said the emperor. 'How do you like the
little Malikowsky?'
"'What name was that?' suddenly asked Berger, who had been sitting
immovable, his brow buried in his hand, and who now, for the first
time, raised his head.
"Malikowsky, old gentleman," repeated Mr. Schmenckel. "Another Russian
slice, landlord. With your leave, gentlemen. I'll fill my pipe once
more."
Oswald looked at Berger. He felt as if a strange nervous twitching was
agitating his calm, serious features, and as if the eyes betrayed an
unusual excitement but the next moment Berger had again hid his brow in
his hand. Mr. Schmenckel continued his story:
"'The little Malikowsky?' I asked. 'Who is she?'
"'Have you never noticed a lady in black who sits very near the
imperial box? Pale face, large eyes, chin rather long?'
"'Certainly, your majesty; but she seems to be a shy bird.'
"'Nonsense! dear Schmenckel; sheer nonsense! Between us be it said, the
lady once stood in somewhat nearer relations to our house than I liked.
We have given her a husband, a Polish nobleman who was ruined; her
reputation was not very good, his is very bad; he has nothing, she has
half a million souls----'"
"How much is that in Prussian money?" inquired the fat habitué of the
Green Hat, who kept a grocery-store in the town.
"Five million dollars, twenty-six silver groschen, and fourpence--'thus
they suit each other exactly. When she wants to get rid of him for a
time, she sends him to his estates in Poland. Just now he is again on
his travels. You had better make a conquest of her, and I will say then
that Schmenckel, of Vienna, is not only the strongest and the
handsomest, but also the luckiest man on earth.'
"'Your majesty's wish is my command,' I replied, and went home
considering how I could win the heart of the beauty. 'Only by doing
something which no man ever yet has been able to do,' I said to myself,
and then, gentlemen, it was I invented the famous Schmenckel-act, with
the three cannon balls of forty-eight pounds each. On the first evening
I played with one of them as with a boy's ball--she smiled; on the
second I played with two--she clapped her tiny hands; on the third I
played with all three of them--she threw me a bouquet. I was sure
of my success now. But here, gentlemen, I must beg you to excuse
me if I follow my invariable custom when a lady is mentioned in my
recollections, and if I only suggest, therefore, in a general way, that
the same evening a pretty maid presented herself at my rooms and asked
me to follow her to her mistress who was dying of love for me. I may
add that Schmenckel, of Vienna, has too good a heart to let anybody die
for him, and least of all for love for him, if he can help it, and that
the next four weeks belonged to the happiest of his whole life."
"You are a fortunate man, director," said the native of Fichtenau, who
had been for four years secretly in love with the daughter of an
alderman, and had already triumphed so far over all obstacles as to
have obtained, almost, a kiss from her.
"As you take it, young man," replied Mr. Schmenckel, with paternal
benevolence, "where there is much light, there must also be dark
shadows. I ought properly to let my story end here, but I suppose I
must finish it for the benefit of such young hot-blooded creatures as
you are. Master Miller, and you Cotterby, you abominably fast man, and
you Pierrot, the greatest scamp I know. Well, just listen, gentlemen!
The pretty maid was not less passionately fond of me than her mistress,
for, as I said just now, in that matter of love all the women are alike
What happens, therefore? One fine evening, as I was drinking my cup of
tea with the lady--in all honor and propriety, gentlemen, upon my word
of honor--somebody suddenly knocks with great violence at the door
which leads into the count's apartment, and which was locked from
inside. 'Open the door! open the door!----'
"'Great God, the count!' whispered the countess, pale with terror.
'Nadeska has betrayed us.'
"'Open the door'--and here followed a fearful oath--'open the door!'
"'Well,' said I, 'that's a nice predicament; what's to be done next?'
"'Schmenckel, you must save me.'
"'With pleasure; but how?'
"'I'll slip into my chamber, and lock the door behind me.'
"'Very good; but what am I to do?'
"'You have broken into the house, through that window'--and as she said
this she opened the window, took the candelabra with the lights, passed
through the second door, locked it, and began to cry as loud as she
could--'Help! Help! Thieves!'
"Well, gentlemen, just imagine my position, if you can. Before I could
collect my five senses the door was broken open, and the count rushed
in, holding two pistols in his hands, and five men-servants with lights
and big sticks behind him."
"How did the count look?" Berger asked in a low voice, without raising
his head.
"Well, old gentleman, I had not exactly time to look closely at him. I
only know that he was a fine-looking, tall man, with a pair of eyes
that fairly burnt with fury. 'Ah, I have caught you, rascal?' he cried.
Crack! went a ball past my left ear--crack! and another ball went past
my right ear. Well, gentlemen, that was, after all, a little too
strong, and not exactly the way to make Caspar Schmenckel's
acquaintance. What could I do? I seized the count around the body, and
threw him out of the window; and in case he should have broken
something in falling, I threw one of the servants right after him. The
others were frightened and ran away as fast as they could. I ran after
them through the other rooms across the hall and down the stairs, and,
gentlemen, when I had gotten so far I found the way into the street
easily enough by myself. How do you like my story, professor?" and Mr.
Schmenckel put his broad hand upon Berger's shoulder.
Berger raised his head. His face was deadly pale, his eyes were rolling
fearfully, his gray hair hung down into his face.
"If you can tell the truth, man," he said, with weird-sounding voice,
"answer me; have you told the truth?"
"I believe the old gentleman has taken a little too much," said Mr.
Schmenckel, good-naturedly.
"Yes, I have drunk too much," cried Berger, gesticulating violently
with his hands--"too much of the wretched beverage of this miserable
life, which is utterly good for nothing, and the liquor has gotten into
my head. Ha! ha! ha!"
It was a terrible laughter; but the half-drunk visitors thought it
highly amusing.
"Oh, ho! the professor is taking to it very kindly," cried Mr.
Schmenckel, holding his sides. "Speech, speech! Let the professor give
us a speech!"
Oswald had jumped up and stood by Berger's side. He tried in his
anxiety to calm the over-excited man, and to persuade him to leave the
house.
Berger paid no attention to him. He stood there, leaning with both his
hands upon the table, as Oswald had seen him do so often in his
lecture-room.
"Write, gentlemen," he said, "this is the quintessence of the long
syllogism, the parts of which I have just explained to you:
"I climbed on a pear-tree,
I wanted to dig beets,
Then have I all my life
Eaten no better plums.
"You will say that this is not a speculative idea, but an old drinking
song; but, gentlemen, in a world where good people are made fun of, and
led by the nose by impudent demons--where folly with the fool's cap on
the head is ruling supreme, and causes its lofty conceptions to be
executed by stupidity, vulgarity, and brutality--there speculation
becomes a drinking song, and the idea--the grand, all-sublime
idea--why, you are the idea yourselves, gentlemen, rough, vulgar
fellows as you are."
"Oh, ho! old man, I won't stand that," cried Mr. Schmenckel, who could
hardly laugh any longer.
"Yes indeed, yourself," continued Berger, growing more and more
violent. "You, Director Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna, you represent the
justice of heaven! The idea can do nothing without you; you are the
idea, the incarnate idea. I told you life was good for nothing, but
no--that is saying too much--it is worthy of you. I detest you, but I
honor you; I shudder at the sight of you, but I worship you. Come into
my arms, that I may measure the depths of this wretchedness, that I may
touch with my own hands the incredible."
"Come to my heart, old boy," cried Mr. Schmenckel returning the
embrace. "You are a trump--a perfect brick; let us be brothers."
He let go Berger and seized his glass.
At the same moment Berger fell, pressing his hand upon his heart, with
a fearful cry, and fainted away.
It was a fearful cry indeed--like the cry for help of a drowning man at
the instant of sinking--a cry that was heard high above the din in the
room, that silenced all the chatting and chaffing, and made the
drinkers jump up from their seats in utter consternation. They crowded
around the fallen man, and glared with stupid, half-drunken eyes at
him, as Oswald tried in vain to raise him from the floor. No one lent a
hand to assist the young man. The fright seemed to have paralyzed the
crowd.
"Will nobody help me?" cried Oswald, supporting the burden of the
lifeless body in his arms.
These words were addressed to Mr. Schmenckel, who until now had been
quietly standing near, with open mouth and fixed eyes, his pipe in one
hand, the glass of beer in the other.
Oswald's appeal brought him back to his senses.
"You are right, count," he said, "we must do something for the old
gentleman."
He put his pipe on the table, took Berger, who was still unconscious,
from Oswald's arms, lifted him without effort on his shoulder, and
carried him out of the room as a lion bears off a dead gazelle.
Oswald and the landlord followed him.
"Here, come in here," said the landlord, opening the door of the room
on the opposite side of the hall, where more distinguished guests were
commonly received.
Mr. Schmenckel laid the patient on the sofa.
"The old gentleman had an empty stomach," said Director Schmenckel,
whispering his information gravely into Oswald's ear, while the latter
was busy about Berger.
"Your excellency ought to have made him eat a good slice of ham with
brown bread, and a glass of brandy."
Berger began to stir. He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly at the
by-standers, like somebody who is awaking from a heavy dream. Then he
rose fully, with Oswald's assistance, and said in a low voice:
"I thank you, my friends. I have given you much trouble. We are
dependent one on the other in this life. I hope I shall soon meet you
again; perhaps I may be able then to reciprocate your kindness. Come,
Oswald, let us go."
"Do you feel strong enough? Had we not better send for a carriage?"
"Oh no! Horses and carriages are not for people like me."
He went to the door. Suddenly he stopped again.
"Pay the people what we owe them, Oswald; we must not remain in
anybody's debt on this earth."
Oswald paid the landlord his bill, including in it, to Mr. Schmenckel's
evident satisfaction, all that the ropedancers had consumed.
A few moments afterward he and Berger had left the house and were
walking slowly through the silent streets of Fichtenau, back to Doctor
Birkenhain's asylum.
Berger observed a silence which Oswald dared not break. The young man
reproached himself in secret to have been so imprudent as to have left
Berger so long in such company. He ascribed his exaltation mainly to
the heat and the drinking of the strong beer, to which he was not
accustomed. He had no suspicion of the close connection between
Berger's history and the grotesque adventures of the circus-director,
whose story he had scarcely heard. He only thought of Dr. Birkenhain,
and how little he had attended to his suggestions. He was reflecting
whether his presence was not perhaps rather injurious than useful for
Berger, and thought of leaving Fichtenau as soon as possible, for his
own benefit as well as for Berger's.
Thus they had reached in silence the road which led past the mill to
the gateway of Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, when Berger suddenly said:
"You must leave us to-night, Oswald!"
"To-night?"
"Rather to-day than to-morrow. You have to go out into the desert once
more; I cannot spare you the trial. And I, myself--I have to learn much
yet, and you cannot assist me. It is better for us, therefore, to part.
You go your way, and I shall go my way--it is the same road and
although I am a little ahead of you, you learn quickly and will soon
overtake me. Until then, Oswald farewell!"
Berger embraced Oswald and kissed him.
Oswald was deeply moved.
"Let me stay with you," he said, his voice half-drowned in tears; "let
me stay with you and never leave you again. I hate the world, I despise
the world, as much as you do."
"I know that," said Berger, "but to despise the world is but the first
stage of the three on the road to the Great Mystery."
"And which is the second stage? Mention it, so that I may reach it at
once!"
"To despise one's self."
"And--the third?"
They were standing before the gateway. Berger rang the bell; the door
sprang open.
"And the third--the last stage?"
"Despise being despised."
"And the mystery itself--the Great Mystery?"
"He who has passed all three stages knows it and understands it without
asking any questions. He who asks about it does not know it, and cannot
understand it. Oswald, farewell; we shall meet again!"
Berger pressed Oswald once more to his heart; then he entered through
the gate, which closed immediately upon him.
Oswald remained standing near the gate, like the beggar who has been
refused the refreshing drink for which he has asked; then he went, with
drooping head, back the way he had come with Berger.
The night was dark; hardly a star on the murky, cloudy sky; the poplars
by the wayside were whispering to each other; and the mill-race down
below said in its own way: To despise the world--to despise one's
self--to despise being despised.
CHAPTER IX.
During the time when Oswald and Berger had watched the sun from the
summit of the Lookout Mountain, as he sank slowly into the green ocean
of the forest, a guest had arrived at the Kurhaus, whose arrival caused
a certain joyous sensation in the hotel. It was a fair young lady,
dressed in a dark, remarkably elegant costume, and accompanied by a not
less handsome boy of about twelve years, who looked, however, pale and
sickly. With them came an old man, whose gray moustache and military
carriage gave him a very marked appearance, and who seemed to be partly
a servant and partly a friend of the lady. The lady had spent several
weeks in Fichtenau during the summer, though then without the boy, in
order to attend her husband, who had been for seven years in Doctor
Birkenhain's asylum, and who was now dying. Her sad fate, not less than
her great gentleness and kindness towards everybody, especially the
poor and the sick, had won her the love and admiration of the
inhabitants of the little town to such a degree that even now they were
blessing, in more than one family, the remembrance of the "good lady"
with deep gratitude.
It did not look as if this time, also, a pleasant purpose had brought
the lady to Fichtenau, for she had scarcely been shown by the landlord
himself, amid countless bows and scrapings, into the best parlor of the
second story, when she sat down to write a few lines to Doctor
Birkenhain, which the old servant had orders to carry immediately to
the asylum, a hotel servant showing him the way. In the meantime the
boy, who was exceedingly tired from the journey, had been put to bed.
Two rooms to the left of the parlor had been fitted up for the lady's
use, and great regret was expressed that unfortunately the room on the
right could not at once be added, since it was yet occupied by a
gentleman, who, however, would certainly not stay beyond the next
morning.
An hour later Doctor Birkenhain had driven up before the Kurhaus with
the old servant by his side; he had gone up to the lady in her parlor,
and had been engaged with her in a long conversation, which could not
have been very satisfactory, for Jean, the waiter attached to those
rooms, had seen, when he carried the tea-things into the parlor, that
the lady had been weeping, and was trying to wipe her eyes.
Doctor Birkenhain had, after the conversation was ended, walked up once
more to the bed of the boy, who was fast asleep, had put his hand on
his heart, bent over him, and pressing his ear on the boy's bare
breast, listened attentively for some time. Then he raised himself
again, carefully covered the sleeper, pushed the abundant curly hair
from the fair, pale brow, and turning to the lady with a smile on his
lips which positively lighted up the stern, serious features of the
man, said to her, while she held a light in her hand and looked up to
him with the strained expression of painful uncertainty,
"Calm yourself, madame; I can, of course, not decide positively, but
all that I have seen so far gives me great hope that matters are not
half as bad with our little patient there as my colleagues in Grunwald
seem to have fancied."
A beam of joy lighted up the lady's face, and her large eyes filled
with tears.
Doctor Birkenhain took the light from her hand and escorted her back to
the parlor.
"I shall come again to-morrow morning," he said, taking his hat and
cane; "if it comforts you, you can let old Baumann sit up with the boy.
But you yourself must go to bed early, and take one of these powders.
You are very much exhausted and require rest."
"Stay another moment, doctor!" said the lady. "I have one more question
to ask."
Her features betrayed great emotion, her bosom rose and sank with
agitation; she seemed to be about to give utterance to a thought which
she was unable from great fear to clothe in words.
Doctor Birkenhain laid dawn again his hat and cane.
"Sit down, madame, I pray you!" he said, sitting down by her side on
the sofa. "I know what you are about to ask. I have read the question
all this evening in your anxious eyes and upon your trembling lips. You
do not believe in the disease of the heart, of which the physicians at
Grunwald have said so much; if you did you would not have come to me,
however kindly you may think of my modest knowledge and my experience.
You fear the evil is more serious--in fact, that it is a hereditary
disease, the first germ, the beginning, of an affection which has
already once been so fatal for you. Am I right?"
The lady's answer was a flood of tears, which broke irresistibly from
her eyes, like a long pent-up torrent. Sobbing, she pressed her
handkerchief to her face.
"My dear madame," said the physician, taking her hand in his, "I pray
you, I implore you, calm yourself. As far as I can judge from the
written reports of my colleagues, from your own account, and from my
observation, there is not the slightest ground for your terrible
apprehension. Insanity is hereditary, to be sure; it descends through
many generations, turning up here and there, often after a long
interval; but in your husband's family his own case is the very first
in the whole history of his family, and consequently for many hundred
years. And this exceptional case had its own peculiar and very sad
causes, which could affect only the individual, and could not possibly
have any effect upon his descendants. Herr von Berkow was naturally in
the enjoyment of very good health, perhaps even superior in his
physique to most men; but remember, I pray that it is a physician who
is speaking now--he had ruined this powerful constitution by
dissipation. That which often saves others in his position--the
marriage with a chaste, pure being--became in his case his ruin, for he
felt his own unworthiness--felt it so deeply that he despaired of ever
winning your love or attaining your forgiveness, and therefore
abandoned himself hopelessly to that melancholy in which he quickly
lost all pleasure in life and all energy of mind. The sins of the
father will not be visited on the next generation. If there should
really be an affection of the heart, it has as yet made very little
progress and can easily be cured, with the aid of Julius's youth and
excellent constitution. Therefore I pray you, madame, lay aside all
your anxiety; confide in me; confide in your good fortune; the clouds
that are hiding your star for a moment will soon disappear."
"My star?" asked the lady, with a melancholy smile; "my star? Why,
doctor, I fear, if there ever was such a one, it has set long since and
forever."
"That we shall see," said Doctor Birkenhain, rising. "I believe in
favorable stars, and above all in your good star. One so fair and so
dear and so good as you are must not and shall not be unhappy! Good
night!"
Doctor Birkenhain took the lady's hand, raised it reverently to his
lips, and left the room.
She remained sitting after the physician had left her, resting her head
in her hand, and sunk in deep meditation.
As in a dream, all the scenes of her life passed before her mind's eye.
She saw herself a rosy-cheeked, wild child, playing in her father's
park with a solemn, awkward boy, whom she at times loved dearly and
then again hated bitterly; who, now haughty and imperious, resisted her
caprices, and then, when she was kinder to him, spared no trouble and
feared no danger in order to fulfil her childish wishes. She saw
herself, a few years later, in company with the same boy and a few
other boys and girls, perform very complicated steps in the large room
of her father's chateau, while a poor man accompanied them with the
violin, and the grown people, men and women, expressed their delight
and overwhelmed the little coquette with praises and caresses; and she
saw the boy, whose awkwardness she had ridiculed and derided in her
exuberance of spirits, sit in a distant corner and weep bitterly. She
saw herself again, a few years later, in the fresh brightness of a
beauty of sixteen years, courted and admired on all sides,
thoughtlessly sipping the sweet, precious beverage from the
rose-crowned cup of life with eager thirst; flitting from pleasure to
pleasure, as a light-winged butterfly flits from flower to flower, and
yet feeling, amid all these blissful enjoyments, in her heart's deepest
depth, a continuous restlessness, which made the golden Present appear
gray and colorless in comparison with the bright-colored, glorious
Future, which was to fulfil all her plans and all her hopes. She had
lost sight of the solemn, awkward boy in those days. What could he have
done in the midst of this fairy world, full of brightness and
fragrance, in which nightingales sang, and all were playful and happy.
But the Future had become the Present, and nothing had been fulfilled
of all her promises; a poisonous dew had fallen upon her bright
flowers, and had robbed them of their beauty and their fragrance; the
nightingales had ceased to sing, and the whole spring landscape was
concealed under a gray, dismal veil--a veil through which now and then
fearful scenes became visible--a father kneeling before his daughter
and beseeching her by his gray head, which he must bury in dishonor if
she did not comply with his wishes to marry a man whom she does not
love, and against whom an instinctive feeling warns the pure, innocent
maid; a husband who--away, away with these fearful visions, which make
the unfortunate woman hide her face with shuddering, even now, after an
interval of so many years. And then she sees once more the form of the
solemn, stubborn boy in the shape of a haughty, cold man, who yet,
whenever he meets her, changes his haughtiness into humility, and his
coldness into unspeakable kindness and love; who assists her with
counsel, comfort, and help; who turns aside whatever harm he can avert,
and helps her bear it where he cannot prevent it; who ever tries to
take everything upon his own shoulders. And now the thought occurs to
her, more and more frequently, that, after all, this man is probably
worth more than all her fantastic dreams; but as yet she cannot, by any
effort of her own, abandon all the ideals that once filled her youthful
heart. She treats the man as she has treated the boy; she sends him on
his travels as she used to send him in the garden, when he was not
willing to fall in with her caprices.
And now come peaceful visions of years spent in the green solitude of
her estate, and among them continually re-appearing the forms of a
fair, delicate boy and an old gray-bearded servant in varied and yet
always similar situations--peaceful visions, although a certain
fragrance of melancholy attaches itself to all their bright perfumes,
the effect of unsatisfied longing and vain hopes. She thinks often
enough of the man whom she has sent into exile, but no longer with the
warm heart, which is in truth ashamed of its ingratitude. Some
bitterness has begun to mingle with her feelings towards this man,
since he has dared--it happened during a journey to Italy--to speak
openly of his love for her; since she has rejected him, fancying in her
false logic that she was consistent when she only adhered obstinately
to a caprice; and since he, proud as he was, had at once accepted her
decision, and left the country to travel in Egypt and Nubia. She
imagines even that she has begun to hate the companion of her youthful
years, the faithful friend who has stood by her in every need and
danger; and yet, any one who knows the human heart might have told her
that hatred is only the wild brother of the sweet sister love, and
indifference the only really impenetrable armor for a woman's heart.
And now there appears amid these peaceful scenes the form of a man
whose beauty delights her artistic eye, whose gentle kindness lingers
around her like the breath of spring, whose longing finds in her own
heart, full of vague yearning, an eloquent echo--of a man who in
everything seems to be the realization of all her dreams. And as in a
dream she accepts his love, returns it with thousand-fold fire; she
will not see the danger, she will not wake, she insists upon being
happy once in her life. But morning breaks; it becomes impossible to
keep her eyes closed any longer, and to retain the visions of her
dream. Her friend has returned, contrary to all expectations, and
appears before her, warning her, and the very next hour his prophecy
has become true. Blow upon blow, misfortune falls upon her. Did he
dream of it, when it drove him from the ruins of Karnak to his home in
the far North? The news of the approaching death of the man whose name
she bears summons her away from the arms of him whom she loves; she
hastens to fulfil a duty which is all the more sacred to her because of
the blissful happiness that she has enjoyed during the last weeks; and
she returns, her heart full of sweet hopes, and at the same time full
of painful anticipations, and she hears and sees that the man to whom
she has abandoned herself with boundless love has betrayed her. And, as
if that was not enough punishment for her short, secret happiness, her
only child--that beautiful, lovely boy, who was her delight and her
pride--is taken down with a disease which appears to her the beginning
of an affection such as she has just seen end in the most fearful
manner in the father of that child.
But this second blow is perhaps a blessing in disguise. It stuns her so
that she scarcely feels the wound in her heart. The love of the woman
is swallowed up in the love of the mother. She watches day and night by
the bedside of the boy; she has eyes and ears only for his wants and
his wishes; and as soon as he recovers slightly, she takes a journey to
the man in whose experience she has unbounded confidence, and from
whose lips she means to hear the sentence, the decision of life or
death--no! a thousand times worse than death itself! And he has spoken;
he has left her some hope; he has even encouraged her to hope--her boy
is going to live; he will recover; the sins of the father are not to be
visited on the next generation.
And now that her soul has been relieved of the fearful burden--now she
thinks for the first time again of her betrayed love.
Was not this betrayal a just punishment for having cared so much for
her own happiness, and so little for that of the boy? For having
committed treason against her own child; for was not the love for a man
who filled her whole heart treason against her child?
Here, in this very room, she had during the past summer dreamt so often
of a future which was to be realized in such a sad present, and now the
current of life had floated her back to the same place, almost into the
same situation! Was it not as if Fate wished to give her time to
consider before she acted--before she laid her own happiness, and that
of her child, into hands which were far too feeble to defend such a
treasure successfully?
Here, in this very room, her friend had warned her against these hands
that were grasping with childish eagerness at everything that was great
and beautiful, in order to cast it aside again in childish caprice, as
if it were worth little. Here, in this very room, he had prophesied to
her things which had since come true, word by word.
Here, in this very room, he had spoken to her thus: "And when you lie
crushed by this blow, and wish to die, and yet cannot die; then you
will be able to feel what anguish a heart suffers when it sees its love
betrayed and despised; then you will make me amends in your heart, and
be sorry for the wrong you have done me."
Where was he now? this faithful, noble friend, who--she had often felt
it, though never so deeply as at this moment--was wasting his proud
strength for her sake in idleness or senseless adventures, as a tree
whose heart has been taken out breaks forth in abundant branches and
leaves, but never bears fruit again? Once more he was wandering
restlessly, like the wandering Jew, through the wide, desert world.
And, as if he should never call anything his own, the child whom he had
loved before he knew her to be his child, had vanished again like a
short, fair dream. He had let her go, because his sense of justice told
him that he had no claim upon this child, for whom he had done nothing
but to call it into existence. Was it really to be his fate to sow love
and reap indifference?
No! no! not indifference; although it might not be love such as he
felt, and such as he wished for, but certainly not indifference! Did
she not feel hearty friendship, deep, sincere regard for him? Would she
not have sacrificed whole years of her existence, if by so doing she
could have restored his child to him?
Where was he now? She had become so accustomed to seeing him by her
side, whenever the dark hours of her life were coming, that she missed
him sadly now, when he was for the first time absent. And yet, what
right had she to a love which she had refused a hundred times, and
which she had so grievously insulted by her love for another man?
The fair lady had been so lost in such thoughts that she did not hear a
gentle knock at the door. The door opened, and an old, gray-bearded
face peeped in. Behind the grim, bearded face the form of a tall man
was visible.
"Madame," said the moustache, "a good friend who has just arrived
wishes to present his respects, if possible yet, this evening."
"Who is it?" asked the lady, rising with surprise from her seat.
The tall gentleman entered.
"Oldenburg!" cried the lady; "Oldenburg! Is it really you?"
"Yes, Melitta!" said the baron, seizing the proffered hand of the lady
and carrying it to his lips. "It is I, in person."
The old man had remained where he stood, rubbing his hands and looking
at the two, as they were shaking hands, with an eye full of hope and
apprehension. When he saw the unmistakable expression of joyful
surprise upon the fair face of his beloved mistress, and the tear which
glistened in her eye as the baron bent over her hand, his own eyes
slowly filled with tears. He left the room with noiseless steps, closed
the door very gently, and one who could have observed the old man
afterwards--but there was no one there to see him--would have seen how
he folded his hands, when he was outside, and murmured an ardent prayer
with trembling lips, in his gray beard--a prayer which thanked God for
this meeting between his mistress and the only man whom he thought
worthy of her, and implored Him to turn everything, oh everything, to
the best, in this the eleventh hour, by His infinite mercy and
kindness.
* * * * *
When old Baumann had left the room, the baron had, according to
his old habit, walked silently up and down the room with long
strides, to overcome a feeling which threatened to get the better of
his self-control. Melitta had seated herself on the sofa, since her own
excitement, which was probably not less strong than Oldenburg's had
deprived her of the power of standing.
After a few minutes the baron came and took his seat by her side on the
sofa, and said with a soft voice, which did not show the slightest
trace of the vehemence of his rough manner,
"And you do not ask, Melitta, what has brought me here through night
and storm, across these mountains, to this village and this room?"
"No!" replied Melitta, looking full and clear into his eyes; "no! for I
know it without asking."
"I thank you, Melitta!"
This was all he answered; but the whole heart of the man was in these
few words.
"Yes, and even more than that," continued Melitta. "I was but just
thinking of you--of the faithful friend who has as yet always stood by
me in the hour of misfortune, aiding me by counsel and deed, however I
may have rejected his advice and rewarded the sacrifices he has made
for my sake with bitter ingratitude.
"Sacrifices--ingratitude!" said Oldenburg, and a melancholy smile
played around his lips; "those are words, Melitta, which have no
meaning for us--I mean for myself. At least they have none now,
whatever else I may have thought of them in former years. In the end
everybody submits to his fate; and when the captured lion has come to
an end with his despair, and sees that his strength can do nothing
against the iron bars of his cage, he lies down in the corner and is
for the future as gentle as a lamb. But no more of that; I did not come
here to plead for myself, and to renew a suit which has already been
lost in all the stages of appeal; I did not come for my sake, but for
yours. I was told in Grunwald, where I was on business, that Julius had
been attacked by serious sickness, and that you had gone with him to
Fichtenau. I feared the worst, and followed you at once, travelling day
and night, in order to help you as far as I could. Fortunately our
apprehensions were unfounded. I have spoken with Birkenhain downstairs,
after he left you. He has completely reassured me, and thinks you can
go back as soon as you feel strong enough. That is all I wished to
know; and now, when the purpose of my journey is fulfilled, and I have
been able by a lucky accident, thanks to the gods, to see you and to
hold your dear hand in mine--God bless you, Melitta! and may
misfortune--for good fortune has nothing to do with us--not make us
meet soon again."
The baron said these last words with a smiling air, but in his voice
there was a secret pain, the pain of a noble heart full of love, which
finds no home in all this wide, rich world.
He had taken Melitta's hand in bidding her farewell, and was about to
rise; but he could not do it, for the hand so dear to him not only
returned warmly the pressure of his--he felt, at least he thought he
felt, that Melitta would not let him leave her, that she would be
pleased to see him stay.
This was something so new to him that he looked at her, wondering
whether it were really possible--whether his presence was for once no
punishment to her.
"You must not go yet," said Melitta, with some precipitancy, while a
passing flush colored her pale cheeks for a moment. "I cannot bear to
see that, while all the world praises my kindness and every beggar
leaves me contented, you alone should look upon me as upon a statue,
which never gives and always takes without ever saying Thank you! You
have not told me a word yet about yourself; not a word how and where
you have been all this time. You come from a distance of several
thousand miles to look at my Julius, and you mean to go again before I
have even been able to ask you if you have had any news of your Czika?
Is that generous? Why, it is not even right in you."
The baron looked at Melitta as she said this, almost frightened.
"Melitta," he answered, so seriously as to be almost solemn; "it is not
right to awaken the desire to live, in a man who is sick unto death. Do
not spoil me, from pure pity, with a kindness which does not come from
the heart!"
"Not from the heart!" repeated Melitta in a low voice. "To be sure I
have deserved that reproach; I ought not to complain."
"I did not mean to reproach you, Melitta."
"And yet I deserve it. Yes, Oldenburg, I must tell you, or it will
oppress my heart beyond endurance. I feel deeply ashamed before you.
The burden of gratitude which you impose upon me weighs me down."
"A burden, Melitta! A burden! By God, I did not wish to lay any burden
upon you by the few services I have been able to render you."
"You will not believe me. I cannot measure and weigh my words as you
do. If there is no voice in your heart speaking for me--if you are not
willing to listen to me with your heart, then----"
Her voice was drowned in tears.
"What is this?" said Oldenburg, seizing his head with both his hands.
"Am I dreaming? Is this my head? Are these my hands? Am I Oldenburg?
Are you Melitta? You, who are shedding tears, because I, Oldenburg, do
not understand you, or will not understand you?"
"You shall understand me," said Melitta, drying her tears, with an
impetuosity very unusual in her. "You have seen me so often weak and
irresolute in our intercourse, that you do not think me any longer
capable of forming a resolution. And yet I have the strength to do so;
and that I have it, I owe to you, Adalbert. During the sickness of my
child you have spoken to me, and I have not closed my heart to your
voice. I have heard it very distinctly during the long, anxious night
hours which I spent watching and weeping by the bedside of my child.
Then I have asked my child's pardon with silent, burning tears, that I
could ever forget being a mother. Then I have vowed to myself that I
would never, never forget it again. Then I have----"
She was silent; burning shame flooded her cheeks with deep glowing
blushes; but she made a great effort and said,
"Then I have abjured a passion which humiliates me in my own eyes, in
my child's eyes, and, Adalbert, in yours."
"Stop, Melitta! stop!" cried Oldenburg, rising suddenly. "You are
beside yourself! You are not alone! You are in the presence of another
person--of a man who loves you, Melitta. He does not want to hear what
you ought to say to no one but to yourself."
"Let me finish, Adalbert! I trust in your goodness, as I trust in your
strength. I have not told you all yet; not even all the vows I have
made by the bedside of my sick child. I have often thought of your
child, then, and that a most terrible fate has robbed you of the love
of your child as well as of the love of her whom you love. And then I
vowed that, if I cannot make you as happy as you deserve to be; if
much, far too much, has happened which parts you and me forever; I can
yet help you bear your fate, as far as in me lies. I will try to
reconcile you to life, and live for you as far as I am able."
Melitta had, while she said these words, risen from the sofa. She stood
before him with deep-red cheeks and beaming eyes.
Oldenburg had heard her with breathless excitement, with an emotion
which grew stronger and deeper with every word. His eyes flashed, his
bosom heaved, he pressed his hands upon his heart, which felt as if it
would burst with unspeakable bliss.
When Melitta's last word had dropped from her lips he approached her,
knelt down before her, and said, with a voice deep and firm, like the
sound of an iron shield,
"And now hear my vow, Melitta! As surely as I have loved you ever since
I can think, as surely as the night of my life has been lighted up but
by a single star, as surely as I have wandered about restlessly and
aimlessly in the vast desert of life, only because I despaired that
that star could ever shine down upon me benignly--so surely will I,
from this moment, strive to attain the highest aim of man with all the
power I may possess. I will lay aside all little weaknesses and all my
cowardice; I will try to make up for the time which I have lost in
inactivity. And as sure as my heart is at this moment overflowing with
a happiness which words cannot describe, so surely will I seek neither
rest nor repose till you love me as I love you--till you are mine. Do
you near, Melitta--till you are my wife!"
He had risen, too.
"And now, Melitta," he cried, and his words sounded like shouts of joy,
"farewell! I cannot bear it any longer under this roof; the whole, wide
world has become too narrow for me. Farewell! farewell! till we meet
again!"
He embraced Melitta impetuously, and kissed her on her brow. Then he
hastily left the room.
Melitta had remained standing in the middle of the room, as if she were
petrified. She had not had the strength to keep Oldenburg back, nor to
return his farewell. She placed her hand upon her beating temples.
"What have I done? What have I said?" she asked herself. And the voice
of her heart answered: "Nothing you need be ashamed of, before yourself
or before your child."
She hastened into the adjoining room. She bent over the sleeping boy;
she kissed him amid burning tears.
Then she heard the rolling of a carriage, which rapidly drove away from
the door of the hotel.
"That is he!" she said, listening; and then, pressing her face in the
cushions, "Farewell! farewell! till we meet again!"
CHAPTER X.
While this interview between Melitta and Oldenburg was taking place at
the Kurhaus, and, as by the blow of a charmed wand, the barriers fell
which had seemed to be destined to part two good hearts forever, there
had been sitting in the room on the right hand--which "was occupied by
a traveller who would surely not stay beyond the next morning"--this
very traveller quite near the door which led from one room to the
other, supporting his feverish head with his hands, and suffering in
his lacerated heart unspeakable anguish.
Oswald had returned, on his way from the asylum, along the river,
almost as in a dream; for when he left Berger at the gate of the
institution, the parting with him and the last terrible words of the
unfortunate man had quite overwhelmed him, and kept him from every
effort of thinking calmly.
His brains and his heart were a perfect chaos, filled with all that he
had heard and seen since his arrival in Fichtenau on the preceding
evening--with all the impressions which he had so suddenly received,
all the thoughts that had been stirred up, all the passions that had
been unchained. He had a dim presentiment that such a state of mind
must in the end lead to insanity, if it were not already itself a kind
of insanity.
Ought he not to turn back and knock at the gate behind which Berger had
disappeared? Was not that house, with its high prison-walls, the best
refuge for hearts that were as weary of the world as his was? Or still
better, ought he not to throw himself over the railing into the river
below, where it rushed, deep and silent, between the steep, high banks,
gliding noiselessly along like a serpent? Would he not be sure thus to
cool his heated brow forever, and to silence the hammering pulsations
in his temples for all eternity? How could he hope ever to find an
issue into rosy light from a labyrinth in which so noble, so lofty a
mind as Berger's had lost its way irretrievably? Was not Berger far
superior to him in strength of mind, as well as in nobility of soul?
And yet, and yet--"that I may fully measure the depth of this
wretchedness, that I may touch with my own hands the incredible," the
poor man had said, when he fell into the arms of the rope-dancer. Was
that, then, the last conclusion of wisdom? The high-minded idealist saw
himself excelled by the rude slave of sensuality in courage of life and
joyousness of life! The pupil of Plato acknowledged a drunken clown as
his master! The man who, like the youth of Saïs, had striven all his
life only after truth, fraternized with a coarse story-teller, a
charlatan, who defied all rules, of probability even, and lived merrily
and cheerfully on the credulity of others, as the swallow lives on
midges. As old Lear in the tempestuous night on the heath tears the
royal mantle from his shoulders, so as to have no advantage over poor
Tom, the "poor bare-backed animal, whose belly cries for two red
herrings," so Berger also had laid aside the philosopher's cloak, that
did not warm him half as well as the rope-dancer's bare vulgarity.
Berger had learnt from this man that only he can hope to enjoy real
happiness who gives up all pretentions to wealth, to honor, and
splendor, and who sees neither a punishment nor a disgrace in the
contempt of the world. Did those men of olden times think differently
about it who fed on locusts, and exposed their bodies to the heat of
the sun and the chill of rains--Indian penitents. Christian anchorites,
Flagellants, pillar-saints, and ascetics of every kind? Is asceticism
not the consistent pursuit of holiness? Is not contempt of the world,
and of one's self, the consistent effect of asceticism? Can we
reach the Holiest of Holies--the blissful original state, the sweet
Nirvana--unless we first annihilate ourselves, as far as it can be done
in life? And is such annihilation possible as long as we continually
cling to life and to all that makes life dear to us? Is it an accident
that saints appear odd in the eyes of the multitude, and the company of
publicans and sinners is the best in the eyes of holy men? Yes, indeed!
Berger and Schmenckel, arm in arm! Was that the solution of the great
mystery, the squaring of the circle?
Oswald could not get rid of the picture, and the terrible impression it
had made upon him at last brought him back to calmer views. His sense,
of the beautiful was shocked by the abhorrent garb which that ascetic
wisdom had adopted. He agreed with all his heart to join the order of
the threefold contempt, but he could not be reconciled to the costume
of the order. He thought of himself in the dress in which he had seen
Berger--a blue, faded blouse, a coarse slouched hat, a stick cut from a
thorn-bush--and he shuddered all over. He thought of Doctor Braun, and
what he would have said if he had met him in company with Berger--he
who gainfully fastidious about his appearance, and considered it a
fundamental principle, that if we wished to remain physically and
psychically healthy, we must be careful not to come in contact with
bodily or mental uncleanliness. Despise the world!--why not? Despise
one's self! I have done that often enough; and, alas, generally for
very good reasons. But despise being despised! Never!--rather
die!--rather, a thousand times.
And why die? Why not rather live? Is life so very contemptible? Have I
not found in Braun a friend of whom I have every reason to be proud?
Might I not succeed in finding my way out of this labyrinth, if I had
such a friend by my side? May not much come right again, even if
everything does not turn out well? Suppose I were to make up my mind to
abandon this striving after exalted ideals which threaten to ruin my
mind? If I were to turn back, even at this the eleventh hour, from the
way which leads in the end to Doctor Birkenhain's insane asylum? If I
were this very night to leave Fichtenau, where the air is filled with
ill luck for me, as Doctor Braun anticipated.
Oswald was standing before the Kurhaus. A carriage which had just
arrived was waiting at the door. In the dining-room, at the end of the
long table, two gentlemen were sitting in close conversation. He
thought one of them was Doctor Birkenhain. He did not desire in the
least to meet the physician, whose wishes with regard to Berger he had
so lamentably failed to fulful. He would drop him a few lines before
leaving, and excuse himself on the score of pressing business and
Berger's express desire, for his failure to say good-by in person.
He went to his room and rang the bell.
"Is there any mail leaving to-night?"
"In half-an-hour, sir."
"I shall leave by the mail, then. Secure me a seat in the coach, and
bring the bill," said Oswald, already busy packing his things.
"Yes, sir, directly."
"Yes! yes! I must leave here," murmured Oswald, passionately,
strengthening himself more and more in his resolution. "Away from here
before more ill luck befalls me!"
"The bill, sir!" said the waiter, coming back again. "Much obliged to
you, sir. Need not be in such a hurry, sir; you have twenty-five
minutes left; the office is close by here. Thought you would stay over
night, sir. Might have given this room to a lady, sir, if we had known,
who has just arrived; she has taken the parlor next door, and two rooms
on the other side. We had to give her those rooms, although they are
not good enough for such a grand and beautiful lady."
The waiter uttered these words in a whisper, which made it clear that
the doors of the Kurhaus were not exactly impenetrable to sound.
"Who is the lady?" asked Oswald, locking his trunk.
"A Frau von Berkow; old customer of ours. Told you this morning about
her, sir. Will send the porter directly to carry your trunk to the
office. Anything else, sir?"
The waiter left the room, waving his napkin in a most graceful manner.
Oswald rose. His face was deadly pale. He had to support himself on the
table; his limbs trembled.
Had he heard right? Melitta here? In this house? Next door? How did she
get here? What did she come for? To this place, which had such mournful
associations for her? Was it an accident? Was it purpose? Could she
have come for his sake? Could she have found out the purpose of his
journey? Was she looking for him? Had she failed to receive the letter
which he wrote to her after Bruno's death, and an hour before his duel
with Felix--that letter in which he told her with unfeeling cruelty,
though he thought it heroism then, that "his heart was no longer
exclusively hers, that he did not intend to deceive her and himself,
and that he was bidding her--and perhaps life itself--an eternal
adieu?" Or had she received it, and read it with the incredulity of a
loving heart, which does not comprehend faithlessness, because it knows
itself no other love but true love? Had she come to tell him that she
had forgiven him?--that she was still his Melitta? If he were to hasten
to her and to fall at her feet, would she raise the repentant lover and
tell him that all was forgiven and forgotten?--that she had never
ceased to love him?
He listened to hear if anything was stirring in the adjoining room. He
heard nothing--nothing but the beating of his violently-agitated heart.
She was alone. She waited for his coming. Were the blissful days of
Berkow really to return once more? Was really everything to end well,
after all?
He listened. A door opened.
Probably a waiter, who has executed an order.
A deep male voice. The soft notes of a woman's voice.
The soft voice was Melitta's! But the other?
He listened. The voices rose, became more distinct.
A convulsive spasm flew across the features of the listener; a hoarse,
unpleasant laugh broke from his lips. The man who was speaking so
warmly to Melitta was Baron Oldenburg.
The sofa on which the two speakers were sitting, stood close against
the door which led from one room to the other. Oswald could not hear
everything they said, but why was that necessary? The meeting of the
two in this remote little town, which had already once before been the
scene of their stealthy rendezvous, spoke eloquently enough. He had
been right, after all! The two had after all but made a fool of him! He
had done Melitta no wrong which she had not inflicted on him also. They
were quits.
A knock at the door.
The porter came to carry the gentleman's trunk to the office.
"It is high time, sir. The postilion has blown his horn twice."
Oswald followed the man mechanically down the long passages, out of the
house, across the dark street to the coach.
A minute later and the heavy coach was rumbling over the pavement. The
postilion played a merry melody in the silent night-air, and Oswald
furnished a text to the air: to despise one's self, despise the world,
despise being despised.
CHAPTER XI.
It was an early hour of a murky day in autumn. Fogs were brewing in the
mountains around Fichtenau, and hung so low that the traveller on the
high road, which makes a steep ascent close behind the village and
loses itself in thick woods, could scarcely distinguish the pine-trees
on the edge of the forest.
By the wayside, at a place where two roads crossed each other, sat
Xenobia and Czika. Their faithful companion in all their wanderings,
the little donkey, with the red feathers on his head and the scarlet
saddle-cloth on his back, was grazing peacefully in the ditch on the
short, ill-flavored grass. He did not seem to relish it much; he shook
his head indignantly, as if he wanted to say: I am frugal, but
everything has its limits.
Nor did the gypsy woman and her child seem to enjoy the weather any
more. They sat there, each wrapped in a large coarse shawl, silent and
motionless, like a couple of Egyptian statues. This attitude, natural
as it might be to the woman, had something very uncanny in so young a
child as Czika.
And Xenobia herself was no longer the hearty woman whom Oswald had seen
on that afternoon in October in the forest near Berkow. Was it the
effect of the weather, or was it sickness and sorrow--but her features
had little now of that haughty energy which formerly made them so
remarkable. Her brow was furrowed with small lines; her eyes had sunk
deep into their orbits and did not shine with the same brightness as of
old, as she now glanced in the direction from which her sharp ear heard
the noise of a carriage comings from Fichtenau.
"That is not theirs," she said, letting her head sink again. A few
minutes later a well-closed travelling carriage, drawn by two horses,
appeared rising out of the fog. On the box, by the side of the driver,
sat an old man with a long, silver-gray moustache. He turned round
continually, to cast a look at the inside of the carriage, and to smile
respectfully and yet amicably at the occupants--a lady and a boy.
Thus he had failed to notice the gypsy woman, who had stepped forward
as she saw the great lady in the carriage, and asked for alms. What was
his amazement therefore, when he saw that the lady suddenly called to
him to stop the horses, exhibiting all the signs of extreme
consternation, and that she was standing in the road itself long before
the horses could be checked.
"Isabel, it is you! and the Czika! My God, how fortunate!" cried
Melitta, seizing both hands of the gypsy. "Now I shall not let you go
again. My God, how very fortunate!" and the young lady embraced the
gypsy woman with tears in her eyes.
But the latter freed herself almost violently, and stepping back some
little distance she crossed her arms on her bosom and looked at Melitta
with a suspicious, almost hostile glance.
"Do you not know me, Isabel?" said Melitta; "it is I! Have you
forgotten the days at Berkow five years ago? That is my Julius, there!
And how tall and how beautiful the Czika has grown."
Julius had jumped out of the carriage; old Baumann also had climbed
down from the box.
Melitta hastened up to Czika, embraced the child, and kissed and
caressed her over and over again. The others spoke to Xenobia, who paid
no attention to them, but looked with anxious eyes at Melitta, who now
came back to her, holding Czika by the hand.
"Isabel!" said Melitta, "you must, really you must, give me the little
one. I dare not, I cannot, continue my journey without her."
"Why will you not leave us as we are?" said the gypsy. "You are a great
lady, fit for the house; the gypsy is fit only for the forest. You
would die in the forest; the gypsy would die in the house. I cannot go
with you."
"Then give me the Czika?"
"Will you give me your boy?"
Melitta did not know what to answer. She felt too deeply that the gypsy
woman could not act differently, and that she, in her place, would have
done the same. And yet could she let the two go out again into the wide
world? To see Oldenburg's little daughter, whom he yearned after, whom
he was searching for everywhere, disappear once more, after an accident
such as might never happen again in all her life, had brought her right
in her path--she could not bear the thought, and like a child that
feels how helpless and friendless it is, she broke into tears.
The gypsy woman seemed to be touched. She took Melitta's hand and
kissed it.
"You are very kind, I know," she said; "I know it well. I would rather
give you the Czika than anybody else."
She reflected deeply. Suddenly she took Melitta's hand once more and
led her aside.
"Do you know," she asked, "who Czika's father is?"
"Yes."
"And are you doing what you do for the father's sake, or for your own?"
Melitta's cheeks reddened.
"For the sake of both," she replied, after some hesitation.
"Where are you going to now?"
"Home--to Berkow."
"And are you going to stay there?"
"Yes; at least during the winter."
"Then listen to me. I swear to you by the Great Spirit, I will bring
you the Czika as soon as I feel that I am to be gathered to my fathers.
That may be very soon. More I cannot promise; more I dare not say."
Melitta felt that she must be satisfied with this promise. She knew the
character of the Brown Countess too well not to be aware that if she
had once formed a resolution, all persuasion was in vain. She
re-entered her carriage, therefore, sadly, after having embraced
Xenobia and the child once more, and soon was out of sight.
The rattling of the wheels and the trot of the horses were no longer
heard. The gypsies were still sitting by the wayside.
Another carriage came up in the direction of Fichtenau. One could hear
from afar off the cries of the driver, and the clanking of chains which
formed part of the harness.
A few minutes later the wagon appeared out of the mist. It was a huge
box--a whole house on four wheels, stuffed up to the roof and high
above the roof with chests and boxes, kettle drums and trombones, stage
scenery, poles and ladders, and all kinds of kitchen utensils and stage
property. The four horses who drew this Noah's Ark had hard work of it.
Before the wagon a number of men were walking on foot--Cotterby, the
Egyptian; the artist of the gigantic cask, Mr. Stolsenberg; and the
clown, Pierrot. All these gentlemen wore gay-colored shawls around the
neck, and had short pipes in their mouths. From the open windows of the
ark the crying of children was heard, and the scolding voice of
Mamselle Adele. Behind the wagon followed, apparently in eager
conversation, the director, Mr. Schmenckel (also with a bright shawl
around the neck and a pipe in his mouth), and a man in a blue blouse,
with a heavy stick in his hand, and an old slouched hat on his head.
Director Schmenckel had made his acquaintance a few nights before under
very peculiar circumstances, in the drinking-hall of the Green Hat; he
had met him since very frequently at the same tavern, and found him
quite unexpectedly that morning, ready to join the rope-dancers, just
as they were leaving the village.
When the wagon reached the cross-roads the driver stopped to let the
horses breathe.
The gypsy woman with her child stepped up and was vociferously greeted
by the rope-dancers.
Mr. Schmenckel shook hands with her, and patted the Czika paternally on
her brown cheeks.
"That's right, Xenobia! here you are, back again!" he said. "By the
great dickens, we could not get on at all without you. Good-by,
professor! Thanks for the escort! You must turn back here, or you won't
find the way to Fichtenau."
"I'll go a little further with you," replied the man in the blouse.
"All right!" said Mr. Schmenckel; "the further the better. Such a good
old brick, like yourself, we do not meet with every day. Is all right
in there? Well, go on then!"
The wagon was set in motion. After a few minutes the whole
procession--wagon, horses, and men, had been swallowed up by the thick
gray fog.
CHAPTER XII.
The town of Grunwald played, in days previous to those to which this
story belongs, a far more important part than now. It had been an
honored member of the great Hanse League, and rivalled Hamburg, Bremen,
and Lubeck in wealth and power. Its ships sailed on all the northern
seas, and the Grunwald flag was well known even in the ports of Genoa
and Venice. The citizens were a broad-shouldered, hard-headed race,
strong in their love and their hatred, and thorough in all their ways.
They were justly proud of their liberties and their privileges, and
trusted implicitly in their secure position, amid the ocean and
bottomless swamps, and the high walls and ramparts of the city, but
more fully yet in the sword by their side and the brave heart in their
bosom. Even in the Thirty Years' War, Grunwald still proved its ancient
reputation in fierce battle against the Imperialists, and the
recollection of the glorious deeds of their forefathers survives to
this day in the hearts of the present inhabitants.
They must unfortunately fall back upon past glory, for modern times
have done little for them in this respect. The long and tortuous canals
in the great bay on which the town is situated admit only of small
vessels of light draught, and navigation nowadays cannot well get along
with such ships; trade has, besides, sought other roads and found other
markets, and Grunwald has slowly but steadily sunk from its proud
eminence, till it has fallen at last to the level of a small provincial
town of no account in the great world, as far as political influence
and commercial importance are concerned.
The harbor is filled up now, the ramparts are razed, and the once
enormous walls exist only in fragments, and yet there is a melancholy
sheen of former greatness about the old Hanse town which attracts the
thoughtful traveller, as the mouldy smell of an old parchment charms
the book-worm. In spite of all the efforts made by the last generations
to give the town a sober, trivial appearance, they have after all not
been able to straighten all the crooked narrow streets, and to destroy
all the poetry of many an old house, with its narrow, lofty, and
richly-adorned gable-end. And above the labyrinth of streets, lanes,
and courts, with their half-modern, half-mediæval character, there
tower still the steeples of glorious churches, which are far too grand
for the reduced proportions of Grunwald. But at night, when they cast
their gigantic shadows far over the town which sleeps beneath them in
the pale moonlight, or in the evening as you approach the harbor from
the open sea, and gray mists rising from the water spread over the
whole a mysterious veil, the illusion is yet strong, and the effect
full of grandeur.
Justice requires, however, to add that Grunwald can be called
insignificant only in comparison with former days of great power and
surpassing splendor. The town is still of vast importance for the whole
province in which it is situated. If her flag no longer waves on every
sea, her port is still continually crowded with schooners and sloops,
and near her wharves many a larger vessel awaits completion on the
stocks. If her walls have been torn to pieces by the artillery of the
Imperialists, and her ramparts have been razed by the French, the town
is still a fortress, whose commandant would not sleep quietly unless he
had received from all the guards and posts the report that all is
quiet. If the town has lost her ancient privileges, and no longer
enjoys as of old perfect freedom and sovereign independence, she has
profited on the other hand largely by becoming an integral part of a
great monarchy. Grunwald has not only a numerous garrison of infantry
and artillery, but is also the seat of the highest court of the
province; and above all, as everybody knows, enjoys a university,
although the light shed by this seat of the muses cannot be said to
penetrate far into distant lands. Grunwald is, moreover, the favorite
residence of the surrounding nobility, which is particularly rich, and
enjoys a very great influence on public life. When the magnificent
crops upon their vast domains have been safely housed, when the trees
in their parks lose their foliage in the autumn winds, and the crows
migrate from the bare woods to the towns, then all the counts and
barons and smaller noblemen also come to Grunwald. From the great
island, which lies right opposite the town, and from the whole
surrounding country, they come in their lumbering state carriages, all
driven four-in-hand, and settle down with children, servants, tutors,
and governesses for the whole winter. They own stately houses all over
the town, which in summer are easily known by their utter silence, the
closed curtains, and the grass growing in idyllic happiness between the
flags of their court-yards--far different from the ordinary houses
inhabited by ordinary people, who have to pay taxes, enjoy no
privileges, and are forced to work summer and winter alike.
CHAPTER XIII.
It is autumn. The fields are bare; from the linden-trees in the
court-yard at Grenwitz the brown leaves are falling in showers. Thick
fogs cover the sea, the high shores of the island with their noble
beech-forests, and the low coast of the continent. The towers of
Grunwald rise out of the mist like giants of former days, and around
the lofty steeples crows and blackbirds are fluttering, having left the
unhospitable forests to move to warm cities.
The sun has set for an hour, and the last blood-red streak, just above
the edge of the sea, has turned pale in the shadow of the heavy,
low-drifting clouds. The streets of the town have grown silent, and the
lamplighter is lighting one after the other the oil lamps, whose dim
light is useful only in making the mist still denser and the darkness
still darker. He has just done with two unusually large and bright
lamps before the entrance-gate to a huge, massive building in one of
the streets that lead down to the harbor. It was the first time this
year--a proof that the great family which has owned this house for many
a generation, and which lives on its estates regularly in summer, and
quite frequently in the winter also, has moved into town on that very
day.
Nevertheless the windows of the mansion which look upon the street are
still dark. They are, to be sure, rarely seen lighted up, only on
solemn occasions, when the family gives one of those stiff evening
parties, to which of course only the nobility and the very highest
officials in the government service are ever invited.
Ordinarily these state apartments remain closed, exactly like the lofty
halls and grand reception-rooms of the hereditary castle in the
country, and the family are content to live in the less gorgeous rooms
which look upon the rear. The modest, exceedingly unpretending taste of
the mistress of the house prefers the latter, all the more as the front
rooms can only be heated at great expense, and the woods of the
Grenwitz estate, as far as entailed, are rented out at the ludicrously
small sum of ten thousand dollars.
In one of these rooms, which was stately enough, sits the Baroness
Grenwitz on a sofa before a round table, on which two wax-candles are
burning brightly. She looks as if the last six weeks had added as many
years to her age. Her forehead has become narrower and more angular,
the dark hair shows here and there a silver thread, her eyes look
larger and more fixed and meaning than ever. Her nephew, Felix, is
lounging in a most comfortable position opposite her, in a large
easy-chair, filled with soft cushions. The young man wears his right
arm in a sling, and the sickly pallor of his face contrasts strangely
with his hair, as carefully parted and curled as ever, and with the
whole toilet, which is as perfect as usual. Between the two stands a
table, covered with letters and papers, all of them written in the same
handsome handwriting. The baroness and Felix seem just to have finished
the perusal of these documents, and to be still too busy with the
thoughts which have been suggested by them, to be able to speak. They
are brooding in silence over the impression produced on each one, while
the monotonous tic-tac of the pendulum of the rococo clock on the
mantel-piece is the only noise heard in the room.
At last the young man breaks the silence.
"The thing looks more serious than either of us thought," he says,
raising himself slightly in his easy-chair, and taking up once more the
paper he had been reading last.
"I still do not believe a word of it," replied the baroness.
"That is saying a good deal, _ma tante_! although you have read the
whole story in black and white."
"In Timm's handwriting! In Timm's handwriting! what must the scamp have
invented and written up!"
"Certainly nothing but what is in the original documents."
"And why does he not send us the originals?"
"But, pardon me, _ma tante_, that is rather a naïve question. To
surrender the originals--that is to say, the weapons which he means to
use against us--would be an act of generosity or stupidity such as you
cannot possibly expect from my good friend Timm, who is a very sly fox,
I assure you. He evidently does not fear to be unmasked, but only to be
deceived or over-reached by us, else he would not have made the offer
to submit the original papers in the presence of a third party, an
umpire, to our minute examination. No, no, dear aunt; do not give
yourself up to idle hopes. These letters and papers are really in
existence; you may take poison upon that."
"What do you say?"
"I mean, you may rely on that. I, for my part, am as fully convinced
that this Monsieur Stein is related to the family of Grenwitz as of my
own existence, and therefore I hate the man, as one is apt to hate such
an interloper of a relative, especially if he happens to be a
conceited, vain, puffed-up, impertinent, accursed blackguard, like this
scamp of a good-for-nothing fellow."
This flood of names, little suitable to the place, would under other
circumstances have infallibly brought down upon the ex-lieutenant a
severe reprimand from his highly moral aunt. At this moment, however,
the lady was too busy with other things.
"But nothing has as yet been proved," she said, with obstinate
vehemence, "as long as the identity of that man with the child of that
Marie Montbert has not been fully established by the clearest evidence.
I grant the thing is probable--it may be plausible even; nevertheless
we cannot afford to throw away hundreds of dollars for mere
probabilities or plausibilities."
"Hundreds?" replied Felix, with a contemptuous smile. "You may say
thousands! Timm will not let us slip out of his tight grip so cheaply."
"You cannot be in earnest?" said the baroness, raising her eyebrows,
Juno-fashion. "That man will surely not carry his impudence so far as
that!"
"_Nous verrons!_" replied the dandy, laconically, and fell back into
his easy-chair.
There followed a pause in the conversation of the accomplices, which
Felix improved to subject his fingernails to a minute examination,
while the baroness busied herself in arranging the papers on the table
according to their numbers (for they were all methodically numbered).
"The gentleman keeps us waiting," said the baroness.
"He pretends to be indifferent," replied Felix. "I know him from of
old. Whenever he pretended to be tired, and to wish to go home, we
could be sure that he was determined to break the bank!"
At that moment the servant announced: "Mr. Albert Timm desires to pay
his respects."
"Show him in," said the baroness, raising herself upright, with her
accustomed dignity; but her voice was not as firm as usual.
"For heaven's sake keep your temper, aunt!" said Felix in great haste,
while the servant went to show in Timm. "If the rascal sees that our
pulse goes faster, he'll pull the screws tighter, and----"
"I am perfectly calm," replied the baroness, although the unusual flush
on her cheeks and the quick breathing announced just the contrary.
Half a minute's intense excitement on the part of the persons in the
room and the door opened, admitting Mr. Timm, who walked in rapidly.
His appearance was, aside from a somewhat more carefully chosen costume
of fashionable cut, precisely the same which lingered still in Anna
Maria's recollection from last summer: the same white brow, the same
smoothly-brushed light hair, the same fresh, rosy cheeks, and the same
impertinent smile upon the smooth, handsome face. If the baroness
looked at her favorite, in spite of his unchanged appearance, with very
different eyes now, the fault was evidently her own. Mr. Timm was not
disposed to allow the cold reception to have the slightest influence on
his own warm greetings.
"Good evening, baroness! Good evening, baron!" said Mr. Timm, in his
clear, fresh voice, kissing Anna Maria's right hand, which she granted
him most reluctantly, and heartily shaking Felix's left hand (the other
was in the sling). "Delighted, baroness, to see you look so remarkably
well--so cheerful too; and as for you, baron,--well, I may say,
considering the circumstances, not so bad! Permit me to follow your
example----"
And Mr. Timm moved one of the heavy arm-chairs which were standing
around the table, sat down, and looked at the two with eyes beaming
with insolence and intense delight, as far as one could judge, through
his glasses.
"Mighty comfortable!" he continued, stretching out his legs and patting
the arms of the chair with his hands "And the baron stayed at home!
Must be devilish uncomfortable in the big, damp, old box."
"The baron had to attend to some very important business," said the
baroness, merely to say something.
"Business!" cried Mr. Timm. "How can anybody trouble himself about
business when his business is, like the baron's, not to have any
business at all! Incomprehensible!"
"You ought to be able to comprehend that very well, Timm," said Felix,
with very perceptible irony; "otherwise I should not be able to guess
why you have troubled yourself about a certain business."
"A lawsuit is no business," remarked Timm.
"But it may become one," said Felix.
"For instance, if one borrows money from the Jews, and sues them
afterwards, when they want to be paid, for usury," replied Timm.
This recollection from the early life of Felix was so little to the
taste of the ex-lieutenant that he turned over impatiently in his
chair, and said in an audibly irritated tone:
"I think we had better come to the point."
"With pleasure," said Mr. Timm, drawing up his chair close to the
table, with an expression which by no means belied his words.
"You have been kind enough," began Felix, while the baroness stared
with furrowed brow and downcast eyes into her lap, "to send us, at our
request, copies of certain letters, and so forth, which you say you
have found among the papers of your deceased father."
"You mean, which you have found, baron!"
"Very well, then; which you have found. We can admit that without
committing ourselves, for there is nothing in them all to show how this
fabulous son of my uncle Harald can be helped by your aid--as you are
good enough to state in your letter--to the inheritance he may claim."
"That depends entirely upon the _point de vue_ from which you look at
the matter," replied Mr. Timm.
"And may I beg you will inform us of your own?"
"Why not? It gives me special pleasure to do so. According to my view
the thing is this: I have here a number of documents and papers, which
not only shed a light on the relations once existing between Baron
Harald and Mademoiselle Marie Montbert, but which would also, in the
hands of an able, practical man (such as any good lawyer would
represent), give a certain clue to the subsequent fate of the said
Marie Montbert and of her child; that is to say, of the two persons who
according to the last will of Baron Harald are alone entitled to the
possession of the estates of Stantow and Baerwalde."
"What do you call a certain clue, Mr. Timm?" inquired the baroness.
"A clue that can be established upon evidence, madame. It can be
established that the person to whom I have referred, and in whom I
believe I have discovered by a fortunate combination of very remarkable
and almost miraculous circumstances the heir in question, bears, in the
first place, the same name which Monsieur d'Estein (pray look at letter
No. 25) says he intends to assume after the elopement with Marie
Montbert. In the second place, it can be established that a man called
Stein, and accompanied by a young woman who passed for his wife, and by
a child which passed for his son, settled shortly after Baron Harald's
death in the town of W----."
"How do you know that?" asked Felix.
"I have been myself to W----, and have spoken with the old woman in
whose house Mr. Stein lived from the first to the very last day of his
residence in that town."
"Go on!"
"In the third place, it is established that this Mr. Stein is the same
person who eloped with Marie Montbert from Grenwitz, viz., Monsieur
d'Estein, who alone had a right to help the young lady, and who alone
was obliged to do so."
"Why the same person?"
"Because the man who managed the elopement looked exactly like the man
who a few months afterwards settled in W----."
"That might not be so easy to prove," cried Felix with a smile of
incredulity.
"Easier than you think. I have (quite accidentally) discovered the man
at whose house Monsieur d'Estein, then already under the name of Stein,
stayed a fortnight in order to ascertain the opportunities at Grenwitz,
and who afterwards drove in the night of the elopement the couple in
his carriage from Grenwitz to that very ferry on which you crossed
to-day. This man's name is Clas Wendorf; he lives in Fashwitz, and is
well known to everybody (even to the Rev. Mr. Jager) as a perfectly
trustworthy man. If this man were to be confronted with Mrs. Pahnke in
W----, the identity of the man who eloped with Marie Montbert, viz.,
Monsieur d'Estein, with the French teacher Stein in W----, would be
established beyond all doubt."
The baroness and Felix looked at each other, while Timm was making his
statement, in a manner which betrayed but too clearly the consternation
which the irresistible logic of their enemy produced in their minds.
"You have made good use of the last four weeks," said Felix.
"Perhaps so," said Timm, good-humoredly. "The days are getting to be
short now. Besides, I had to be exceedingly cautious in making my
inquiries, since I had promised you not to let anybody into the secret
until I should have communicated the matter more fully to you, and I
meant to keep my promise. Hereafter, when I can go to work without any
such precautionary measures, and when I can avail myself of all the
assistance which the law affords in such cases, I shall probably be
able to do more in four days than I have now done in as many weeks."
And Mr. Timm rubbed his hands with delight.
"Then you really think of making this ridiculous affair public?" said
Anna Maria, in a tone which she meant to be ironical.
"I do not understand you, madame!" replied Mr. Timm, with an air of
ingenuous simplicity which, in a farce, would have earned him the
applause of all the connoisseurs in the pit.
"I mean: do you really intend, contrary to our wishes and intentions,
to expose to common gossip and the scoff and scorn of vulgar plebeians,
an affair which concerns no one but our own family, and which,
moreover, has been forgotten and buried these many years?"
The applause of the connoisseurs would have become louder and louder,
as they watched the peculiar expression in Mr. Timm's face.
"Contrary to your wishes and intentions ... An affair which concerns no
one but your family ... I really have not the advantage of knowing how
I am to interpret the lady's words. I find it impossible to believe
that a lady who is so universally known for her stern sense of justice
as the Baroness Grenwitz should wish anything different from the last
will of a dying man, when chance or providence brings it about, when,
against all human expectations, that last will can after many years be
fulfilled; I find it impossible to believe that. But what am I saying?
You will laugh at me that I have taken a jest, by which you wished to
ridicule my over-great desire to serve you, for a moment in good
earnest. Do I not know better than anybody else that I have acted
exactly according to your views by preserving all the documents, the
sacred relics of departed friends, like a precious treasure, and by
doing whatever I could do towards securing the property to the rightful
owner? Do I not know that your hesitation, your incredulity, your
mistrust even, are only the result of your apprehension to awaken in
the heart of a fellow-being brilliant expectations, which may not be
realized, for, however improbable, it is not absolutely impossible that
we may be mistaken. Do I not know that all the parties concerned are of
one and the same opinion, and that your husband, whom you have no doubt
promptly informed of all the details, is overjoyous to pay off an old
debt which fortunately is not yet extinguished by limitation?"
The position of a captured she bear, whom the increasing heat of the
bars of her cage forces to rise on her hind legs and to dance as
gracefully as she can, while she would like nothing better than to
break out of her prison and to tear her adversary to pieces, resembles
exactly that of the baroness as she was now sitting opposite to Mr.
Timm. The cruel irony with which Mr. Timm appealed to that sense of
justice and equity of which she had boasted all her life, and of which
she after all had nothing but the outward appearance, seized her like a
hot iron. Her cold, selfish heart boiled over with indignation. Rage
and fury filled her soul. She would have liked to strangle Timm, who
sat smiling before her--to stab him, poison him. And she could do
nothing, nothing, but swallow her wrath, and to say with all the
calmness she might command:
"Mr. Timm, you do not look upon the matter exactly as we do; and it is,
of course, quite natural that you, who are standing outside, should
also see nothing of it but the outside. Unfortunately I am too tired
to-night to explain to you my own views of the affair. I have requested
my nephew, Felix, to do it in my place, and I beg you, therefore, to
look upon anything he may tell you as if it were coming from myself. I
am fully persuaded that you will find no difficulty in choosing between
the good will of the family of Grenwitz and the friendship of a
nameless adventurer. Good-by, Mr. Timm!"
"Regret infinitely not to be able to have the pleasure of seeing you
any longer, baroness," said Mr. Timm, accompanying the baroness to the
door; "hope it is nothing but a passing indisposition, which will soon
disappear after a good night's rest. Hope you will rest well, madame!"
And Mr. Timm closed the door after the baroness, came back, sat down in
his easy-chair opposite to Felix, put his hands on his knees, and said,
in a dry, short manner, which contrasted very strangely with the smooth
kindness of his language so far:
"_Eh bien!_"
No answer came for some little time. The two men looked for a few
seconds at each other with sharp, suspicious glances, like two
combatants who try to find out their weak points--like two tricky
gamesters, each one of whom knows how carefully he must watch the hand
of the other, and who yet is not quite sure that he will not be duped.
They both remembered, moreover, that there was an old account to settle
between them, which dated back from the time when Ensign Baron Grenwitz
had treacherously abandoned Ensign Albert Timm in order to save himself
(it was a matter, of security on a bill), and Felix knew perfectly well
that Albert was one of those men who, whenever they can get the law or
the right of the stronger on their side, insist upon being paid by
their debtors to the very last farthing.
He had therefore to summon all his skill and self-control, in order to
overcome an unpleasant sensation which threatened to master him as he
faced his adversary, who was armed _cap-a-pie_ and utterly without
pity. Still he succeeded in assuming a tone of good-natured frankness
(which sat very awkwardly upon him) as he said:
"I think, Timm, we had better treat the whole matter without
reservation or trick, like men who know the world and what they are
about."
"If you know as well what you are about as I do, why, then, the whole
thing is easily settled," replied Albert, dryly.
"Well, tell me then frankly, what do you ask?"
"I am the seller, you are the buyer; it is your duty first to say
distinctly what you wish to buy."
"We want the originals of those papers on the table, and your word of
honor that you will never inform any one, whosoever it be, by writing
or by word of mouth, or in any other way, of the discovery which you
have made."
"_Bon!_ I understand what you want."
"And what do you ask on your side?"
Albert bent over a little, and said in a low but very distinct voice,
with his eyes firmly fixed on his adversary:
"Twenty thousand dollars in Prussian current money, payable between now
and eight days."
"The devil!" cried Felix, jumping up from his chair, in spite of his
feebleness, and running around the room. "Twenty thousand dollars! why,
that is a fortune."
Albert shrugged his shoulders.
"Two years' interest of the sum represented by the two estates of
Stantow and Baerwalde. You must know best, of course, what the legacy
is worth to you."
"But that is atrocious!" cried Felix, still running about in the room;
"atrocious!"
"Don't hollow, Grenwitz; your people might hear you down in the
kitchen. Sit down, if you please, and let us talk the matter over like
men who know the world."
The unconquerable coolness and the cutting irony with which Albert
uttered these words acted like a douche upon Felix's violent agitation.
He sat down, and said, in a calmer tone:
"My aunt will never listen to such a demand."
"I should be sorry, for your sake, and for your aunt's sake, if you
were not to accept my offer. I can only make you both responsible for
the consequences."
"You speak as if it depended on no one but yourself who was to have the
two estates!"
"And on whom else can it depend?" replied Albert, and his lips seemed
to grow thinner, his nose more pointed, and his whole face sharper,
as he spoke: "I tell you, I have made the net so close and so
strong--leaving only a few meshes open on purpose till I should hear
your decision--that I can draw it together at any moment, right over
your head, and you may struggle as you may; it will not break, but you
will die. You know, Grenwitz, that I have rather a good head for such
things, and you know also that I have no cause to show you the shadow
of generosity."
"Me! I have no personal interest whatever in the whole matter."
"Do you think I am a child, Grenwitz? Don't you want to marry Miss
Helen? and are not the two estates to be the dower of the young lady?"
"I marry Helen! Who says so? I don't dream of it."
"Well, then, don't marry her; hand the young beauty over to the man
whom you have more reason to hate than all other men--who is even now
your favored rival--at least evil report has it so--and who will lose
nothing, I am sure, in Miss Helen's eyes, if he can present himself a
second time as her cousin, and the lawful heir of a very considerable
fortune."
Felix had turned alternately white and red as his adversary was
inexorably punishing him with these words. His vanity, deeply wounded
by the allusion to his fatal encounter with Oswald, writhed like a worm
on which somebody has trod. He could not but confess that for the
moment Albert was by far the stronger of the two, and that he, who was
so proud of his cleverness and adroitness, was utterly helpless in the
power of an adversary whom he had in reality always despised.
"Lower your demands a little, Timm," he said, in a subdued voice. "I
must confess it is a matter of the very greatest importance for me to
bury the whole affair in silence, and if it depended on myself alone I
might not be unwilling to pay you the sum which you demand. But you
know my aunt, and you know that she would rather let matters go on to
the last point than to make such an enormous sacrifice. I tell you,
Timm, it can't be done; upon my word, it can't be done. And what do you
want with so much money at once? You will lose it in a few unlucky
nights at roulette, and then you are poorer than you ever were before.
Come, now, I'll make you an offer. We will pay you for one year four
hundred dollars a month, and at the end of the year six thousand
dollars in a lump."
"Altogether ten thousand eight hundred dollars," replied Albert. "Won't
do; and besides, what security can you give me that all the payments
will be made?"
"The documents, which in the mean time you may retain in your
possession and which you are not expected to hand over till the six
thousand dollars are paid."
"Well!" said Albert, "it is not much; but among good friends we ought
not to insist too strictly. I accept."
"Let us make it out in writing."
"Why? If we do not wish to keep our word, we'll break it, anyhow; and
besides, a paper of that kind might, if it should fall into the hands
of the wrong person, commit the family of Grenwitz more seriously than
they would like, and would, after all, but put one more weapon in my
hands. You see I am perfectly candid."
"_Bon!_" said Felix. "Do you want the first four hundred at once?"
"I should think so."
Felix rose, took one of the lights, and went to a bureau which was
standing back in the room, opened a drawer, took a few packages of
bank-notes from it and placed them on the table before Albert.
"Count them!"
"It is not necessary," said Albert, slipping the parcel into his
pocket; "your aunt never makes a mistake in counting. Well, Grenwitz,
that matter is nicely arranged; now let us have a bottle of wine upon
it--I have talked so much I am quite thirsty. If you permit me I will
ring the bell."
"Pray do so!"
Felix ordered the servant who came to bring a bottle of Hock and two
glasses.
Felix was rather pleased to see that Albert was in better humor; he had
another question to ask yet, which no one could answer as well as he
could.
"You have seen, Timm," he said, filling the glasses, "that I have met
you half way, as far as I could. One service is worth another. Will you
do me a favor?"
"Let us hear."
"Then tell me, how is little Marguerite?"
"What interest have you in her?"
"Well, I do have an interest in her."
"And why do you think I know anything about her?"
"Because I have observed you both at Grenwitz, and besides--well, for
divers other reasons."
"For instance?"
"I will be frank with you. From sheer ennui I had begun at Grenwitz
already to pay her some attentions, and afterwards, during my sickness,
I saw still more of the little thing, till it ended in my thinking the
girl really very charming and prodigiously attractive. But she
pretended to be so very reserved that I suspected at once she had a
serious attachment. Now I cannot think of any one else who could have
been in my way but yourself."
"Very complimentary," said Albert. "I am, indeed, as good as engaged to
the young lady."
"But, Timm, are you going to run into your ruin with your eyes open?
You and a wife! and worse than that, a poor wife!--what has become of
your former principles? Upon my word, I should not have thought you
could be so mad."
"Nor I, myself," replied Albert, emptying his glass and filling it
again.
"Are you in love with the girl?"
"There you ask me more than I know myself."
"Look here, Timm, I will make you an offer. We are, it seems, in the
way of speculating. Let me have the girl, and I assume the three
hundred dollars which you have borrowed from the poor little thing."
"Who says so?" said Albert, furiously.
"Your fury just now, for one; besides that, however, little Louisa,
Helen's maid, and my own man's lady love, who happened to see it, when
Marguerite gave you the money in the park at Grenwitz."
"Nonsense!" said Albert, who could not repress his anger at this
inconvenient exposure.
"Don't be angry!" said Felix; "rather be glad that you find somebody
who is willing to relieve you of this troublesome burden. What do you
say?"
"We will talk about that another time," said Albert, rising and taking
his hat. "Farewell, Grenwitz."
"Good-by, Timm! Be reasonable, and come and see your old comrade as
soon as you can."
The worthy pair shook hands, and Albert went away rapidly. His face was
darker than when he came. Either the second part of the conversation
had not been to his taste, or he thought it good policy to assume an
air of being offended. Felix, who knew him pretty well from former
days, was disposed to take the latter view.
CHAPTER XIV.
About the same time, and while these transactions were going on in the
Grenwitz mansion, a young man was impatiently walking up and down in
front of a large house in one of the suburbs of Grunwald. His
impatience looked very much like that of an honest lover who is waiting
on a cool autumn evening in a dense fog for the lady of his heart, whom
he has orders to call for "punctually at seven, but be sure to be
punctual," to see her home from a little party, and whom he sees at
half-past seven sitting near the brightly-lighted-up window, engaged in
most lively conversation. It may be he sees really her whom he loves;
it maybe the shadow belongs to a very different person.
The young man is Doctor Braun; the house before which he patrols,
Leporello-fashion, is the famous boarding-school of Miss Bear; and the
young lady for whom he is waiting is his betrothed Sophie, the only
child of the privy councillor and professor, Doctor Roban, a physician
of great renown in Grunwald, and a distinguished member of the
university.
"What a vague idea of time even the cleverest of women have!" murmured
Franz, pulling out his watch and looking at it by the faint light of a
badly-burning cigar; "it is a psychological fact which I must treat of
one of these days in a monograph."
He throws away the short end of his cigar, which threatened to singe
his moustache, and looks up once more at the lighted window.
"Heaven be thanked, they are getting ready! Dark shadows are flitting
to and fro near the curtains! Now for the cloak, and the bonnet--a kiss
to say good-by then a little bit of a chat of ten minutes about the
next place of meeting--then another farewell kiss. The window is
looking darker; there is a light in the hall; now a final discussion on
the steps--_enfin_!"
"Do you come at last, _ma mignonne_? said Doctor Braun, greeting the
slight maidenly form which had come out of the house, and now hastened
with light steps across the little garden which divided the house from
the street, to the iron gate.
"Poor Franz! You have not been waiting for me," answers the girl,
affectionately leaning on the arm of her betrothed.
"Oh, not at all! Nothing to speak of! Half an hour or so!"
"I really did not know it was so late. The time passed so quickly,
although the whole party consisted only of two persons. Can you guess
who they were?"
"Yourself, probably, for one."
"Very well--and the other?"
"Helen Grenwitz."
"Exactly! She sends you her best regards. Only think, she will probably
stay with the Great Bear, although her friends are coming to town for
the winter, If they have not already come to-day. That will be a fine
subject for gossip. Poor Helen! I pity her with all my heart!"
"Why?"
"How can you ask? Is it not bad enough that the whole town will ask why
a girl of sixteen--no, sixteen and a half--should be sent back to
school when she has hardly been four weeks at home? And as long as the
Grenwitz family was not living in town, there might have been some
explanation; but now--oh, I think it is abominable. People must think
of her--I don't know what; and it is not so much to be wondered at if
they connect Helen in some way or other with the duel fought by her
cousin and your amiable friend, Stein."
"And what says Miss Helen?"
"Nothing! You know how she is. She never speaks of family matters; at
most she occasionally mentions her father, whom she seems to love most
tenderly. She is quiet and serious; but not exactly sad."
"I believe she is much too proud ever to be really sad."
"How so?"
"Sadness is a passive disposition; the disposition of one who sees that
he cannot struggle with fate, and therefore submits to endure it as
well as he can. But there are characters which resist as long as it is
possible, and when nothing more can be done, instead of laying down
their arms, break them to pieces and throw them fiercely at the
victor's feet."
Sophie came up closer to her betrothed and said, after a pause:
"I am not one of those characters, Franz. I am not too proud to be sad;
I have been very often sad these last days. I was sad when you left us
with Doctor Stein, although at that time I had no particular reason for
being so. But since then, when papa was taken sick and I sat by his
bedside, and my greatest anxiety--next to that about papa's life--was
whether you had received my letter ... You might have travelled on and
on, and my heart was all the time breaking with longing for you! You
went to see him, I am sure, before you came to call for me at Miss
Bear's."
"Of course! He is better. I begged him to lie down, but he insisted
upon sitting up till we should come back."
"And I have wasted so much time! Let us go faster!"
"A few minutes, more or less, do not matter; and besides, I should like
to speak with you definitely about our future. We must at last make an
end to this provisional state, which is pleasant to no one--not to
God--I mean Nature--nor to man--and is daily becoming more oppressive.
An unmarried man is a fish; but an engaged man is neither fish nor
flesh. When two people are in their own heart and conscience man and
wife through their mutual love, they ought to be man and wife also in
the world, before men, provided circumstances admit of their marrying.
Now, that is the case with us. We have enough for our support, and for
the present we need no more; whatever else may be necessary will come.
In short, shall we have our wedding day four weeks from to-day?"
"But, Franz, I have not finished half of my trousseau!"
"Then we'll marry with half a trousseau."
"And what will papa say? You know how very hard it is for him to let me
go from him; and shall I just now ask such a sacrifice from him, when
he needs me more than ever? I have not the courage to propose it to
him."
"But I have it; your father knows that I am not less anxious for your
happiness than he is, and he is far too sensible not to see that my
plan is the best. Come, my darling, don't hang your head. To-day four
weeks we are man and wife."
"Ah, Franz! I wish it could be so. But I fear, I fear, Heaven does not
mean it so well with us!"
"Why not? Heaven means it well with all who have the courage to
determine upon their own happiness. For, how says the poet: 'In our
bosom are the stars of our fate.'"
The haste with which Franz pressed her had a very good motive
in the illness of her father. Franz, as a physician, knew best that
the life of the excellent man was hanging on a very slender thread. He
had rallied quickly enough from a stroke of apoplexy, which had
attacked him a fortnight ago, but several bad symptoms announced that
another attack was not improbable, and with his nervous, very
delicately-organized system, this was likely to be fatal. But if the
father died before his daughter had been married, the poor girl would
have been placed in a very painful position, as her mother had been
dead for many years, and she had neither brothers and sisters nor any
near relations. The world with its prejudices would have hardly been
willing to admit that under such circumstances her only home should be
in the house of the man whom she loved, but would have been
inconceivably shocked if the daughter had married "before the shoes
were worn out in which she had followed her father's funeral." The
whole city would have broken out in one cry of indignation against such
a fearful crime against decency and propriety.
Sophie loved her father with a love which bordered upon enthusiasm,
little as enthusiasm generally formed a part of her clear and sensible
character, which shrank instinctively from all exaggeration. And the
father was well worthy of such love.
The privy councillor, Roban, was a man of rare distinction in many
respects. As a man of science he stood very high; he was considered the
very first pathologist in Germany. But a remarkable versatility of mind
enabled him to gather, outside of the studies which his profession
required, information upon the most varied fields of knowledge, and to
attain to a high degree of perfection in more than one of the arts. In
the morning he would take his pupils, hour after hour, from bed to bed
in the hospital, and open to them views into the innermost workings of
nature. Then again he would wander for long hours from house to house,
soothing here a sufferer's pains, comforting others, and exhorting them
to patient endurance. And yet in the evening, when a circle of intimate
friends were gathered under his hospitable roof, he would be ready to
take an active part in an animated conversation about art, literature,
or politics, or perhaps take his favorite instrument, the violoncello,
between his knees, and delight even the best cultivated ears by his
correct and yet deeply-felt playing in a quickly-improvised quartette.
Where there are lights there must be shadows, and where there are
shadows there is never a lack of people who take pleasure in painting
everything in the darkest and blackest of colors. Thus it was with the
little foibles of the excellent man, which his rivals and enemies
subjected to pitiless criticism. Some declared he was a charlatan, who
understood his business tolerably well, but the necessary bragging and
boasting about it still better; others declared his bon-mots were
better than his prescriptions, and a good story more welcome to him
than the most famous case in his practice. Still others said that the
essence of his nature was a restless vanity, which induced him to try
all the arts and to play the Mæcenas for all travelling artists and
spoilt men of genius. Still others--so-called practical men, who
laid no claim to any opinion in matters of art and science, but who
demanded in return that everybody should comply with their standard of
morality--shook their heads when people spoke of the councillor's
hospitality, and said: "If everybody would sweep the dust before his
own door, many things would be seen that are hidden now; and if certain
folks would remember the old saying: 'Save in time and you'll have in
need,' they would be better off than they were."
Of all these reproaches none really affected the distinguished
professor, except the last. Money was to him what it is to Saladin in
Lessing's great drama, Nathan: "the most trifling of trifles;" he
looked upon it, as Saladin did, as "perfectly superfluous when he had
it," much as he appreciated the necessity of being provided with it
whenever he was reminded of it by his liberality, his generosity, and
his intense antipathy against all bargaining and all haggling. If he
had lived economically he might have become a very rich man, for his
income was considerable; but Mammon would not stay in his hands, which
were ever open to all who were poor and suffering. He never could force
himself to accept money from the hard hand of a mechanic, even if the
sum had been ever so small. "It is bad enough," he used to say, "that
Nature has not wisdom enough to allow only such people to be sick as
have leisure and money enough for it; but for the poor, sickness itself
is a punishment severe enough, not to sentence them moreover into the
payment of costs." Thus it happened to him very often that he poured
the golden reward he had earned by his attention and his skill in the
palace of rich Sinbad a few minutes later into the open hand of poor
Hinbad, and reached home with a lighter purse than he had carried out.
His house also was an expensive one, although the whole family
consisted but of himself and his daughter. A nature as richly endowed
and as productive as his own was not made to be content with meagre
fare and thin beer; he was fond of rich, savory dishes and fiery old
wines; above all he loved to share the pleasures of his table with
others who were as willing to be pleased as he himself with the good
things of this world, and especially with one of the best among the
good--a pleasant table-talk.
All this might have been accomplished without causing a deficit in the
budget of the privy councillor, if a careful, sensible housewife had
managed the whole, and spent what was coming in properly and
economically. His wife, however, an exceedingly amiable, intelligent
woman, died the second year after their marriage; and her husband, who
had loved her above all things, could not summon resolution to fill the
place in his heart which death, inexorable death, had made vacant, and
to give a stepmother to his daughter, in whom he soon concentrated all
his affections. He remembered too well the old saying, _apud novercam
queri_! He had seen the fairy tale of Cinderella repeat itself in too
many families. Thus he left his child in the hands of nurses and
governesses whom he paid magnificently, and sent her, when she was old
enough, to Miss Bear's boarding-school, in case anything should have
been forgotten in her outward polish or her inner culture. In the
meantime he kept a kind of bachelor's hall, which soon became a very
costly life, owing to the thievishness of his servants and the
incapacity of a housekeeper in whom he placed implicit confidence. He
comforted himself, however, whenever Mrs. Bartsch had forced him into a
very uncomfortable discussion about credit and debt, with the prospect
of the time when his daughter could relieve him of all this _misère_,
and of the answer to the question: what shall we have for dinner, etc.,
which ought not to be allowed to trouble a good Christian's peace of
mind.
The time came at last, but Miss Sophie's return to the paternal home
did not exactly mend matters. Sophie was too young and too
inexperienced to see the cause of the evil and to reform the abuses,
which were deeply rooted after so many years' toleration. Mrs. Bartsch,
who could not adapt herself at all to the new regime, was dismissed, it
is true; but--as the doctor said, "the bad one is gone, the bad ones
have stayed"--the servants stole just as before, and the privy
councillor did not know yet "what in all the world could have become of
the miserable money?" As it could not well be otherwise under such
circumstances, the accounts agreed less and less every year, and
instead of saying, "I must learn to be more economical hereafter," he
only said, "I must work harder." He felt himself yet in the full vigor
of his strength. He saw before him yet long years of energetic
activity, during which he might make up what had been so long
neglected.
But it was not to be so, and the beautiful fruit-bearing tree, in whose
broad, hospitable shade so many who suffered from the burning heat of
life sought shelter and refreshment, and found it too, was to be
irreparably injured by a flash of lightning which fell from a clear
sky. Like wildfire the news flew one morning all over town that Privy
Councillor Roban had had a stroke of paralysis over night, and was now
laid up without hope. People told it one to another with grave faces,
and said it would be an irreparable loss to science, especially as far
as the university was concerned, which had had in Roban its only really
great man since Berger had become insane. But of all who suffered by
the loss, the poor were most seriously threatened, since they lost in
the privy councillor their generous friend and protector. For many and
many a day one might have seen old women dragging themselves painfully
along on crutches, men so old and feeble that they had to be led by a
boy, young pale mothers with a baby in their bosom--all sitting on the
steps of the house, bathed in tears, and asking every one who came out
whether things were not going a little better with the privy
councillor, or whether there was really no hope at all that the good
old gentleman would recover?
In the meantime the patient was lying in that terrible state which is
neither night nor day, but a painful twilight, when the sun is about to
set, and the darkness is rising full of threatenings on all sides. For
a long time it remained uncertain whether life or death would be the
end, and when at last the cruel conflict was decided in favor of life,
death only yielded after having marked his victim unmistakably forever.
One might even have said, that he had taken all the reality away with
it, and left only the shadow of existence.
To-day was the first time that the privy councillor had risen for
a few hours; they had rolled him in his large easy-chair from his
bed-chamber, before the fire-place in the sitting-room. He had insisted
upon it that his daughter, who since the beginning of his sickness had
scarcely left his bed, should go out to her little party; and he had
dismissed his son-in-law, who had taken his practice provisionally in
hand and came to see him every evening--for he wished to be alone. He
felt the necessity of availing himself of the first hour in which the
pressure on his brain was less overwhelming, for the purpose of
thinking over his situation. As a physician, he would probably have
warned his patient against such an injurious excitement; but now he was
physician and patient at once, and made the experience in himself that
the physician may very often demand certain things which the patient is
unable to do with the best will in the world.
Poor, unfortunate man; doubly and trebly poor, because you have been
doubly and trebly rich and happy before, in the fulness of your mental
and physical strength, in the elasticity of your sanguine temper, nay
even in the easy humor which bore you like a bird high over the
greatest difficulties! Where is now your restless activity, which
formerly made it impossible for you to sit still in one and the same
place for any length of time, which induced you even at table
frequently to change your place among your guests? Where is your sharp,
penetrating mind, which used to solve the hardest problems as in play?
Where your brilliant fancy, which threw even upon every-day occurrences
a bewitching light? Where, above all, your Olympian cheerfulness, which
made it so easy for you not to be angry or excited, but allowed you to
fight at most with a humorous smile and satirical wit against the
misery and wretchedness of life, against the stupidity and vulgarity of
men? Where are the thousand arguments with which you often nearly
overwhelmed the pessimist views of your friend Berger, when you tried
to persuade him that this earth was by no means a vale of tears from
the rising to the setting of the sun, but a wide, fair landscape, in
which hill and dale, waste deserts and Elysian fields alternated very
wisely, and that in most cases man was not only at liberty but even
commanded to avoid the one and to enjoy the other? Have you all at once
changed your views? Has a brutal blow of fate suddenly reduced you in
the discussion to an _absurdum_? Has the pressure which weighs on your
brain and paralyzes the elasticity of your mind transformed you all of
a sudden from an optimist into a pessimist, so that you see the world
and your own situation in dark colors, as you are counting the beats of
your pulse mechanically, and sit there, rolled in a ball in your
easy-chair, glaring in dull thoughts at the dying embers of the
fire-place?
And indeed there were reasons why it was hard for the privy councillor
to drive away the gray shadowy form of care, as it pressed more and
more closely upon him the darker the room grew. He who had himself
observed so many similar cases, could least of all disguise from
himself how precarious his physical condition was. He knew but too well
that he was doomed to be henceforth a cripple in body and mind, that he
was only a pensioner on life, and that death might come at any moment
to collect the debt which was long since due. And yet, much as he was
attached to life, this was his least sorrow. The physician did not
struggle against omnipotent fate, which had never yet granted him one
of its victims; the pupil of Epicure knew that joy and grief, delight
and suffering, are inseparably interwoven in our life. But what made
his heart particularly heavy, was the thought of his inability to
arrange his circumstances, that he should have to leave life a
bankrupt, and that after all he should have to rob his creditors of
their rights by his death. Had he not always referred them to the
future, and now the future refused to accept the draft; now the
credulous man was to be denied credit at the very bank on whose credit
he had so implicitly relied.
The unfortunate man sighed, hiding his deep-bowed head in his hands.
And his daughter, his darling daughter! Where was now the hope he had
cherished to endow her with a fortune which was forever to free the
spoilt, tender child from all the vulgar cares of life? which was to
afford her the means always to enjoy a comfortable existence such as
alone seemed to be suitable for the character of the young girl? Now he
could not only leave her no fortune--no! but not even an honest,
stainless name!
She had no idea of the painful pecuniary situation of her father. He
never had the courage to trouble her childlike mind with cares which he
tried to keep from himself as long as he could. She took it for granted
that her father was, if not a rich man, at least well-to-do, and that
she could enjoy the simple comforts by which she was surrounded with a
clear conscience.
And was she the only one who labored under this illusion, and whom he
had allowed to remain blind from fear of an explanation? Did not his
friends think the same? Above all, the youngest and dearest of his
friends, the man who had won his daughter's heart, and whom he himself
loved with hearty, paternal love; who deserved such friendship, such
love, by his upright, noble bearing, by his ability and his goodness;
what would he say, what would he do, if he should learn what sooner or
later he would have to learn--nay, what the father of his future wife
was under such circumstances bound to tell him without further delay,
if he did not mean to renounce all claims to be considered an honest
man?
The privy councillor pressed his trembling hands upon his eyes and
groaned loud, like one who is suffering cruel torture.
And suddenly he felt soft arms embracing him, and a girl's voice asked
anxiously: "Papa, dearest papa, you are surely sick again;" and the
kindly, firm voice of a man who had taken his hand to feel the pulse,
and who now said: "You have stayed up too long! we must try and get you
into bed again."
These voices, these words, fell like a mild, refreshing rain falling
upon a sunburnt plant, upon the heart of the poor man, who was so sick
in body and soul. He put his arms around the slender waist of his
daughter and drew her to his heart in a long, silent embrace. He could
have wept, but he was ashamed. Sophie asked again and again if he felt
worse. Franz, who had ordered lights to be brought in, begged more and
more urgently that he should not risk what had been so painfully gained
by sitting up any longer. But the privy councillor would not hear of
going to bed; he said he felt very comfortable in his arm-chair, and
not in the least fatigued. Besides, he had to talk to Franz, and Sophie
might in the meantime attend to the supper.
Franz, whose clear eye had well observed the restlessness, the
excitement of his patient, considered it best to humor him in his
wishes, and gave a nod to his betrothed to leave him alone with her
father. Sophie went out with an anxious, inquiring glance at Franz,
which the latter answered by a reassuring smile.
The door had hardly closed after the slender form of the young girl,
when the privy councillor seized Franz's hand and said, in a voice
which was in vain striving to be firm,
"I have something to tell you, Franz, which I cannot any longer conceal
from you under the circumstances, and, since I may have to meet death
any moment, without acting dishonorably."
"What is it, my dear sir?" asked Franz, moving a chair close to the
privy councillor's seat and taking his hand into his with a gesture of
great kindness.
"It is this!" said the privy councillor--and now he told Franz, that
partly the want of prudent economy and partly the loaning of countless
sums of money to poor and needy people, which were never returned, had
gradually brought him seriously into debt; that he had hoped to work
himself out by means of increased industry in the coming years, but
that now all such hopes were futile, as he felt but too painfully.
The privy councillor paused here, partly because he was too much
exhausted for the time, and partly because he expected an answer from
Franz. But the young man sat there with cast-down eyes, remaining
silent, and the patient continued with a lower and more trembling
voice:
"Pardon me, my dear Franz, that my perhaps criminal selfishness, for
which I hope you may find some excuse, has made me hesitate so long
before making this communication to you. But it is a terrible task to
have to afflict a man whom we love; to have to impoverish a man whom we
would like to load with all the world can give."
He paused, and tried to draw his hands from those of the young man, as
if the revelation he had just made had interrupted and ended their
friendship. But Franz moved nearer to the sufferer and said, looking at
him with his clear, truthful, bright eyes:
"I have let you finish, my dear sir; and now let me have my say.
Suppose a man were to give the friend he loves best an unspeakably
valuable treasure, a treasure which the other values so much that he
could not live without it, and he were then to say to this friend, 'My
dear, while I was guarding this treasure I had not the time, as you may
readily imagine, to attend with proper care to the management and
settlement of all my other affairs. There are a few creditors who wish
to be paid, and who must be paid. Will you take that upon yourself? You
are younger and stronger, and have no objection to business.' Suppose,
I say, the giver should speak thus to him who receives, and the latter
were to answer: 'The treasure which is to make me immeasurably rich for
all time to come I am ready to take, but as to your other affairs you
can see how you can manage them yourself. I will have nothing to do
with them.' Would you not justly look upon a man who could give such an
answer as a monster of heartlessness, as a horrible instance of
ingratitude? Exactly such is the relation in which we stand to each
other. You are the generous donor; I am the man who receives the costly
gift--the immeasurably precious treasure itself is my own Sophie.
Between us there can be no longer any question of mine and thine; what
I have is yours, for you are to me all in all--my friend, my teacher,
and my father. What I have amounts to about ten or eleven thousand
dollars, left me by an aunt whom I have never seen in my life, and they
are entirely at your disposal. I know that this sum will not suffice to
free you from all responsibilities. But it will be a relief to you, a
help; and I beg, I conjure you to make any use of it you may choose.
No, my dear sir, don't shake your head! You can't help it. You owe it
to me to Sophie, to yourself, not to refuse me. And then, I am not
going to ask you to do this favor without asking one for myself in
return. We have never yet agreed upon the day for our wedding. We were
afraid to speak of it, because we feared you would refuse, or at least
give your consent only with reluctance. Now I have become bold, and ask
neither for Flanders nor for liberty to think, Oh, King Philip, but for
your permission to make your daughter, Dona Sophie, my wife, this day
four weeks. Look! there she is herself! Kneel down, darling, and thank
your lord and father for his kindness. He consents to our marriage this
day four weeks."
Sophie, who had entered the room during the last words spoken by Franz,
hastened to her father.
"Good, dear papa! dearest darling of a papa!" she cried, embracing the
privy councillor and kissing him tenderly on brow and lip. The privy
councillor was deeply moved. His trembling lips tried in vain to utter
a word; his tear-flooded eyes turned now towards his daughter, who was
kneeling before him, and now towards the noble man, who stood by his
side leaning over him and looking at him with tenderness. His mind,
weakened by his sickness, could not at once overcome the chaos of
conflicting thoughts, but in his heart he heard a voice assuring him
that he could die now in peace.
Franz, who had his reasons for fearing that the violent emotion might
change the condition of the patient for the worse, hastened to make an
end to the scene. He rang the bell and asked the servant to help him
carry his master to his room. The privy councillor suffered them to do
as they chose. Franz and the servant rolled the chair to the door of
the adjoining room, which had been opened by Sophie, lifted it over the
sill, and closed the door behind them, while Sophie remained alone in
the sitting-room.
After a few minutes Franz returned. He was moved as Sophie had never
yet seen him; but she saw also that his emotion was not painful. His
eyes shone brightly, his step was elastic like that of a conqueror, and
his voice, generally rather sharp, sounded softer and fuller, as he
said, folding his betrothed almost violently in his arms,
"Rejoice, my girl; all goes well, excellently well. I have won your
father's consent by gentle means and harsh means. Did I not tell you we
should be man and wife four weeks hence? Did I not tell you, 'In our
heart are the stars of our fate?' Oh, I feel a whole heaven in my
heart! dear, dear Sophie!"
"Dear, dear Franz!"
And the lovers held each other embraced in that bliss for which the
ordinary language of earth-born men has no words.
Then, when the torrent of glorious feelings had sobered down to greater
quiet, they walked up and down in the room, arm in arm, and their
voices grew low like their steps on the carpet, and what they whispered
to each other was sweet and cozy, like the dim rosy light of the lamp
under its veil, and yet as hot and as glowing as the coals shining
through the light covering of ashes in the fire-place.
It was a lovely pair, the two lovers; and Zeus of Otricoli, whose
lordly face with the god-like brow beneath the ambrosiacal curls that
shade Olympus, looked majestically down upon them from a niche in the
wall, must have enjoyed the sight as they walked again and again past
his bust, although neither the young man nor the girl could lay claim
to a beauty exactly classic. Their tall forms were too lithe for that,
wanting in the voluptuous fulness of the Grecian ideal; their faces,
full of expression, were wanting in that architectural regularity, that
indelible antique harmony, which knows no struggle, at least no
struggle that excites the soul to its innermost depths.
Sophie Roban had, if you examined her strictly, nothing that could be
called beauty, except a graceful, delicate figure, though connoisseurs
would have objected to her arms as too thin, and a pair of large, soft,
deep-blue eyes, of which connoisseur and ignoramus spoke with equal
delight. Her mouth is rather large, and it is fortunate for her that
her teeth, which are in consequence seen very frequently, are, if not
literally "two rows of pearls," at least beautifully white and regular
The cheeks are round and full, the nose belongs to no special category.
The best feature of the whole is, probably, next to the large blue
eyes, the abundance of chestnut-brown hair, which forms a frame of soft
waves for the somewhat low but smooth and most intelligent brow, and is
very artlessly but tastefully arranged. Sophie is so tall that Franz,
who is above medium size, scarcely rises a head's length above her--a
proof, as Sophie says, that she has some claims to be counted among
Jean Paul's "lofty beings," an opinion which Franz is by no means
disposed to accept. He says, on the contrary, that she falls short, if
not in everything, yet in much of that great honor, especially in that
exuberance in thought and sentiment which the author requires for
"lofty beings," and of which Sophie has not a trace, unless it be when
she plays on the piano, and the genius of Beethoven, her favorite
composer, lends her soul the wings which are otherwise wanting. Franz
mentions besides, in his diagnosis of his betrothed, a certain cool
sobriety of views and judgment, a kind of shyness to go beyond her own
self, and a mistrust of all who do not possess this shyness and are too
ready to sing their own praises or their own complaints, without
inquiring whether the gods have given them a talent for stating what
they suffer or not. Sophie, on the contrary, is disposed to be very
quiet in moments of great enjoyment or great sorrow, on which account
Franz prefers classing her with Jean Paul's "silent children of
heaven." Besides, he attributes to Sophie the following qualities and
peculiarities, all of which are more or less incompatible with the
character of "lofty beings." She is particularly fond, he says, of
canary birds, dogs, tree-frogs, rabbits, horses, and even of donkeys,
which evidently shows a predilection for Dutch pictures of still life;
she betrays a highly improper indifference for literature, unworthy of
the daughter of a man of science, and the betrothed of a man who may
possibly yet become famous in the world; she will not condescend to use
a dictionary, even in cases of necessity, when she reads French or
English authors; and as to the productions of her mother tongue, her
indifference is so great that she has actually dared to fall fast
asleep when Franz has been reading to her aloud the most beautiful
chapters from Goethe's Truth and Fiction or his Italian Journey. Then
she has a decided fancy for putting on her hat on one side, and to
catch her dress when walking out in all the thorn-bushes by the
wayside, both of which habits indicate a dreamy, twilight life, utterly
incompatible with the manner of "lofty beings." She is even suspected
of clairvoyance, for she had actually once told her maid, when she was
dressing her for a ball and wanted a pin, that there was one lying way
back in the parlor under the fourth chair from the window.
The conversation of the two lovers had gradually approached this topic
of the little weaknesses of his betrothed, which Franz was apt to play
upon in countless variations. He had a talent to jest gracefully, and
to conceal the sober face of a well-meaning preceptor under the smiling
mask of a good-natured but ironical critic. Sophie, who was not fond of
ample explanations, felt grateful to her lover for this mode of
instructing her, and Franz adopted this method all the more readily as
it gave him an opportunity to admire the cleverness and the wit with
which Sophie knew how to defend herself against his insidious attacks,
and to deny her faults, or even to pretend that they were in reality
nothing but very lovable virtues.
They were so deeply engrossed in their conversation, now playful, now
sober, occasionally interrupted by a half-suppressed laugh or a stolen
kiss, that a person who was in the habit of coming every day at this
hour to the privy councillor's house, and of entering unannounced, had
to knock three times at the door before they answered with an unisonous
"Come in!"
CHAPTER XV.
"Good evening, most honored friends and betrothed," said he, as he
entered the room; "do I disturb your devotions?"
"Good evening, Bemperlein," replied Sophie, loosening Franz's hold and
cordially offering her hand to the little man, who came with careful
steps to her side; "you are just in time to protect me against this
arch-scorner."
"Good evening, Bemperlein," said Franz; "you are just in time to help
me in my efforts to convince this obstinate sinner."
"Before I can do the one, and not the other," replied Mr. Bemperlein,
drawing off his gloves and folding them up carefully, "I beg leave to
inquire, as in duty bound, after the privy councillor's health."
"He is much better," replied Franz.
"I hoped so from your joyous disposition," said Bemperlein; "well, I am
delighted. Then we can at least take our supper to-night without
feeling as if every morsel would stick in our throats from sheer
melancholy and mourning, as has been the case for the last fortnight.
_Ad vocem_ supper; is it ready. Miss Sophie? I--who am not lucky enough
to be able to satisfy my hunger with the ambrosia of confidential talk,
and to quench my thirst with the nectar of love--I feel an unmistakable
longing after earthly food and drink."
"I believe supper has been on the table for half an hour," said Sophie;
"I had forgotten all about it."
"Then let us lose no more time," said Bemperlein, offering Sophie his
arm, and leading her the familiar way into the adjoining room, where
supper was regularly laid out.
Miss Sophie and Mr. Bemperlein were great friends. The excellent man
had at every epoch of his life found somebody to whom he could offer
his devotion and his love. When he had come over to settle in Grunwald,
he had felt for a few days unspeakably lonely and wretched. Unable to
live in solitude, and full of childlike trust, he had no sooner been
introduced into the house of Privy Councillor Roban than he had poured
out his complaints into the willing ear of Miss Sophie; whose large
blue eyes encouraged him wonderfully. Sophie had not only listened to
the little, lively man, who opened his whole heart to her with Homeric
_naïveté_, as if he could not help doing so; but after following him
with great attention to his last words; "that is all over now! over,
and forever!" she had given him her hand with most cordial kindness,
saying: "You must come and see us very often, Mr. Bemperlein. Papa is
very fond of you and so am I. We'll try if we cannot make some amends
to you for the loss of Berkow."
It was a strange friendship that bound the two to each other. Sophie,
although twelve years younger than Bemperlein, was the admonishing,
reproving, directing Mentor, and he the obedient, attentive, and docile
Telemachus. She had aided him in arranging the modest lodgings which he
had rented at some little distance from the privy councillor's house,
and she made with him, and sometimes without him, the necessary
purchases. Her attention went even beyond that. She trained him, after
a fashion, for his entrance into society, for there was much to be
done. She made him aware that it was not exactly the thing to hold
gentlemen with whom he conversed continually by a coat-button, or to
turn his back persistently upon ladies by whose side he had found his
seat at table, however tedious they might appear in his eyes. "You must
not do this, Bemperlein! You must stop doing that, Bemperlein!" the
young lady continually said to him, and the good-natured man obeyed her
implicitly, and was but too happy and proud if she said another time,
"Bemperlein, that was well done! You played quite the cavalier
to-night, Bemperlein!"
Bemperlein was soon even fonder of Miss Roban than he had been of Frau
von Berkow. The latter remained, with all her kindness and goodness,
after all, the great lady, the benefactress, the mistress; and the
impression she had made upon him when he, a poor, bashful, awkward
candidate for the ministry, had arrived one summer afternoon at Berkow,
and been presented by old Baumann to the great lady, had never been
wholly effaced in the seven long years which he had spent at her house.
But Sophie was not grand; she laughed as heartily as any one of them;
she looked at him so trustingly with her big, blue eyes; she made no
pretensions; you could speak to her as to an equal, you could love her
like a brother, without being all the time filled with awe and
reverence.
And such paternal love Bemperlein felt for the hearty girl. Even if she
had not been already engaged, it would never have occurred to him to
fall in love with her. But to sympathize with all that interested her;
to declare that her betrothed, whose acquaintance he made soon
afterwards, was the most amiable and excellent of men; to render her
any service which he could read in her eyes, and, when the privy
councillor was ill, to watch with her till Franz should come back, day
and night, with womanly patience and tenderness, by the bedside of the
sufferer; and now, when he heard that the latter was better, to rejoice
like a child to whom a father is restored, and to conceal this joy
under a hundred innocent tricks and teasings--that was in the power of
the ex-candidate of divinity and actual student of philosophy, Mr.
Anastasius Bemperlein.
* * * * *
"I fear the potatoes are cold," said Sophie, raising the cover off the
dish.
"Then they have exactly the temperature of this fish," said Franz,
presenting her his dish.
"Or of this sauce," said Bemperlein, handing her the sauce-dish from
the other side.
Sophie shrugged her shoulders.
"Nothing is eaten quite as warm as it is cooked, gentlemen. I must know
that best, as future housewife!"
"For we are to be married in four weeks from to-day, Bemperlein," said
Franz; "that is to say, if your dress-coat, which you have intended to
order ever since you first came to Grunwald, can be ready by that time,
Bemperlein, otherwise it cannot be."
"The coat shall be ready! The coat shall be ready!" cried Mr.
Bemperlein; "even if I have myself to cut it out, to sew it, and to
press it."
"That would make a nice coat, Bemperlein."
"Not so bad, perhaps, as you think. At all events it would not be the
first dress-coat I have made with my own hands."
"Impossible, Bemperlein!" cried Franz, with amazement.
"As I tell you. It is a long time since, to be sure--perhaps fifteen
years; and I was, during that Robinson Crusoe period of my life, much
more inventive and industrious than I am now; but still I do not think
I should find it impossible even now."
"But how did you come to make such a funny experiment?"
"Through the author of all inventions--necessity. You know, Miss
Sophie, that I belong to those of God's children, or rather did belong,
for now I have been promoted to another class, to whom the heavenly
kingdom is promised, because they call nothing their own upon earth.
This compelled me, when I left the Elysian fields of my native village
and came to this town, to lead a life like a cicade, and to avoid all
unnecessary expenses. Thus it occurred to me also, after long and
painful meditation, that it might be feasible, even in this century of
ink-consumption, to manufacture my own clothes, like Eumaeus of old,
the god-like keeper of swine. No sooner thought than done. I had formed
a great intimacy with a boy--his name was Christian Sweetmilk, the son
of the old tailor Sweetmilk in Long street--who was to be a tailor and
wished to be a doctor. We made a covenant that I should teach him every
evening, when papa Sweetmilk's stentorian voice announced the closing
of the shop, his Latin and Greek grammar; while he in return should
instruct me in the use of the needle and the goose. Our studies were
carried on with equal secrecy and industry, for I had good reason to
fear the jibes of my school-mates, and he the never-missing yard-stick
of his father and master. Oh! those were precious hours which we thus
spent together, hours never to be forgotten again! I can see us still
sitting by the light of a miserable train-oil lamp in our diminutive
garret, on an autumn evening like this to-day, when the rain was
pattering down upon the tiles right over our heads, and the gutter was
overflowing, and the owls and rooks in the steeple of St. Nicholas were
crowing and croaking. We were not cold however, although there was no
fire burning in the little cast-iron stove, for the sacred flame of
friendship warmed the blood in our veins with a gentle glow, and I was
sewing till the thread smoked, and he was learning his grammar till his
head smoked; and when I had finished a seam in masterly style, and he
could tell his _typto_, _typteis_ without a mistake, we fell into each
other's arms and envied no king on his throne in all his splendor."
Mr. Bemperlein paused and looked deeply moved into his glass.
"Hurrah for old times!" said Franz.
"Hurrah for the new ones, too!" replied Bemperlein, touching glasses
with the betrothed.
"But how about the dress-coat, Bemperlein?" asked Sophie. "I hope it
was not the coat in which you were confirmed?"
"You have guessed it, fair lady; it was my confirmation coat. The time
for the ceremony was drawing near. A merchant, to whose children I had
given lessons in reading and writing, and at whose table I dined every
Friday gratis, had presented me with the cloth for a dress-coat. The
good man even told me to have it made at the tailor's at his expense.
But I thought it would be abusing his goodness if I should avail myself
of that offer too, and I asked his permission to have the coat made by
my own tailor. Well, you may imagine who 'my own tailor' was. But alas!
Papa Sweet milk had found out our 'abominable tricks,' as he called the
sacred hours devoted to friendship and hard work, in his vulgar
language. He had discovered the Greek grammar, which Christian used to
throw quickly into 'hell,' the place of remnants and rags, when the
Boeotian father suddenly entered, and the effect of this fatal
discovery was, that he first used up his yard-stick on the shoulders of
the attic youth, and then ordered him peremptorily to give up all
intercourse with me hereafter, under penalty of being immediately and
permanently banished from the paternal house, and of being disinherited
besides. My faithful friend told me of the fearful sentence, weeping
bitterly, as I met him the next day at the corner of the street. 'But I
will not submit any longer to such tyranny,' he cried, flourishing a
pair of trousers, which he was ordered to carry to one of his father's
customers, with more energy than grace. 'This one more slavish service
I will render (and he struck the dishevelled inexpressibles with his
closed fist in wild fury) and then I will go into the wide, wide world.
Will you go with me? 'It took me some time to quiet the boy. I knew
that nothing pained him more than the thought that he would now be
unable to help me with my dress-coat. I reminded him of the
commandment, that we must honor father and mother, if we wish to live
long in the land which the Lord our God has given us. I told him
his father would probably give way after a while; and as for the
dress-coat, I promised him that the pupil should do credit to his
master. Christian shook his head sadly. 'You can't do it, Anastasius,'
he said; 'you will not get it done, even if you had any idea how to cut
it out.' 'What will you bet, Christian?' I cried. 'You shall see me
to-day week at the confirmation in church, wearing the coat I have made
without your assistance, and you shall have to confess that it fits me
well. If I win, you shall give me your bird; if you win, I'll give you
the Odyssey, Heyne's edition. What do you say?' 'Done!' said Christian,
laughing, in spite of his troubles. 'I ought not to bet, because you
are sure to lose, but since you will have it so, let it be so.'"
"Well, and who won the wager?" asked Sophie, full of interest.
"On the following Sunday, at St. Nicholas," said Mr. Bemperlein, and
his voice trembled, and the glasses in his spectacles were dim, "on the
following Sunday I was kneeling amid a number of youths before the
altar, and the music of the organ was floating through the vast
edifice, and the minister proclaimed God's blessing over us; but I
heard nothing of all that. I only looked up to the gallery, to a boy
with long, brown hair and brown eyes, who kissed his hand to me, and
whose dear face was beaming with pride and joy that his friend should
look so well, contrary to all his expectations. When my turn came that
'the Lord might bless me and preserve me and let His countenance shine
upon me,' he folded his hands piously and prayed for me earnestly with
bent head."
Bemperlein paused again. He had taken off his glasses, which had become
dimmer and dimmer, and was now rubbing them bright again with his silk
handkerchief.
"And what has become of Christian?" asked Franz.
"He is now professor of ancient languages in one of the best lyceums in
Belgium; his grammar of the Doric poets is considered a most valuable
work for philologists. I had a letter from him day before yesterday,
sixteen pages long."
"And what has become of the dress-coat?" asked Sophie.
"It hangs still, as a valued memento of former days, in my wardrobe,"
replied Bemperlein, replacing his spectacles, and looking with a smile
at Sophie; "and what is more than that, it still fits me so well that I
can present myself in it at any time, if my gracious lady should
entertain any doubts as to the truthfulness of this veracious story."
"Will you do me a favor, Bemperlein?" said Sophie, with unusual
seriousness, offering him her hand.
"Anything!" said Bemperlein, enthusiastically, and seizing the girl's
hand.
"Then don't order a new dress-coat for my wedding, but come in the old
one, which has become very dear to me through your touching story."
"Are you in earnest?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"Well, then," said Mr. Bemperlein, kissing Sophie's hand reverently, "I
will be at your wedding in the coat which I have made myself for my
confirmation."
The little company finished their cold supper and then went back to the
cosy sitting-room, where Sophie made tea, while Franz went to inquire
after the privy councillor. He returned with the welcome news that papa
was, for the first time since the beginning of his sickness, lying in
quiet, refreshing sleep, and that the servant who was watching by his
bedside said "he had fallen asleep almost immediately after having
murmured a few unintelligible words, with folded hands."
Franz assured them that the recovery would now progress with rapid
strides, and that he felt very little doubt any more of a perfect
restoration. Sophie embraced and kissed him as a reward for this good
news, and Bemperlein vowed he would hereafter acknowledge a fifth most
profane evangelist, besides the four in the Bible--namely, a St.
Franciscus.
They were sitting around the fire-place. The steam of the tea-kettle
and the smoke of the cigars which the gentlemen had lighted, rose in
clouds up to the Olympic Zeus, who now became a comfortable Zeus
Xenius. Franz was in a peculiarly elated humor, which Sophie placed on
the ground of the favorable turn in her father's disease, but which had
a very different reason. It was the nervous excitement which overcomes
even the bravest before the beginning of a battle; for Franz felt and
knew that to-day the battle of life had commenced for him in good
earnest. He had assumed most serious obligations, which might have
incalculable consequences for his own future and for Sophie's future.
The very heaviest responsibility was henceforth resting on his
shoulders. He saw of a sudden the ocean, on which the vessel which
contained their joint fortunes was sailing, filled with most dangerous
reefs, which it would require an always clear head, an always bold
heart, and an always steady hand to clear successfully. Sophie did not
suspect what her betrothed was then experiencing; she began, with
Bemperlein's aid, to draw a picture of the future--a little paradise,
full of peace and comfort, quiet and sunshine.
"You must get married too, Bemperlein," she cried.
"With the greatest pleasure," replied Mr. Bemperlein "if you will find
the main thing."
"What is that?"
"A girl who is willing to love me, and whom I can love."
"I'll pick you out one, Bemperlein. I know your taste, and I know
exactly what the future Mrs. Bemperlein must be like."
"I am rather curious to hear," aid Mr. Bemperlein, comfortably
ensconcing himself in his chair.
"In the first place," said Sophie, "as regards the exterior--for you do
attach some importance to appearances, Bemperlein, do you not?"
"Certainly," said Bemperlein, eagerly.
"Well, then, your future wife must not be tall."
"Why not?"
"Because you are not a giant yourself Bemperlein; and, you know, like
and like ... I therefore submit that she ought to be delicate and well
made, a nice little figure, with dark hair and dark eyes, clever,
active, gay, and mobile. Are you content?"
"Hem!" said Mr. Bemperlein. "Not so bad! not so bad! Go on!"
"Then, as regards fortune; she must not be rich. You know why."
"Because I would not know what to do with the money."
"Exactly so. Am I right?"
"Perfectly. But now tell me why said lady must necessarily have brown
hair and brown eyes?"
"As far as I recollect, I have only spoken of dark hair and dark eyes;
but if you have a decided preference for brown, Bemperlein----"
"Preferences" said Bemperlein, almost anxiously "I have a preference!
What do you mean?"
"Bemperlein, you blush! That is a very suspicious sign. Do not you
think so too, Franz?"
"Very suspicious," replied Franz. "I propose that the accused be
examined most rigorously, and persuaded by every available means to
make an open and full confession."
"Yes, he must confess! he shall confess!" cried the overjoyous girl,
clapping her hands; "he shall give an account of that treacherous
redness on his cheeks. Accused! I ask you, upon your conscience, do you
know a lady with brown hair and brown eyes?"
"But how can you ask me that, Miss Sophie?" replied Mr. Bemperlein,
blushing deeper than before.
"Let your words be Yea, yea! or Nay, nay! accused, and nothing else!"
"Well then, I have!" said Bemperlein, laughing.
"And when you spoke of brown hair and brown eyes, did you think of this
lady?"
"Yes!" replied Bemperlein, after some hesitation.
"Now we have him! He has thought of her! He has thought of her!" cried
Miss Sophie, and laughed with delight.
"But who is _she_?" asked Franz.
"We shall learn that presently. Accused! does she live in this city?"
"Yes."
"Franz, take that down: she lives in the city. Accused! do you see her
frequently?"
"No."
"Then, have you seen her to-day?"
"But, Miss So----"
"No subterfuges! Have you seen her to-day?"
"Well, I see I shall fare better by confessing everything at once,"
said Mr. Bemperlein, who in spite of all his efforts to appear
unconcerned had become more and more embarrassed. "Hear, then, oh
severe judge, and you, grave assistant judge, with your diabolic smile,
the strange story which has happened to me to-day, and which seems to
be specially intended to lead me from one trouble to another."
"Tell us, Bemperlein; tell us!" cried Sophie. "The affair begins to
look romantic."
"Well, then, you know, Miss Sophie, that the Grenwitz family has come
to town to-day."
"We are aware of that. Go on, accused!"
"But you do not know that the baroness wrote to me immediately after
her arrival, and asked me to call on her in the course of the day. She
said she had to confer with me on a matter of the utmost importance."
"The affairs of the baroness are always of the utmost importance," said
Franz.
"That I knew; and therefore I did not exactly hasten to pay my visit.
Towards evening, however, just before I came here, I went to the
house."
"Well, and what was the great trifle?"
"I never found it out, for I was not fortunate enough to be admitted.
In the house-door I met Mr. Timm, who was in such a hurry that he
nearly ran over me, and he had barely time to say to me 'What on earth
are you doing here, Bemperlein?' In the ante-chamber to which the
servant had shown me I found Mademoiselle Marguerite."
"Has she brown eyes, Bemperlein?"
"She has brown eyes. Miss Sophie; very fine brown eyes; which appeared
to me at that moment all the brighter as they were filled with tears."
"Oh," said Miss Sophie, unconsciously dropping her gay tone; "why so?"
"Do I know it? I had entered without knocking, as I did not expect
there would be anybody inside. When I came in, the young lady, who had
been sitting with her head on a table and sobbing, jumped up and did
her best to hide her tears. When I asked if I could see the baroness,
she replied that she would go and see. But she did not go, at least not
beyond the nearest door, where she stopped and again broke out into
tears. You may imagine how embarrassed I was. I cannot see anybody
weep, much less so young, poor, and helpless a creature as Mademoiselle
Marguerite. I went up to her, took her hand--upon my word I could not
help it--and said--what else could I say?--'why do you cry,
Mademoiselle?' Her tears flowed only the faster. I repeated my question
again and again. '_Je suis si malheureuse!_' was all she could utter
amid her sobs. That was all I heard. I pitied the poor child, with all
my heart. I asked if I could help her. She shook her head. I tried to
comfort her, and said whatever can be said in such a state of things.
Gradually she calmed down, dried her eyes, pressed my hand, and said,
'_Oh, que vous êtes bon!_' Then she stepped out at the door. I was as
wise as before. After a few minutes there came, in her place, Baron
Felix, to tell me that his aunt was exceedingly sorry not to be able to
see me to-night. She was too much fatigued from the journey. I might
call again in the morning. As Baron Felix also seemed to be in a great
hurry, I took my leave very quickly. When I was in the door he called
after me, 'Apropos, Mr. Bemperlein, do you happen to know when Doctor
Stein will be back again?' 'I believe in a few days,' I replied, and
left. There you have my romantic story."
"Which is full of suggestions," said Franz. "For instance, I should
like to know myself when Oswald will be back. He ought to be here by
this time."
At that moment a maid came in, to hand him a card.
"Is the gentleman still there?" asked Franz, rising quickly.
"No, sir. He asked if you were alone? I told him, 'No, Mr. Bemperlein
was in the room.' Then he said he would call again, and left."
"Who was it?" asked Sophie.
"Oswald!" replied Franz. "What a pity! I should have liked to see him."
CHAPTER XVI.
Oswald had reached Grunwald a few hours ago. The early autumn evening
was coming on apace, as he approached the old town on the turnpike--for
this part of the Prussian Vendée was then not yet in possession of a
railway. The high towers rose dimly like Ossian's giant bodies in the
floating gray mist; mists hung low upon the meadows between the
causeway and the sea, and mists hovered over the wide waters between
the island and the firm land.
Oswald wrapped himself, shivering, more closely in his cloak, and fell
back in the corner of the coupé. What was he to do in Grunwald? What
did he want in Grunwald? He did not know it himself. Even the low trees
by the wayside, bent by the northeast storms, which slipped by in
wearying monotony as he drove on, did not know it; the raw-boned stage
horses, dripping with wet and trotting mechanically along with drooping
heads, did not know it; even the old, bearded guard, who was pulling
out the list of passengers for the hundredth time, from sheer
weariness, and was conning it over once more, even he did not know it.
Nobody knew it, unless it was the crow, which had delayed too long in
the woods and was now flying lonely and sadly above the stage-coach
towards town, and vanished in the mist. And the trees danced by, more
like spectres than ever; and the horses shook more impatiently the
heavy collars, and the mist rolled up in closer and darker masses, and
through the close and dark mist a few lights become visible; and now
the coach rolls across the drawbridge, through the narrow town-gate,
into the narrow, ill-paved, tortuous street, and stops before the
post-office. The sudden quiet after many hours' shaking, jolting, and
rattling, is indescribably sweet for one who reaches the end of his
journey, but indescribably painful for him whose journey has no end, or
for whom the end is not the desired goal. He would rather the jolting,
shaking, and rattling should begin once more and carry him further and
further away from all men into eternal night.
But he is now in a civilized city among civilized men, who have no
sympathy with eccentricities of any kind, and who hold to the opinion
that a gentleman who arrives in Grunwald by the express stage-coach at
the appointed hour, half-past seven o'clock, is bound to give the guard
a fee, to ask him respectfully to pick out from the other boxes and
trunks his own trunk and hat-box, marked in legible letters with a
"Doctor Stein, passenger for Grunwald," and then to send these things
by a porter to the Hotel St. Petersburg. Here Doctor Stein thought he
would be kindly remembered from the time when he studied and passed his
examination here under the auspices of Professor Berger, and used to
drink many a bottle of wine at said hotel in company with the latter;
but now nobody knew him, for the old landlord had died several months
ago, and the new landlord had engaged new waiters.
This had the effect that the clerk looked upon him as a stranger in the
fullest sense of the word, and treated him as such, presenting to him
at once the large book in which he was to enter his name. "Mr.
Drostein? Thank you!... Doctor O. Stein? Ah! I beg pardon; thought it
was all one name. Are you going to honor us with your presence for
any length of time, sir? No? Much life in town just now: theatre,
horse-fair, student's ball.... Doctor Braun? Know him very well,
practices in the house since the privy councillor has been paralyzed.
Was here to-day.... Where he lives? Quite near here. Post street,
second house on the right, close by the privy councillor's. Are you
going to order supper, sir? No appetite? sorry to hear it! Very fine
fresh oysters! Natives! Anything else? water to drink? Pitcher of
water? Directly, sir, you shall have it at once!"
An uncomfortable-looking room; two lighted candles on the table before
the sofa; a trunk on a low trestle; a hat-box on the chair close by;
all around silence, when the step of the waiter is no longer heard in
the long, narrow passage. Oswald did not think the situation calculated
to cheer up a melancholy man. He made haste to leave the room and the
house.
It had been his first intention to call on Franz, the only one in
Grunwald from whom he could be sure of receiving a hearty welcome--a
friend's reception; but he soon abandoned the plan and wandered aimless
and purposeless through the streets. He had never felt at home in
Grunwald; but yet he had not found the town looking so utterly strange
to him, even in the first days of his former residence here. Was it
only the effect of his melancholy humor? Was it the dark, misty
evening? He did not recognize the streets--the squares through which he
used to walk so often; and when he thought he recalled one or the other
feature, it was only like something seen in a dream, where we confound
the near and the far chaotically in some great unknown distance. At
last he found himself in one of the streets leading down to the harbor.
Here he was more at home, for the harbor with its crowd of boats and
ships, its smell of the sea and of tar, its monotonous sailors' songs,
and its ceaseless hammering and knocking and sawing, had ever been his
favorite part of the town, and the almost daily end of his walks.
But to-night everything was deserted and death-like, even in this the
only lively portion of the old Hanse town, every other part of which
looked as if it had been fast asleep for centuries, and was at best
murmuring in a half dream something about its past glory and power.
Here and there a light was visible through a cabin window, now and then
a dog barked on the deck of a vessel, or a sailor's hoarse call was
heard; otherwise all was silence and darkness.
He walked upon the wharf that stretched far into the sea, and along
which vessel lay by vessel, out to the uttermost point. Here he stood
for some time, sunk in silent meditation, and looked with folded arms
out into the darkness which rested on the waters, and listened to the
low, monotonous splashing of the waves which were all the time kissing
and caressing the massive blocks of the breakwater. Was this his
dearly-beloved sea, on which his dreams and his hopes had so often
taken wings in company with countless gulls? Was this the dark abyss,
in which his hopes and dreams had been irretrievably swallowed up for
all eternity, like the treasure of a shipwrecked vessel?
Beyond, on the other side of the black waste of waters, lay the island,
so near and yet so far off, like the time which he had spent there--the
short span of time that held all he had ever known of happiness and
peace in this life. A ferry-boat, which came from the island across,
sailed close by the outer end of the wharf on which he was standing. He
heard the measured dip of the heavy oars as they struck the waters, and
the peculiar low screeching which they cause as they rub against the
gunwale; he heard the confused voices of the passengers; he could even,
as they came nearer, distinguish single words; he thought he heard
Helen's name. Perhaps it was only an illusion, or an echo in his own
heart; but it struck him with peculiar force, and all of a sudden a
desire overcame him to seek out the house where, as he knew, the fair
maid was staying at the time.
He went back into the town; he crossed the market-place. He stopped
before the house where Berger had lived. There was no light in the
windows. He could see by the light of a street-lamp that the green
blinds were closed, as in a house whose owner had died. From the
steeple of St. Nicholas the solemn music of a choral was heard, in
which, according to an ancient custom, Grunwald bids every evening at
nine o'clock farewell to the day that has gone by. Ordinarily the
organist only sends four men up to sing; but on days when a citizen of
distinction has been gathered to his fathers, he sends half, or the
whole of the choir, according to the desire of the survivors, who wish
to give an expression to their grief in this extraordinary manner.
To-day all the voices were fully represented--the deceased must have
been a man of very uncommon importance.
Oswald listened till the last note had died away. He thought of death,
and the Great Mystery which the grave does not solve, but makes only
darker, and how happy the men are, after all, who find their trust in
believing in a Saviour and a Redeemer.
The long-drawn summons of the sentinel before the main-guard awaked him
from his dreams. The squeaking voice of a youthful hero gave the
command: "Carry arms! Ground arms! Helmets off for prayer!" Piety by
order--effusions of heart, according to the paragraph of the
regulations! In a well ordered state everything must go by rule.
"Why," said Oswald to himself, while he was walking towards the
town-gate, "why are you not a pedant among pedants, since fate does not
permit you to be a Roman among Romans? Why do you kick against the
pricks to which all the cattle patiently submit? You might be as well
off as the others. After all, it may not be so bad a thing to sit, as
Berger used to call it, in the easy-chair of an office; the night-cap
of a sinecure may protect one against many an attack of rheumatism--the
effect of a draught in this windy outside world; and he who has a
virtuous wife lives twice as long; and when he is compelled to die,
like everybody else, they play and sing from the steeple, that the
whole town hears it and prays for the peace of his soul."
Above him it rustled in the tall trees with which the street was lined
that led to the suburb and to Miss Bear's boarding-school. The evening
breeze has torn the dense veil of fog, and the crescent of the
increasing moon was dancing through the clouds in their spectral
flight. A horseman galloped past him towards town. The horse snorted;
sparks flew. A moment later, and the noise was scarcely audible, and
soon ceased altogether. "Somebody, I dare say, who rides for the
doctor; a husband, perhaps, whose wife is taken ill; a father, whose
son is lying on his death-bed." Oswald thought of the night when Bruno
died, and of his fearful ride across the heath from Grenwitz to
Fashwitz. If Bruno had only lived! Oswald thought everything would have
happened differently then. It seemed to him as if the death of the boy
alone had made him so miserably poor--as if he could have challenged a
world in arms, with him by his side. With him and good fortune! no
sacrifice would have been too great for Bruno's sake; not even the
sacrifice of his love for Helen. He would have willingly and cheerfully
given the fair girl to Bruno--but to him alone, in the world. Given?
What had he to give--he the beggar?
Now he was standing before the house he had come to see, and supported
himself against the iron railing of the garden. There was not a window
lighted up in the whole house. The inmates had probably all retired to
rest. He thought of the summer nights when he had stood looking by the
hour at the open window with the curtains lowered, from which the music
of a piano was wafted to him through the soft, silent air; and hours
afterwards, long after the light had vanished behind the red curtains
and the music had ceased, and he had still wandered up and down between
the flower-beds and under the tall beech-trees, sometimes till the
first purple streak of morning-dawn appeared on the eastern horizon,
and the birds in the thick bushes began dreamily to twitter above him.
A breath of wind rushed through the two tall poplar-trees on both sides
of the lofty portal and whispered mysteriously in the dry leaves, a
window-shutter flapped in the house, a dog in a neighboring house began
to bark.
Oswald shivered as if he had a fever. The momentary excitement after
his long journey in the stage-coach had passed away; he felt tired and
sick. He buttoned up his overcoat and turned to go back into the city.
A carriage came rapidly towards him. A horseman with a lantern in his
hand galloped before it--probably the same who before had galloped
madly through the dark night into town.
Could it be Doctor Braun, who was going away? The thought that he might
possibly not find his friend at home, awakened in Oswald the desire to
see him and to talk to him. In a few minutes--for the distances in
Grunwald are not considerable--he stood before the house which the
waiter had told him was Doctor Braun's house. The girl who opened the
door said her master was at the privy councillor's, adding that he
spent all his evenings there. Here Oswald was told that Bemperlein was
in the sitting-room--Bemperlein, the only one, with the exception of
old Baumann, who knew his relations to Frau von Berkow--the only one
whom he feared to meet; whose reproachful glance, in case he should not
yet have been informed of the most recent events, must be painful to
him.
He only remembered, when he was in the street again, that his going
away in such a manner must have appeared extraordinary, if not
ridiculous. This disturbed him and made him feel worse than before. He
would have liked best to hide himself in the lowest depth of the earth;
to forget in sleep the misery of life. In sleep? Why not in wine, when
sleep is not to be had? "The best of life is but intoxication," says
Byron; and there where a solitary lamp shines dimly between two stone
pillars, is the entrance to the cellars of the old city hall. Down the
long, broad staircase with the low steps, down into the bowels of the
earth, where nobody cares for sentiments that make the heart heavy, and
for thoughts that confuse the head!
CHAPTER XVII.
The city cellars of Grunwald cannot rival those of Bremen, but
nevertheless they are very respectable cellars. The low, spacious
vaults stretch far under the city hall, and extend even below the
market-place, on which it is situated. There are rooms enough that have
in former days served as drinking rooms of every size, and may even
to-day be used for larger and smaller companies, but what is most
needed is wanting--the guests. The good old times, when Grunwald was
wealthy and powerful, are no longer. Those who built these vaults and
filled them with ringing of cups, with songs of cheerful converse--the
honorable sober-minded burgesses with their broad shoulders, their
full, well-trimmed beards, and the broad-swords by their sides--they
sleep, all of them, sound, good sleep in the old graveyards, or under
the huge slabs of stone with which the churches are paved, if they were
members of the council, or otherwise great men, and there "await a
blissful resurrection." Their grandchildren crowd together in dark,
narrow chambers, and drink stale brown beer, instead of fiery, golden
wine; many a one, whose ancestor went down these steps day by day,
whenever the rosy summer evening was lying on the high gable roofs, or
the storms of winter were careering through the dark, narrow streets,
hardly knows how it looks down there in the city cellars.
Nevertheless they do not seem to be entirely deserted by the good
people of Grunwald. The dim little lamp at the entrance burns
night after night--often far into the small hours, sometimes till
daybreak--and the solemn citizen who has been belated at some
Christening feast or other great festivity, and now walks home with
wife and daughter in the silent night through the deserted streets, and
past the city cellars, often sees a dim light shine through the
unwashed windows, and hears perhaps low confused voices, which seem to
rise from the bowels of the earth and make an uncanny impression at
that hour and in that place.
But there are no gnomes carrying on their wicked doings below there,
only gay companions, jovial, or at least not very pedantic fellows, who
can fully appreciate the value of a good glass of wine, taken from a
good cask, and enjoyed in good society. There are men who do not relish
all of life so very heartily that they should not at times desire to
wash the dusty, unpleasant taste down with a glass of wine; others who
have neither chick nor child at home, and get tired at night among
their silent books; still others who, wearied of the monotony
of married life, want to have a merry night for once; and still
others, who have quite accidentally found their way down the broad
cellar-steps, and cannot very well get up again a few hours later,
however broad the steps may be. There are young professional men,
artists, actors--if there happen to be any in town--young literati, now
and then a farmer from the neighborhood, or an official--these make the
main ingredients of the public which is apt to assemble every evening
in the great vault to the left of the entrance, and sometimes, when
they wish to be still more exclusive, in a smaller room on the other
side of the building.
Oswald knew the place very well from his former residence here,
although he had never reached the dignity of an habitué. He had been
occasionally at the cellars with Berger, without taking much notice of
the rest of the company that might be there. Thus the damp, cool air,
filled with the peculiar odor of marvellously-ancient walls, and the
fragrance of last year's wine, greeted him pleasantly, and he found
without much trouble the way to the low door which opened into the
drinking-hall.
Except the waiter, there happened to be at that moment nobody in the
long, vaulted, and badly-lighted room, but a single guest, who sat with
his back to the door, and did not allow himself to be disturbed in the
least by Oswald's entrance. He was pleasantly engaged in discussing
fresh oysters, and Oswald, who had taken his seat not far from him at
one of the small round tables, noticed with some astonishment what a
mountain of shells the indefatigable worker had already accumulated.
And yet he did not look tired. At least he leaned only now and then
back in his chair, in order to sip with evident satisfaction a glass of
wine, and then renewed his labors with a zeal which certainly spoke as
eloquently for the good quality of the oysters as for the excellency of
the digestive powers of the consumer.
The last shell was dropping from the mountain, and the last drops were
flowing from the bottle into the glass.
"_Sic transit gloria mundi_," said the man; "nevertheless, we can
easily renew this _gloria_. Carole, bring another dozen of these
excellent dwellers in the deep, and half a bottle of this most
praiseworthy hock."
Oswald listened. The voice was familiar to him; it reminded him of
by-gone, happy days. That fresh, clear voice had refreshed and
encouraged him more than once, as the wind does the prisoner blowing in
through the open windows of his prison; it did not fail to-day to have
the usual effect on his darkened mind. Of all men this was the one
whose company was by far the most welcome to-night.
He rose, therefore, approached him, and greeted him with unusual
animation.
"_Ah, dottore, dottore!_" exclaimed the oyster-eater, rising at once
and seizing the proffered hand. "You here? Well, that is a most
sensible notion of our stupid friend's accident. Carole, a whole bottle
instead of half a bottle, and several dozen oysters instead of one."
"Am I really at this moment a _persona grata_ to you, Timm?" said
Oswald, taking a seat by Albert's side.
"_Persona grata!_ at this moment!" cried Albert Timm. "Don Oswaldo! Don
Oswaldo! I have missed you sadly, upon my word, ever since we parted at
Grenwitz, and I am as delighted as a snow-bird to see you here again.
Where on earth have you been hiding all this time? I have inquired of
everybody. Since when are you back?"
"Three hours ago."
"And, of course, you are hungry and thirsty, just as you were when you
left the stage-coach; at least you look so. Carole, Carole! Why does
the fellow not come? At last! Here, dottore, is food for a sound
stomach, and drink for a sick heart! Here's your health! Welcome in
Grunwald!"
And Mr. Timm's face smiled so kindly as he said these kind words that
it would have looked like blackest ingratitude to doubt the sincerity
of his sentiments.
Oswald at least was most pleasantly affected by this cordial reception
of a man whose friendship he had never tried to win, whose amiable
frankness he had often met with repulsive coldness, and he felt this
all the more deeply as he had suffered a few moments before acutely
from a sense of loneliness in the world.
"One service deserves another, Timm," he said, while the latter was
filling the glasses again. "I can tell you that I am heartily glad to
have met you the very first night I spend again in this town. Let us
have another glass! Here's our good friendship!"
"With pleasure!" cried Mr. Timm, heartily grasping Oswald's proffered
hand. "We will hold together honestly. Heaven knows this wretched
old-fogy place does not have an abundance of men with whom one can
hold together, or like to do it. But this league of two noble souls
ought to be celebrated in a nobler beverage. Carole! A bottle of
champagne--Clicquot and _frappé_--else, by the bones of my fathers, the
lightning of my wrath falls upon your bald pate. And now come, _dottore
mio_, tell us something of your wanderings; or, rather, tell us that
some other time; and let me know, first of all, for that is most
interesting to me, has Fame told us falsely in making a most wonderful
mixture of great and small things of the last scenes of your farce,
your drama, or your tragedy at Grenwitz?"
"Before I can answer that," said Oswald, whom the oysters, the wine,
Timm's company, and the whole atmosphere, were gradually putting into
better humor, "I must know what it is Fame has reported."
"Do you really wish to know?"
"Certainly."
"Well, there were two readings; but you must not blame me, Stein, if I
touch a sore place in your heart without knowing."
"But, Timm, do you think I am a child?"
"In some respects all men are children, and remain children, dottore,
and you are no exception to the rule. Whatever flatters our self-love,
goes down as easily as a rich oyster; whatever hurts our vanity, tastes
like wormwood and quinine. _Eh bien!_ Some say you had favored an
understanding between Bruno--what a pity, by the way, the poor boy had
to bite the grass so young!--and Miss Helen; that Felix had come to you
to hold you to an account about this in the name of the parents; that
this had led to a difficulty between you, which had ended in a scuffle;
that Felix had slipped, in his endeavor to turn you out of the house,
and that he had broken his right--some say his left--arm, once; some
say twice."
"The accursed rascal," murmured Oswald, between his teeth, hastily
throwing an empty oyster-shell to the others.
"Did I not tell you I might annoy you, Oswald? Come, don't be a child,
and wash your anger down in a glass of this famous wine. The other
reading is not half so bitter."
"Let us hear!"
"According to this variation it was not the pupil, but the teacher,
whom the young lady looked upon with favor; and the broken arm of the
baron was not the effect of a fall, but of a pistol ball, which was
applied to his aforesaid extremity in the presence of witnesses, and
according to all the rules of art."
"Well, and which reading do you prefer?"
"Of course the latter, my brave Knight of La Mancha. Here,
Oswald--nobody hears us in these halls, sacred to friendship and
love--fill your glass and drink! Drink it to the last drop of silvery
foam! Her health!--the health of the only one, the sweet, the fair, the
beautiful one, with the blueish-black hair and the dark sea-deep eyes!
Drink! I say, by the bones of the eleven thousand virgins at Cologne!
Drink! How, noble Don, are you ashamed to confess the lady of your
overflowing heart? and to deny her before me--me, the wise Merlin, who
can hear the grass grow and the eyes sigh? Have I not heard the sighing
of your beautiful eyes in those sunny days which are no more, when you
and she, two children of a rare kind, played innocently under the
rose-bushes and thought that no one saw you, not even the Creator of
heaven and earth who gave you the warm breath with which you playfully
whispered to each other the sweet mysteries of love? And did I not hear
how serpents' tongues hissed around you? Did I not see with what
intense hatred basilisk eyes glared at you? Oh, I have seen and heard
all that, and I knew before that it would come thus, but I said
nothing; for speech is silver, but silence is gold, and he who meddles
with love affairs would do better to go and sit down in a bed of
nettles."
"Tell me, Timm, have you--have you seen her since she has come to
Grunwald?"
"I have seen her, my master!--not once, but many times, by the side of
other fair beauties, among whom she looked like the rose of Sharon amid
dandelions, gliding over the pavement of Grunwald, through dismal
streets; and the paving-stones in the streets and the bricks in the
houses received speech, and they spoke and sang: Blessed art thou among
women!"
"She is at Miss Bear's house, is she not?" Oswald asked, who thought it
would be folly to try and conceal his attachment from a man of such
sharp observation as Albert.
"Yes, she is at the She Bear's--this pearl of an argus-eyed female.
There she dwells, and sits at the window and sees the clouds drift over
the tops of the poplars; and if you pass by there at noon, between
twelve and one, you can see her sit there yourself, as I have seen her
every time I have passed there at that hour. And always she raised her
beautiful eyes, and always she looked at me inquiringly: Can you bring
me no news of him--of him, the only man I love dearly? Why, Oswald,
I--a prosy old fogy--I speak in verses whenever I think of the maid;
and you, who are a poet, mean to deny that you love her with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your mind? Fie upon you; you do not
deserve that I take so much trouble about you--that I have thought of
you these last weeks more frequently than you have done during the
whole time. But ingratitude is the reward of the world, and--Carole,
another bottle!--I shall hereafter not trouble myself about you and
your fate any further."
Timm rested his head in his hand, as Oswald had been doing these last
ten minutes. A pause followed, while bald-headed Charles placed a new
bottle of champagne into the wine-cooler, turned it round a few times
in the ice, and then left them again as noiselessly as he had come.
This sudden transition from exuberant hilarity into such melancholy
silence, in an elastic nature like Surveyor Timm's, was somewhat too
sudden to be perfectly natural. Oswald, however, was too busy with his
own thoughts to notice this. He thought Timm was sincere, and he was
flattered by the lively interest which he had excited in a man whom he
had heretofore looked upon as altogether frivolous and selfish. He
filled his own glass and Albert's from the new bottle, and said,
"I am not ungrateful, Timm; I am really not so; and least of all in
this case. And if I have heretofore not put full faith in your
friendship, it was only because I felt how little I had deserved it.
Let us have another glass together! You know you must not be exacting
with a melancholy man like myself!"
"Well, I should think I knew that," said Timm, with his usual merry
laugh, pushing back the long fair hair that had fallen down upon his
forehead, and emptying his glass at a single draught. "And I have often
wondered how a man like yourself, who has a right to enjoy life more
than any one else, can look upon the world in a way which seems only
fit for sick canary birds and like invalids. I should say nothing if
you had never commenced to enjoy it from mere bashfulness, or if you
had wasted your strength in enjoyment; but as neither the one nor the
other is evidently the case with you--as you are not an enthusiastic
saint nor a worn-out roué--as you suffer neither from an exuberance of
strength nor from too great weakness, I really cannot tell what is the
matter with you, except one thing."
"And what is that?"
Mr. Timm rested his elbows on the table, and the smooth face in his
white hands, and smiled craftily at Oswald.
"And that is--what, Timm?"
"Ten thousand dollars annual income." Oswald laughed.
"A very prosaic remedy for contempt of the world."
"But a very radical one, and in your case infallible."
"Why exactly in my case?"
Timm filled the glasses once more, lighted a fresh cigar, and said:
"Heine, you know, divides men in two classes: fat Grecians and lean
Nazarenes. I have found this distinction as acute as true. The former
believe in Our Lady of Melos, the latter worship the Virgin Dolorosa.
The former enjoy the good things of life in cheerful happiness; the
latter prefer a grumbling resignation and meditative asceticism. In
order that both classes should be right, that the Grecians should be
able to live well and the Nazarenes pray well, the former must have an
abundance of money, and the latter must be poor, very poor indeed."
"Before you go on with your exposition, Timm, tell me first to which of
the two classes you belong yourself."
"To both, or to neither of the two, as you choose. I have the good
digestion, the sound teeth, the fine perception--in a word, the desire
and the capacity to enjoy which belongs to the Grecians; but I have
also the tenacity and frugality necessary to the Nazarenes for the
practice of their peculiar virtues. I have the invaluable talent of the
camel to be able to thirst a long time without losing heart or
appetite; on the contrary, abstinence only serves in my case to sharpen
the appetite and to season the next drink more attractively. When I
have travelled through the desert, and--as just now, for instance--the
branches of mimosas and the fans of palm-trees wave over me, and the
icy-cold well--as just now, for instance, from the bottle--I meant to
say, from the rock--foams and purls--then I bend my long camel's neck
and drink and drink and drink, and bless the dry, brown desert which
has led me to such a delicious well."
And Mr. Timm poured down a full glass of champagne with the hasty
eagerness of a traveller whose tongue is glued to the palate.
Oswald watched the exulting companion who sat opposite to him with a
peculiar sense of pleasure, not unmixed with envy. How sharp and
bold, and yet how fine and intelligent, were the features in this
smooth, almost boyish face! How well that haughty superciliousness
suited him, which played around his delicate nostrils and curved the
sharply-accented red lips! How the words flew from these lips, swift as
feathered arrows, each one of which hits the bull's-eye! What a
sovereign contempt for mere phrases, for any kind of ornament, for all
those rags with which hypocrites and fools try to cover their
nakedness! How eloquent the whole bearing of the man, his head thrown
boldly back, as he blew the smoke of his cigar from him, or as he took
the bottle from the cooler, shook it, and filled again and again his
empty glass to overflowing! How light the burden of life seemed to be
to this man, light as to the lion who leaps with the colt in his teeth
swiftly over hedges and ditches!
Oswald was not inclined at that moment to cast a glance into the
bottomless abyss of selfishness which lay concealed under the surface
of this humor, dancing about in merry waves. The time and the place
were not favorable to such an analysis. He felt down here, in this
deep, quiet cellar, with its dim, mysterious light of two small
candles, as if he were thousands of miles away from the rest of the
world. He had come here to drink himself into oblivion; he had
succeeded in his wishes. His brow was all aglow, as he followed the
example of his companion and poured down glass after glass. He had not
felt so free and so happy for a long time as he did at that moment.
"As for you, now, noble knight," continued Timm, "you are a Grecian,
without the means of being so at all times, and without the gift of
simply transferring the time during which you cannot be so to the
account of the future. Instead of doing that, you play the Nazarene,
and feel just as happy during the time as the eagle whose wings and
claws have been clipped, and who wears a chain around his foot. The
exuberant strength, which you cannot employ outwardly, turns within and
checks the normal growth of your nature, which has once for all been
intended for enjoyment. This is not the first time I call your
attention to this contradiction in you. Do you recollect what I told
yon already at Grenwitz? You hate the nobles, you hate the rich, you
hate the powerful, because the ten fingers of our hands itch with a
desire to be noble and rich and powerful yourself. Do not talk to me of
your moral humbug of the nobility of mind, the wealth of a pure heart,
and the power of truth! All that is mere stuff for those who know what
merchandise is sold in the market of life. Pshaw! what has a man like
you to do with poverty--a man of your youth, your charms, your pretty
face--for, by heaven, Oswald, you are a handsome fellow, a man whom the
women embrace without his asking, A man of thoroughly aristocratic
tastes and tendencies! It is simply ridiculous! You ought not to be a
poor schoolmaster, but a wealthy baron, like those Grenwitz people with
whom, by the way, you have a most striking resemblance; then you could
enjoy life, and afterwards blow out your brains with some show of
reason; then you could marry the fair Helen; could do, in a word, or
not do whatever you liked! That is why I say again: you want an income
of ten thousand dollars. I wish I could get it for you, I would do it,
and were I to take them I know not where."
"I really believe you were capable of doing it, Timm."
"Why not? And if it were only from curiosity to see how you would act
in such a case towards your old friend."
"I would do with the mammon, you may rest assured of that, as I did
when I was a boy with the cherries people gave me--I would share it
with my friends."
Albert looked fixedly at Oswald, as he said these words with flushed
cheek and raised voice. Suddenly he said, as if awaking from a dream:
"I am a curious fellow, Oswald; as sceptical as a heathen, and yet as
fond of all sorts of omens as an old woman. As I was sitting here alone
eating my oysters, I said to myself: you happen to have a few dollars
in your pocket and you would like to spend them with a friend. And then
there occurred to me, as to Wallenstein, the question: who of all those
whom I meet here evening after evening meant it best and most honestly?
and that it should be the one who would first enter at the door. But,
strange enough, contrary to all the customs of the place, not one of
them came. Instead of that, you came--you, of whom I had not thought at
all. Oswald, I do not know how you think about such matters, and it may
be that my request will offend you, but I should like to drink with you
to our future, our intimate friendship. What do you say?"
"With all my heart!" cried Oswald. "There is just one more glass for
each of us in the bottle."
"And no one shall ever drink again out of this glass!" cried Albert,
and threw the empty glass on the floor.
Oswald did the same; but the noise of the breaking glasses sounded
shrill and painful to his ear, like the laughter of delighted demons.
Bald Charles, who had sat behind his counter at the other end of the
hall, nodding, started up when he heard the noise, and came gliding up,
drunk with sleep, thinking they had called him.
"How is it, Oswald," cried Timm; "I think we had better have another
bottle. We shall not meet again as young as we are now."
"No," said Oswald; "let us be content. My head burns. And I have to
call, to-morrow, on Tom, Dick, and Harry. What is to pay?"
"Stop!" cried Mr. Timm, holding Oswald's arm. "Mine is the helmet, and
it belongs to me! Carole, if you accept a red cent from this gentleman,
I break this empty bottle on your bald skull! Come! Make yourself paid
out of this rag for to-night and for the last nights; and what remains
over, why you can buy yourself on the way a wig with it, my Carole!"
With these words Timm had drawn a twenty-five dollar note from a bulky
parcel which he took from his coat-pocket, and handed it to the waiter,
who seemed to be not a little astonished at this sudden wealth in the
hands of one of his very worst customers. At least he grinned in a very
peculiar manner as he took the note, while Mr. Timm put back the
package with an air of perfect indifference, and tilting his hat on his
head, sang:
"I am the last of guests to-night,
Come show me out of the house!
And we wish each other good-night,
I take a kiss from my little mouse!"
They were standing outside in the street. The mist had disappeared
entirely, and the moon was shining brightly on the dark sky. The lamps
had gone out, and deep shadows alternated with broad streaks of light
in the narrow streets between the high gable-ends. A watchman standing
at the corner with his long spear and antediluvian horn, called out the
twelfth hour. Nothing else was to be seen in the death-like streets
through which Oswald and Albert were now walking home, arm in arm, as
it became such good and intimate friends: Oswald unusually heated and
excited, Albert as cool and fresh as if he had been drinking nothing
but water in the city cellars at Grunwald. They talked over the members
of the town council and of the college on whom Oswald had to wait the
next day, and Oswald's career at the college especially, which Albert
declared was a fabulous idea, such as no one could have conceived but a
Knight of La Mancha. Thus they reached the door of the hotel, then they
wished each other good night. Oswald went in; Albert lounged down the
main street, his hands in his pockets. But suddenly he stopped and
seemed to meditate for a while. Then he turned into a by-street and
vanished in a labyrinth of lanes and courts, formed by rheumatic little
cottages, whose exterior did not belie the reputation enjoyed by this
part of the town.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The official dwelling of the rector of the college, Doctor Moritz
Clemens, was shining to-night in unwonted splendor. They had not only
removed the covers from all the sofas, sofa-cushions, and chairs, in
the best room and the sitting-room, so that the luxurious light of two
lamps and half a dozen stearine candles poured in floods over the
displayed magnificence; but even the rector's study, on one side, and
the sitting-room and chamber of the two daughters, on the other side,
had been changed into salons by removing the writing-table in the one,
and the beds in the other, while each was lighted up with a lamp and
three candles. The aromatic fragrance which always rises when incense
is strewn on the hot-plate of the stove, perfumed all the rooms,
and sufficed in itself to produce a festive excitement in every
well-regulated mind.
The Clemens family is in grand gala, and awaits the guests who are to
come. The Clemens family consists of four persons: father, mother, and
two grown daughters. Rector Clemens is a man of fifty years, who must
have been very handsome in his youth, and who may still pass for very
good-looking. He wears his curly brown hair very long, and, contrary to
all fashion, his collar turned down _à la Byron_ over a loosely-tied
handkerchief, which gives him, in connection with a somewhat vague
softness of his features, an ideal, not to say an effeminate
expression. He is fully conscious of the soft character of his
appearance, and does all he can to heighten the effect. His speech is
soft, his voice is soft, his movements are soft. "I am called Clemens,
and I try to do honor to my name," he is accustomed to say, modestly,
whenever anybody compliments him on the "perfect humanity" of his
manner and his appearance. "Humanity" is his pet word. The learned
world knows him as the author of a moral philosophical work
"Purification of Man towards Perfect Humanity;" and the public at large
through his dramatic poem, "John at Patmos," which has appeared in a
second edition in the bookstores of the University of Grunwald, and
bears the motto, "_Homo sum, nihil humani mihi alienum puto_."
Mrs. Rector Clemens is, at least in her outward appearance, a perfect
contrast to her husband. Her figure rises far beyond the ordinary size,
and is broad and strong. The features of her face are proportionately
heavy and massive; her voice is a tolerably deep bass, and her
movements and manners remind you forcibly of a vessel rolling in a
trough of the sea. She is indeed the daughter of a captain of a mail
steamer, and has made in her young days twice the voyage to the Indies.
It is hard to understand why her etherealizing husband with his
enthusiasm for Hogarth's line of beauty, should have chosen her above
all others, and the only explanation is to be found in that mysterious
affinity which unites the strong and the weak, the stern and the
gentle. The contrast between the two characters, however, does not
appear quite so striking upon closer observation. The husband has
succeeded in lending short wings to the somewhat clumsy psyche of his
wife. He has talked to her so much about true humanity, that she is
determined to become æsthetic in spite of her colossal size, and to be
refined in spite of her defective education. She reads a good deal,
although she does not understand it all; and she is the founder and
manager of a dramatic club, although she has never been able to
distinguish very clearly between a dative and an accusative.
The two Misses Clemens are eighteen and nineteen years old, and enjoy
the beautiful old German names of Thusnelda and Fredegunda. The latter
resembles her mother, Thusnelda her father, but the difference in
character, which the common longing after humanity has nearly effaced
in the parents, is still very perceptible in the daughters. They
quarrel very frequently, are almost always of different opinions, and
resemble each other only in one point--the very high opinion they
entertain of themselves.
"It seems to me our dear guests keep us waiting rather long," said
Rector Clemens, looking at his watch for the twelfth time in the last
twelve minutes, as he nervously walked up and down in the room.
"I cannot comprehend why the good people don't come," said Mrs. Rector
Clemens, sitting down for a moment on the sofa and wiping her heated
brow with her handkerchief. "I had asked Doctor Stein expressly to be
sure to come before seven, because I wanted to read his part over with
him."
"Will he be able to read the Captain?" said Miss Fredegunda Clemens
from the adjoining room, where she was busy with her dress before a
mirror.
"He'll read it at least as well as Broadfoot," replied Miss Thusnelda
in an irritated tone.
"But, children, surely you are not going to quarrel now," said the
mother, trying to appease them.
"Fredegunda cannot stop teasing me," said Thusnelda.
"And you are always trying to be better than everybody else," said
Fredegunda, appearing in the door.
"For heaven's sake, children, I pray you, keep quiet," cries Doctor
Clemens, with imploring voice, raising his hands as if in prayer; "I
hear somebody in the passage."
The door was really opened at that moment by a maid, and in walk
Professor Snellius, Mrs. Professor Snellius, and Miss Ida Snellius.
The broken peace of the Clemens family is immediately restored. They
receive the new-comers as heartily as people who have worked their way
to genuine humanity are apt to welcome their friends.
Professor Snellius, teacher of the first form and con-rector, a man of
some forty years, aspired, like Rector Clemens, and perhaps even more
energetically, to the ideal, and was perhaps even more favored in these
efforts by his outward appearance. While the beauty of Rector Clemens
had something vague about it, the character imprinted on the clear
features of Professor Snellius was unmistakable; even the most
malicious critic could not have denied that he bore a more than passing
resemblance to his favorite poet, Schiller. His admirers found in him
the same boldly-curved nose, with the electric spasms around the
nostrils, the same earnestness, the same majesty, the same tall form,
which, however, was not dressed in ideal costume, but yielded so far to
the demands of the time as to submit to a plain black suit, in which
the painful neatness is interrupted only by the spotless white of a
somewhat tight cravat. Professor Snellius is a pedagogue in the fullest
sense of the word. His erudition is literally overwhelming. He teaches
all the modern languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and is not
quite unacquainted even with Chinese, which he reads in his leisure
hours. He is enthusiastic about the young and his vocation as a teacher
of the young. He has proclaimed his views on this most important task,
and his propositions how to solve its problems in the best manner, in
his voluminous work: "History of Education among the West Asiatic
Nations prior to the times of Rhamses the Great." The motto of this
work, and at the same time the professor's own motto, is: "Through
struggle to victory!" Professor Snellius looks soberly upon life, and
stammers a little whenever he becomes excited, as very frequently
happens to him, about the want of ideal enthusiasm in his pupils, or
about any other of his favorite subjects.
Mrs. Professor Snellius is a little lady who would be insignificant if
she were not the wife of such a very great scholar. Miss Ida Snellius
is an exceedingly tall and exceedingly awkward girl of sixteen, who
looks marvellously like her father, and has the reputation of having
inherited largely the erudition of her father. She likes to converse
with highly-educated gentlemen--with others she does not speak at
all--of comparative philology, and of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and is
reported to have read through the twelve volumes of her father's famous
work. This report, however, is so monstrous, that its truth may well be
doubted.
The long-drawn salutations between the families Clemens and Snellius
had not yet come to an end, when the door opened once more to admit Dr.
Kubel with wife and daughter. Kubel teaches the third form, and is a
round, jovial little man, with a smoothly-shaven face, and white,
well-kept hands--so round and so jovial that our days no longer produce
the like, and that they were found only in the peaceful, stagnant
waters of the period from the Congress of Vienna to the year 1848, in
out-of-the-way colleges and other quiet districts of quiet Germany. His
voice is loud and squeaking, and reminds you, as the figure of the man
himself does, of the harmless dwellers in morasses. His erudition is
not remarkable. Scoffers maintain that his only merit as a philologist
consists in his having a very pretty daughter. Mary Kubel is indeed a
very pretty, brown-eyed girl, ever cheerful and ready to laugh, who is
unspeakably despised by the Misses Snellius and Clemens; by the former
because she has once confounded Alexander and William von Humboldt; and
by the latter because she has no idea of reading dramatic compositions.
To-day she especially roused the indignation of Thusnelda and
Fredegunda, because she arrived at the same time with the two doctors,
Winimer and Broadfoot, and therefore has the appearance of having them
in her train. Now Thusnelda and Fredegunda are accustomed to claim the
attentions of these two gentlemen as their own exclusive right, and
that not without reason, for Mr. Winimer has already worn a lock of
Thusnelda's hair near his heart for about six months, and exhibits it
in sentimental moments to his intimate friends, threatening them with
fearful disgrace if they should ever, ever betray him; and Mr.
Broadfoot has lost at least a dozen philippines, and, some say, his
heart with them, to Fredegunda, during the six months since he received
his appointment at the college. Doctor Winimer is a slender young man
of medium size, whose tact in the intercourse with the fair sex is a
proverb among his colleagues, and who is always in more or less nervous
excitement--thanks, no doubt, to the many delicate relations in which
he stands, and of which he speaks in mysterious terms. Doctor Broadfoot
is a gentleman whom a stranger might take for a butcher, and who is the
continual butt of his friends, on account of his enormous hands and
feet, and his ordinary manners.
"Now, our club is nearly assembled," says Rector Clemens, rubbing his
hands softly and raising his voice moderately. "Our dear guests alone
have not come yet."
"Our guests, dear _collega_?" says Professor Snellius. "I thought the
question was in the singularis of _hospes_?"
"_Minime!_" smiled the rector. "I have prepared a dual, yes, I may say
a plural of surprises for you to-night, gentlemen and ladies. There
will be two new guests here, besides our new colleague, of whom I
expect great things for our social intercourse. Can you guess who they
are?"
"But, Moritz, it was to be a surprise!" says Mrs. Clemens, in a
reproachful tone.
"I think, my dear, it is better to prepare the club beforehand. Is it
not our wish to receive the persons in question, not only as our guests
for to-night, but to win them permanently over for our little club; and
for that purpose, you know, we must have the consent of all the
members, according to the regulations which you have prepared
yourself."
"Who is it, rector." asked Doctor Winimer. "You torture us."
"A gentleman whose name has a good sound in the republic of letters,
and a lady who will be of special interest for you, _Collega_ Winimer,
in your capacity as lyric poet?"
"A lady?" cried Mr. Winimer, passing his hand through his
carefully-arranged hair, his pride and his ornament, a gesture for
which he receives his punishment immediately in a reproving glance from
the lady whose lock he wears upon his heart.
"Yes; a lady, a highly-gifted lyric talent."
"No doubt, Primula; I mean Mrs. Professor Jager!" cries Mr. Winimer.
"You have guessed it; the poetess of the 'Cornflowers' and the
interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos, will appear to-night as
stars, and, we hope, be willing to accept a permanent engagement
hereafter," said Rector Clemens, with his softest smile.
A long-drawn, unisonous "Ah!" of astonishment, testified to the
interest felt by the company in this announcement.
"I had another reason, besides, why I invited Mr. and Mrs. Jager
to-night," continues the rector; "it was, so to say, a consideration of
humanity for our new colleague, Doctor Stein. He is an entire stranger
in our circle, and seems to be remarkably shy, embarrassed, and little
accustomed to move in larger circles. Mr. and Mrs. Jager, he told me
himself this morning, are old acquaintances of his--from the time when
he was a tutor, I believe--and he will no doubt be glad to meet
to-night among so many strange or nearly strange faces, at least a few
old friends."
"This delicate attention does you honor, _collega_," says Professor
Snellius, pressing the rector's hand, and displaying in the act the
elegiac feature near the nostrils.
"But I think, Mrs. Clemens, the parts have all been distributed," says
Doctor Winimer, who is to read "Max," and is all the more opposed to
any change of programme, as his beloved Thusnelda reads the "Thekla,"
and he has spent four weeks' arduous study upon learning his part.
"I have given Doctor Stein the Captain, who was not yet given out,"
says Mrs. Clemens, in the tone of one not accustomed to contradiction,
and allowing no opposition. "That is a very nice part, and he can show
to-night whether he can read or not. I should have liked, to be sure,
to read it over with him, but he must look but for himself now. As to
Mr. and Mrs. Jager, I have given them the Devereux and MacDonald, who
were still vacant."
"But, my dear Mrs. Clemens," squeaked Doctor Kubel, "do you really
think those parts are quite suitable for our new friends at their first
debut?"
"Why not, dear doctor?" asks the manager, with a frown of impatience.
"I only think they will hardly like it particularly to make their first
appearance among us as murderers," says Doctor Kubel.
The lady manager, whose brow has become darker and darker as her jocose
guest speaks, is about to reply, but is prevented from doing so, for
the door opens at that moment in order to admit Mr. and Mrs. Professor
(ex-pastor) Jager into the room.
The noble pair have not left the "lowly roof" and the "country fields"
behind them without a change which might possibly escape the careless
observer, but which the sharper eye would at once discern in many a
characteristic symptom. Professor Jager knows but too well the use
which the mask of humility, of modesty, and unpretending simplicity has
rendered Pastor Jager, to lay it aside now when he has barely reached
half of his ambitious end. He has only aired it a little, and he who
has eyes to see, can at times very clearly discern underneath, his true
face, marked with the double impress of the scholar's conceit and the
priest's pride. Mrs. Jager affords the same sight, only translated into
childish and foolish words. The author of the "Cornflowers" has the air
of a person who expects every moment an effusion of overwhelming
praise, and is quite determined to deprecate it. If the appearance of
the professor reminds one of the well-known wolf in sheep's clothes,
and one cannot very well feel quite safe in his neighborhood, his
wife's appearance recalls the familiar crow, who thought herself Juno's
own bird, and it requires an effort to remain serious. The change in
the outward appearance is less perceptible; the interpreter of
Chrysophilos has exchanged his plain glasses in horn for a pair of gold
spectacles, and Primula wears in her golden hair a few artistic
imitations of those blue flowers that have furnished her with a title
for her poems. Both hold in their hands a copy of Wallenstein, full of
joyous anticipations, hoping to carry off the honors of the evening by
their masterly declamation, and without the most remote suspicion of
the mortal insult which is to be inflicted upon their pride during the
next ten minutes.
Full of hope and free of suspicion they enter the room, welcome the
"highly-honored landlord and landlady," and greet the younger gentlemen
of the college, who are formally introduced. This is the first large
party at which they appear since their triumphant return to Grunwald.
Rector Clemens is known for the intelligent and interesting company he
has at his house; he surpasses in this the other professors of the
university even, unless it be Privy Councillor Roban, whose parties,
however, do not consume half as much poetical sentiment. Mr. and Mrs.
Jager are determined that this circle shall soon be only the nebular
preparation for the brilliant light of their own superiority.
"Ah! my worthy friend," says Professor Jager, after having saluted
Clemens and Snellius, to Doctor Kubel, under whom he has been sitting
as pupil, pressing the fat, white hands with great warmth; "how
delighted I am to meet you, my highly esteemed teacher, and to see you
in such excellent health! Indeed, one might say of you as of
Wallenstein, that the swift years have passed over your brown hair
without leaving a trace. Indeed, indeed, _mens sana in corpore sano_. I
learnt that from you, but you have practised what you taught, Doctor
Winimer, I rejoice exceedingly to make your personal acquaintance; both
myself and my wife have known you long and held you dear, through your
charming 'Mayflowers.' Permit me to present you to my wife; I should
like to see the Cornflowers and the Mayflowers bound up in a bouquet,
ha, ha, ha! Doctor Broadfoot, I am happy to meet a man of science, of
your great merit. Your admirable monographs on Origens and Eusebius
have rendered me essential service in writing my Fragments. I am glad
to be able, at last, to thank you in person."
While Professor Jager was thus making the round, winding snake-like
through the circle of the gentlemen. Primula flitted sylph-like through
the circle of ladies. She had, like the "maiden from afar," a gift for
every one. She pays a compliment to the elder ladies. She envies
Thusnelda and Fredegunda their "charming, highly-poetical" names; she
congratulates Ida Snellius on her progress in Portuguese, and pats Mary
Kubel on the blushing cheeks and calls her a dear, sweet child.
"But our colleague comes really a little too late," says Rector
Clemens, looking at his watch. "I think, Augusta, we might have tea."
"Whom do you expect, my dear sir?" asks Professor Jager of the rector.
"Whose foot did not yet cross this threshold?" asks Primula, who is
full of reminiscences of Wallenstein, of the lady manager.
At the very moment, when the professor and his wife are about to answer
these questions, the door opens and Oswald's tall form appears in the
frame.
CHAPTER XIX.
When the last comer at a party enters the room he always excites a
certain sensation in the assembled company, especially when, as was
here the case, the arrival of the guest has been looked for with some
curiosity. Oswald was a perfect stranger to the whole circle. His only
acquaintance was the rector, whom he had met officially. The other
gentlemen and ladies, belonging to the college, he had perhaps seen now
and then in company during his former residence in Grunwald, but
without noticing them or being noticed by them. When he had paid his
visits during the day, he had found nobody at home except the Kubel
family. The gentlemen were curious to see their new colleague, the
older ladies the young man who might possibly become one of these days
their son-in-law, and the young ladies the new acquisition for their
social meetings--all were ready to examine him and to criticize. Thus
there followed a pause in the merry conversation, as he entered, and he
had to encounter the eyes of the whole company.
Undismayed by this cross-fire of glances, Oswald approached Mrs.
Clemens, kissed her hand, excused his late arrival, and begged her to
present him to the other ladies, whom he was not yet fortunate enough
to know. After this ceremony had been performed in due form, he begged
the rector in like manner to make him acquainted with the gentlemen;
then he turned again to the ladies to pay a few compliments to his
hostess, and at last to Primula, who immediately entered upon a lively
conversation with marked eagerness. Primula had taken Oswald from the
first moment into her poetic heart, on account of his "fair,
chevalieresque, and truly romantic appearance," as she called it, and
all the admonitions of her husband had not been able permanently to
arrest the current of her sympathetic sentiments. She had, to be sure,
paid due respect in the country to existing circumstances, and dropped
the fallen greatness, but she had determined in her heart to follow the
impulse of her soul freely whenever she should be able to let her
captive psyche fly with untrammelled wings. That moment had come now;
she greeted Oswald, who had become more interesting than ever to her
through his "exceedingly romantic catastrophe at Castle Grenwitz," with
the double warmth of friendship and of admiration. Oswald, however, who
was determined, if possible, to make himself acceptable to all the
ladies, could not be kept long by all the charms of the poetess; he
talked seriously with the elderly ladies, he teased the younger ones,
and after ten minutes he seemed to have accomplished his end.
In the meantime he had been carefully watched by the gentlemen, who had
gathered around Professor Jager. The interpreter of the fragments of
Chrysophilos hated Oswald with a very hearty hatred. Oswald had never
paid the vain man the attention which he claimed, and had even treated
him with undisguised contempt, especially during the latter part of his
stay at Grenwitz. Professor Jager had never forgotten the insult
offered to Pastor Jager, and waited only for a suitable occasion to pay
off the long accumulated debt. He was, however, far too clever and too
cowardly to come out with it openly, as the gentlemen of the college
now questioned him about Oswald, whom he declared he knew perfectly. He
contented himself with mysterious hints, as: "a young man, about whom
much might be said--you will see yourselves, gentlemen--I only hope he
has grown more prudent in the meantime; hem! hem! You know he is one of
Berger's pet pupils. Well, Berger is a remarkable man, a brilliant man;
but he is at the asylum in Fichtenau, and we see once more that 'all is
not gold that glitters;' hem! hem!" These and similar words fell like
poisonous malaria upon the harmless souls of the pedagogues.
"If we had known that, _collega_!" said Rector Clemens secretly to
Professor Snellius.
Professor Snellius shrugged his shoulders, and replied,
"I hope much from the advantages he will have in his intercourse with
us. The acquaintance of really well-bred, learned----"
"Truly humane," supplied the rector.
"Truly humane men," continued the professor, "is the best training for
genuine culture and erudition----"
"And humanity," supplied the rector.
"What do you think of our new colleague, Winimer?" asked Doctor
Broadfoot, who had noticed with great disgust how merrily Miss
Fredegunda, who generally distinguished herself by a certain morose
reserve, was now chatting and laughing with Oswald.
"I believe the gentleman is a great dandy," replied Mr. Winimer,
passing his hand through his hair. "He has a way of bending over ladies
in their chairs which is downright intolerable. I am afraid we shall
never be good friends."
"But that is too bad," cried Mr. Broadfoot, and advanced with the
intention to interrupt the conversation between Oswald and Fredegunda,
but he lost his courage on the way; and in order to mask the
unsuccessful attack, he took a cup of tea from the waiter which a maid
presented to him, and then, cup in hand, he remained standing in the
centre of the room, the picture of helpless embarrassment.
He was fortunately soon relieved by the question of the lady manager,
whether they should now begin the reading of Wallenstein--the original
purpose of their meeting--and the invitation to follow her into the
adjoining room.
"In which part will you, madame, give us an example?" asked Oswald.
"But why do I ask? There is in Wallenstein only one part for you, as in
this company there is but one lady fit for that part--yourself!"
"You are jesting," said the poetess, tapping him gently on the arm with
the book which she was holding in her hand; "why should I have any
privilege?"
"But, surely, there can be but one opinion about this that the most
poetical character in the piece ought to be represented by the most
poetical character in the company; and again, there can be but one
opinion as to who that is."
"And who--ha! I will try to overcome my childish bashfulness--who could
that be?" asked Primula, with melting voice, raising her eyes in sweet
anticipation to Oswald.
"Permit me to take the copy you are holding in your hand, a moment.
Thanks! I see there is a mark. Let us see where it is. 'Act
Third.--Scene First.--Countess Terzky: Thekla, Fräulein von Neubrunn.'
Thekla under-scored. I thank you, Thekla!"
"That is an accident," cried the blushing poetess, pressing the book,
which Oswald handed back to her with an ironical bow, to her bosom. "I
swear it to you by the nine Muses, it is an accident."
"And I swear by father Apollo himself, and by all the other Olympians
besides, that I believe in no accident, at least only in the most
fortunate accident which has led me to-night once more into the company
of--may I venture to say so--of a friend."
"If you may say so!" cried the poetess, tenderly pressing Oswald's arm
with her own; "if you may say so! Oh believe me, Mr. Stein, I have been
your friend ever since you put your foot on our humble threshold; I
have always taken your part when prosaic minds, without reverence for
the Great and the Beautiful----"
Primula was forced to arrest the overflowing waters of her tenderness,
which Oswald had called forth so suddenly by his coarse flattery; for
at that moment they had reached the adjoining room, where a part of the
company were already seated around the long table, which was covered
with a white cloth, and lighted up with two lamps and two candles. At
the upper end stood Mrs. Rector Clemens, the founder and manager of the
"Dramatic Club," looking at her company like a herd at his flock, and
appointing to the still homeless guests their seats, gesticulating
fiercely with her arms, and letting her deep voice out more fully than
seemed absolutely necessary.
"Sit down by Fredegunda, Doctor Broadfoot. Will you take a seat by my
daughter Thusnelda, Doctor Stein? Mrs. Jager, you will please take a
seat by Professor Snellius. Professor Jager, you by Mrs. Kubel. Well,
now we are all seated."
Mrs. Manager seized a bell, which stood before her on the table, and
began to ring it for half a minute with all the energy of a president
of a parliament who wishes to drown the mad voices of a few hundred
furious representatives of the people. As the absolute silence reigning
in the whole assembly furnished no pretext for this display of
energetic efforts, Mrs. Manager at last put the bell down on the table,
and seized instead a sheet of paper, on which, as on a theatre bill,
the parts in the piece and the names of the company were arranged in
double columns.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" she said, examining the faces of the audience,
as they looked up to her, with satisfaction. "You know that we have
chosen at our last sitting 'Wallenstein's Death' for this meeting with
universal acclimatization; I meant to say, acclamation. As
unfortunately the piece has more parts than we have members, I have
been forced to leave out several which did not appear to me essential.
But even then there remained a few which I could not well fill, and
which would have remained blank if some of our dear guests who give us
the pleasure of their company to-night had not put it into my power to
complete the bill to the general satisfaction of all, I hope. Although
most of you already know which part has been allotted to you, I will
for the sake of regularity, and especially for the benefit of our dear
guests, read the whole list from the beginning once more. Listen then,
I pray, attentively!"
Mrs. Manager cleared her voice and read, amid the attentive silence of
the company:
Wallenstein, Rector Clemens.
Octavio Piccolomini, Professor Snellius.
Max Piccolomini, Doctor Winimer.
Terzky, Fredegunda Clemens.
Illo, Doctor Kubel.
Butler, Doctor Broadfoot.
Gordon, Mrs. Kubel.
Seni, Miss Ida Snellius.
Duchess, Mrs. Snellius.
Countess Terzky, Myself.
Thekla, Thusnelda Clemens.
Fräulein Neubrunn, Marie Kubel.
Swedish Captain, Doctor Stein.
Devereux, \ Mr. and Mrs. Jager.
MacDonald, / Captains in Wallenstein's army.
Oswald, who had been not a little amused by this original distribution,
had to bite his lips not to laugh loud, when he saw the foolish faces
made by the last-named persons as they heard their names coupled so
intimately with the names of the murderers of the hero. Professor Jager
drew down the corners of his mouth lower than Oswald had ever seen
them; and Primula, who had turned as white as the lace collar on her
pale-yellow dress, seemed to be on the point of breaking into tears.
That was, then, the triumph which she had hoped for from this night!
Was this the hospitable house of dear friends, who were so proud of
their perfect humanity? or was it a blood-dripping cave of brutal
Troglodytes? Was he the interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos,
or was he not? Was she the famous author of the "Cornflowers," or was
she not? And no cry of indignation broke forth from the throats of all
who had heard with their own ears this desecration of names so renowned
in science and in art!
The professor and his wife looked at each other across the table with
eyes in which an attentive observer might have read these and other
questions; then they glanced around the company at the table to see
what impression such blasphemy must needs have produced upon the
audience. But no one seemed to think any harm about this disgraceful
insult to scientific and poetic fame; no one, with the exception
perhaps of fat Doctor Kubel, who replied to an interrogative glance of
the professor with a friendly grin, and Oswald, who stealthily pressed
Primula's hand under the table as a sign of his sympathy, for Primula
sat on his left, while Thusnelda was his right-hand neighbor. Otherwise
nobody troubled himself about the insulted sufferers, each one was busy
only with his own part, and the impression he hoped to make upon the
others, and all awaited now the signal for beginning. The lady manager
gave it at once, with the same grace and the same noise with which, in
a menagerie, the docile elephant rings the bell for dinner, and the
bear or the monkey for supper.
Mrs. Clemens presented next, in a neat little speech to Miss Ida
Snellius, the offer to "come down, as day was breaking and Mars in the
ascendant," whereupon the young lady begged her to "let her observe
Venus first, that was just rising and shining in the east like a sun,"
but her voice was so indistinct as to be almost inaudible, either from
the great remoteness of the astronomer or from the embarrassment of the
performer.
The rest corresponded with this interesting beginning, and they
inflicted upon the unlucky drama all the horrors which art-loving
ladies and gentlemen are apt to practice when they assemble for the
purpose of reading a drama with "distributed parts," as they call it.
Rector Clemens changed Wallenstein into the gentle member of a Moravian
brotherhood; Professor Snellius, the clever, intriguing Octavio, into a
wooden pedant; Doctor Winimer howled and groaned as the noble son of an
ignoble father, so that unspeakable horror befell every heart; and
Doctor Kubel seemed to take Illo for Chamisso's washerwoman; while
Doctor Broadfoot read silent Butler's words as if he had been a
charlatan dentist at a fair. Countess Terzky became one of Pappenheim's
Cuirassiers; and Thekla, in the hands of Miss Thusnelda, a love-sick
seamstress.
And with all that, there was a holy zeal animating them all and
inducing them to turn over the leaves long before their turn came
again, and thus to produce a continuous rustling; and with all that, an
unvarnished enthusiasm which rewarded the performances of some, as
those of Doctor Winimer; and with all that an unselfish modesty with
which less gifted members, like Marie Kubel, submitted to correction on
the part of Rector Clemens, who enjoyed, by the regulations of the
club, the privilege of interrupting the reader and of pointing out to
him or to her the mistakes made in reciting.
Oswald enjoyed this Babylonian confusion, this nibbling of mice at the
club of Hercules, until gradually disgust overcame him, and even the
sight of Mr. and Mrs. Jager was no longer able to cause him to laugh
heartily. The professor sat, lost in his large easy-chair, immovable,
the corners of his mouth drawn down so low that its outline presented
the form of a horse-shoe, while he looked with his small, green
eyes over the frame of his large, round spectacles at his wife, his
fellow-sufferer, his companion in his disgrace. The conduct of the
poetess was, of course, far more striking, as might have been expected
from so eccentric a character. Now she would throw herself back in her
chair with crossed arms and fix her eyes on the ceiling, and now she
would lean forward and support her head, with the golden hair and the
wreath of blue cornflowers, in her hands. Then again she smiled a smile
of supreme contempt, or she yawned as if overcome by intolerable ennui.
Oswald was very curious to see what she would do when her turn came,
for she had whispered to him at the beginning, in feverish excitement,
"I will not read; rely upon it, I will not read!"
However, his curiosity was not to be so easily satisfied, for after Mr.
Winimer had declared himself at the end of the third act, with a final
effort of all his voice, "ready to die," Mrs. Clemens once more began
to ring with all her might, and gave thus the signal for a long pause,
which, according to § 25 of the statutes, occurred in a drama of five
acts invariably after the third act, and in a piece of four acts after
the second, and during which, according to § 26, wine and cake were
handed round.
In order to comply with the tenor of these paragraphs, the company left
the table and returned to the sitting room in the highly excited
condition in which people come from a finished artistic performance.
They sat, and stood about, with glasses in their hands, and talked of
the piece and the declamation. They all agreed that Doctor Winimer had
this time, as always, surpassed them all, and that Miss Marie Kubel had
not yet spoken loud enough, although, generally speaking, she might be
said to have made some progress. The gentlemen gave each other marks,
as they did with their school-boys, and of course all received the
highest number. The ladies spoke of the sublime poet, of the chaste
nobility of his verses. Miss Ida Snellius insisted that Schiller
reminded her frequently of Euripides, whereupon the circle fell into a
learned discussion, in which the words Sophocles, Goethe, Schiller,
Aristophanes, Æschylus, Euripides, Don Carlos, Oedipus upon Colonos,
and Wallenstein, were tossed to and fro like snow-flakes.
Oswald looked for the author of the "Cornflowers," whom he had
lost sight of since the beginning of the pause. He found her in a
window-recess of the second room (otherwise the chaste bed-chamber of
the two Misses Clemens), whispering eagerly to her husband. He was
about to withdraw modestly so as not to disturb the _tête-à-tête_, but
Primula rose as soon as she saw him, seized his hand and drew him into
the recess.
"Speak low," said Primula, with the hollow voice of a ghost.
"What is the matter?" asked Oswald, in the same tone.
"You shall tell me whether I ought to read!" breathed Primula; "Jager
has no sensibility for such a disgrace."
"Oh! yes, dearest Augusta," whispered the professor; "but I should
like to avoid a scene; I pray you, darling, what will the people say
when--oh, I cannot think of it."
"I should be disposed to agree with the professor," said Oswald. "I do
not see how you can be saved after being once entrapped into this
lion's den."
"Is the author of the 'Cornflowers' a murderer--a wretched assassin?"
whined Primula. "Never, never!"
"It is disgraceful," chimed in Oswald; "but the interpreter of
Chrysophilos is in the same position, and you see he bears his hard
fate with dignity."
A pressure of the hand from the professor rewarded Oswald for this
flattery.
"Oh, you men have no feelings for insults," sobbed Primula. "Well, I
will try, but if----"
The stormy ringing of the president's bell from the adjoining room cut
Primula short. She stepped ahead of the two gentlemen with the air of
one who has formed a resolution, happen what may.
"Now it will soon be our turn," said Doctor Winimer, as they took their
seats under continued ringing of bells, to Oswald; "don't be afraid,
and read bravely on. Even if you do not do very well the first time, it
will be better the second time, and practice makes the master."
"Whom I admire and revere in you," replied Oswald, bowing.
"Well, well," said Doctor Winimer, rubbing his hair, with a smile; "it
might be better. To be sure when I recently heard Holtei, who is
probably the best reader in Germany, the old saying _Anch' i sono
pittoré_ came at once into my mind."
"I believe it," said Oswald.
The bell ceased to ring, and Doctor Broadfoot, as Colonel Butler,
raised his voice, and cried so that the windows rattled:
"He is inside. Fate led him hither."
The murderous night at Castle Eger progressed now rapidly from scene to
scene. Oswald was so curious about the manner in which Primula would
take her fate, especially since he had seen her excitement grow apace
as the fatal moment approached, that he could hear the words of
Fräulein Neubrunn, "The Swedish captain is here," without excitement.
He actually asked Princess Thekla--Thusnelda, quite coolly, and without
the slightest palpitation of the heart, to pardon him for his "rash,
inconsiderate words." Nor did he notice the uncalled-for warmth of
feeling with which Miss Clemens recited the words:
"A fatal chance has made you,
A stranger, quickly my familiar friend,"
although her tone made Doctor Winimer feel bitter pangs in his heart.
Miss Fredegunda looked most significantly at her Doctor Broadfoot. He
did not notice the murmured applause which followed his recital of the
death of the cavalry-colonel; and the following scenes also passed
unnoticed, till at last the fatal net encloses Wallenstein altogether
in its meshes, and dark Colonel Butler distributes, in the secrecy of
his rooms, the parts to be taken by the murderers. Already Major
Geraldine has hurried off with his bloody commission, and--now the
moment comes, when (on the stage) the curtain parts and the grim
captains Devereux and MacDonald present themselves in collar and tall
riding-boots, and long swords at their side, before the commander of
their regiment.
"What is she going to do?" thought Oswald, as he saw the face of the
sufferer turn pale and red by turns; "she is not going to read."
But Primula overcame the noble indignation which made her heart swell,
cleared her voice, and said, with the soft voice of a saint who
surrenders himself into the hands of the executioners:
"Here we ARE, general!"
The lady manager, who thought the accent ought to have been upon the
word _we_, because there were two murderers, availed herself of the
right conferred on her by § 73 of the regulations, and said:
"Here WE are, general!"
That was too much. The string was overstrained; it snapped asunder; the
insulted poetess rose, closed her book with a jerk, and said with pale
lips:
"I am sorry if I disturb the company by my declaration that I am unable
to read any more. But as I--can--not even--read a part--which--I must
force myself--violently--to read--"
She could say no more, but fell back into her chair and broke into
convulsive weeping.
The consternation which this scene produced in the harmless company
could not have been greater. They rose suddenly from their seats; they
crowded around the sobbing poetess; they asked one another what was the
matter with Mrs. Jager? and the professor if his wife was subject to
such attacks? Nobody suspected the true cause of her condition, which
the gentlemen tried to remedy by persuasion, and the ladies by Cologne
water. But Primula would accept neither the one nor the other. After a
few seconds she rose from her chair, declared decidedly that she must
go home, and went out without saying good-by to any one, hanging on the
arm of her husband, who had made a very foolish face during the whole
scene.
At the moment when the company, extremely surprised by the
disappearance of such honored guests, were still standing about in the
sitting-room and discussing the facts, a letter was handed to Oswald,
which, as the parlor-maid said, "a young man had brought, who was
waiting for an answer."
Oswald opened the note, which contained only the words:
"Make haste and come away. I am waiting below.--Timm."
Oswald did not neglect such an admirable pretext to escape from a
company which became every moment more and more intolerable to him. He
said he had received news which required him to return home instantly.
The next moment he had joined Timm in the street.
"Heaven be thanked that I could get away," he cried, seizing Timm, who
was delighted to see him, by the arm, and dragging him with him.
"Thought so," said Mr. Timm, "thought you were suffering infernal
pains; meant to help you, poor fellow. Come, let us wash down the
learned dust which you have swallowed, with a bottle of golden wine."
Book Second.
CHAPTER I.
"The Boarding-School for Young Ladies," in the suburbs of Grunwald, was
not exactly a house of correction for young girls who were incorrigible
at home, as the students of Grunwald and other wicked people
maintained; nor was the principal of the institution, Miss Amelia
Bear--known as the She Bear--altogether the female dragon which
malicious tongues represented her to be. It is true, no one could deny
that during the day the curtains were almost invariably down in the
windows looking upon the street, and that after nine o'clock in the
evening no light was to be seen in the whole house. The boarders were
never seen in public, except in solemn procession, walking two and two,
and with a teacher at the head and a teacher at the end; no letter
passed the threshold of the house, going out or coming in, which was
not first subjected to a close scrutiny in Miss Bear's study, and
stamped there, so to say, with the official seal; but these and similar
regulations are either common to all "boarding-schools for young
ladies," or there was, in certain cases, a special reason for them. The
institution was intended for the "higher classes," whose female
offspring was counted upon for its support; this meant almost
exclusively the high nobility of the district, as the daughters of
persons not noble rarely sought admission, and still more rarely found
admission. Now it happens that young ladies of rank born and bred in
the country, and enjoying the twofold privileges of country life and an
exceptional social position, accustomed to manage from their twelfth
year their ponies with the skill of circus-riders, and at thirteen
often more familiar with the humbugs of society than other girls ever
become--that such girls are not to be treated as leniently as other
daughters of Eve. They are used to the society of busy idlers as their
only male companions: young land-owners, officers on furlough, and
other men of frequently very loose morals; and great is the danger,
therefore, that this inborn and inbred sovereign haughtiness may bloom
forth abundantly, and bear equivocal fruit, unless they are restrained
in time and with method.
This was the excuse which Miss Bear's friends made for the draconic
laws of her institution; she was the responsible keeper of this
precious but fragile ware, and who could wonder at the stern glance of
her once perhaps beautiful eyes, and the crowd of wrinkles on her brow,
which seemed to deepen and to multiply every year? Like so many among
us, she was what she was, not because she wished to be so, but because
she was forced to be so. It was her vocation to look stern, and to
frown, as it is the vocation of others to smile forever, and to wear as
smooth a face as they can produce. But as the greatest psychologist of
our day has taught us that one may smile and smile forever, and yet be
a very great rascal, so it is also possible to look like a chief
inquisitor, and yet to have a truly womanly, gentle, and kindly heart.
Miss Amelia Bear was the living proof of such a possibility. Miss
Amelia Bear had had a very hard time of it all her life long. She was
the poor daughter of a poor village minister, and began at fourteen her
thorny career as a governess in noble country families. In those days
she was very pretty, and therefore exposed to many temptations; but her
prudence and her cleverness had helped her to escape from all dangers,
till she was old enough to be left alone, and to procure for herself a
kind of independence by establishing a school upon the savings of long
years and the presents she had occasionally received. Her honorable
character was known to everybody; and this, and the experience she had
gained in the field of education, justified such an enterprise, while
her numerous relations to noble families promised almost certain
success. She preferred the nobility, because the nobility preferred
her; and she hesitated to accept girls of other families, because she
was sure to lose or not to receive for one such boarder, six from the
nobility.
Nevertheless she gave up the principle whenever a special case seemed
to require an exception from the rule. Thus it had been with Sophie
Roban. The privy councillor was the physician of the institution, and
Miss Bear was under great obligations to him. Even her noble patrons,
therefore, understood perfectly why she could not well refuse the
widowed privy councillor, when he asked her to take for a few years a
mother's place to his orphaned child.
Her relation to Sophie Roban was the best proof of the exaggeration
which had given rise to so many fables about the dragon nature of Miss
Bear. She had become a real mother to the motherless girl; she had
guarded and protected her against every bodily and mental danger, not
in order to earn her compensation honestly, nor for the sake of the
reputation of her school, but because she loved the girl with her whole
heart, as if she had been her own. Malicious people went so far as to
say that she had not only raised but also spoiled the girl, and it
could not be denied that Sophie--little Sophie, as the She Bear
said--could dare what no other boarder, not even Emily von Breesen, who
was at the same time there, and who passed for absolutely untamable,
would ever have ventured to do. Sophie could interrupt Miss Bear in the
most violent philippic against any wrong-doer who had done something
especially horrible, _e. g._, cutting round holes in the curtains for
the purpose of peeping at the people who passed by the house, and could
fall upon her neck and say: Miss Mal, Miss Mal, I would not be so very
angry if I were you! Sophie could at all times freely enter her
study--that mysterious adytum to which the young ladies came with fear
and trembling, and where the dispatches to their parents were prepared,
and all their letters, coming and going, were subjected to rigorous
scrutiny! Sophie could do what she chose.
These relations between teacher and pupil had ripened into a friendship
of a peculiar nature after Sophie had left the school and become the
presiding officer of her father's house. Miss Bear appreciated Sophie's
good judgment, and did not disdain to consult the lady, young as she
was, in critical cases; and what is more, she almost always followed
the advice which her young friend gave, more in play than in good
earnest, but always with perfect simplicity and impartiality. Such a
case had occurred a few weeks ago, when the Baroness Grenwitz had
expressed a wish to send her daughter Helen back for some time to the
institution to finish her studies, especially in the sciences. Now such
a step was remarkable enough in itself, as Miss Helen was coming
straight from a well-known, superior school, in which she had spent
four years; but it became still more embarrassing by the circumstance
that the instructions which Miss Bear received from the baroness on one
side, and from the baron on the other, differed essentially as to the
degree of freedom to be granted the young lady. If Miss Bear obeyed the
written instructions of the baroness, Helen was to be kept as a state
prisoner, under latch and key; if she followed the requests made orally
by the baron, when he brought, himself, his daughter to Grunwald, the
young lady was to be left in absolute liberty. As both methods of
education were equally incompatible with the system adopted in the
school. Miss Bear was in great embarrassment, and turned, in her
dilemma, to her young friend, to receive from her advice in this
mysterious affair.
Fortunately Sophie had heard much from her betrothed about the state of
things at Grenwitz, and what he had not explained she readily divined
by the talent peculiar to all women of delicate feelings.
"They tried to marry Helen to a man unworthy of her," said the young
lady, as she met her motherly friend soon after Helen's arrival in the
mysterious adytum of her study, in order to confer with her about the
Grenwitz affair, "and Helen has very properly refused to consent. In
return, they have banished her for a time from her paternal home. You
will surely not increase the hardship by being unnecessarily severe
against the poor girl? Surely, Miss Mal, that would not be like you. Do
what the father says: treat Helen not as a pupil--for that, she is too
old; treat her as a young girl who has taken refuge with you from a
tyrannical mother who ill-treats her, and from a father who is too weak
to protect her. For that is, as far as I can see, the truth of the
case."
When Sophie said so, she did, of course, not suspect Oswald's love for
Helen, and Helen's love for Oswald, which, if known to her, would
probably have made her speak somewhat differently; and afterwards, when
Franz's reports about the catastrophe at Grenwitz, and many a word
spoken by Helen herself, made her see more clearly this all-important
point, she still did not change her advice, because she looked upon it
as treason against a friend to tell others a secret of which she
herself was not yet fully convinced. Helen, moreover, had become her
friend in the meantime; at least she was most devotedly attached to the
pretty girl, although she had reasons to doubt whether Helen, in her
haughty pride and reserve, returned her love. It was mainly their
common enthusiastic love for music which had brought the two young
ladies so closely together. They soon found, not only that they shared
this enthusiasm, but that they complemented each other in their
knowledge of music as well as in their powers of execution. Sophie was
the more learned; the mysteries of Thorough Bass--for Helen, a book
with seven seals--were open to her; but Helen felt and appreciated
music more fully. In comparison with Sophie, Helen was, on the other
hand, a mere scholar on the piano, but she had a rich alto voice, as
extensive as well trained, while Sophie said of herself that she had
not a note in her throat.
Thus the two young ladies could play and sing by the hour, either in
Helen's room at the institute, or more frequently in Sophie's parlor,
without ever getting tired. Helen insisted that nobody had ever
accompanied her as well as Sophie; and Sophie, that nothing had ever
afforded her a greater musical enjoyment than Helen's sweet, melodious
voice, full of deep feeling.
But, strange enough, although their souls met in the realm of music as
kindred souls, and gave each other a sister's kiss, their tongues
became silent as soon as they attempted to approach each other in human
speech. Their conversation stopped frequently, and they had to turn
again to music in order to fill a pause which threatened to become
painful. Sometimes Sophie thought Helen was making a violent effort to
break the charm which bound her in silence, but she never went in such
moments beyond the first stammered sounds of intimacy, and the very
next moment saw the young girl longing for friendship changed into the
haughty lady of the world, calm in her self-satisfied repose, and
unapproachable.
"She is a marble statue," said Sophie to her father, "in spite of her
black hair, and her dark, brilliant eyes. You cannot get near to her. I
believe she is secretly an Undine."
The privy councillor laughed.
"You may not be altogether wrong," he said; "for if the two entirely
different elements, air and water, harbor also entirely different
creatures, which cannot have real communion with each other, it is
perfectly logical that different moral atmospheres, like that in which
the nobles live and that in which we live, must also produce morally
different beings, who can never become real friends with heart and
soul. Have you formed any friendship, during the time you spent at Miss
Bear's school, which has lasted beyond those years?"
"Yes, papa, with Miss Bear herself," answered Sophie, laughing.
"There you see," said the privy councillor, with his satirical smile,
"one can become good friends with she bears even, but not with
Undines."
Sophie was too young yet to be able to share the suspicions suggested
to her father by his long life and ample experience. She explained
Helen's reserve by her innate or acquired reluctance to come out of
herself, and forgave her this shyness all the more readily as she was
not quite free from it herself. She was herself generally looked upon
as stern and cold, and many people declared openly that "she was not at
all like other girls." "She cannot help it," she would say to herself,
"and we ought not to expect to gather figs from thistles. Helen would
be just the same to you if the Robans had been barons at the time of
Charlemagne."
This view did greater honor to Sophie's head than to her worldly
prudence, and she would have perhaps become a convert to her father's
views, "that Undines can at least be intimate with Undines," if she had
been able to look over Helen's shoulder on the afternoon of the third
day after Oswald's arrival in Grunwald. Helen was writing to her
friend, Miss Mary Burton (an Undine beyond doubt, for she belonged to
an old and noble English family), and the delicate gold pen was flying
fast over the paper. Helen wrote:
"This is the first time for a long, long time, dearest Mary, that I
have the heart to answer your letters--for there is quite a pile lying
before me. But I could not get the courage to write to you, who have
now entered the great world, and have been presented at court--who are
engaged, and about to become the wife of an English peer, that I, Helen
von Grenwitz, to whom you prophesied such a brilliant future, have been
sent back to boarding-school! sent to boarding-school, like a naughty
girl; sent to boarding-school, like a gosling from the country! You
wonder; you smile incredulously; you lisp your 'It is impossible!' and
when you find at last that you have to believe my repeated assurances,
you seize me with both your hands and cry: 'but, for God's sake, what
does it mean? what can it be?' and you force me to tell you the whole
story from the beginning. Well, I see no possibility to escape from the
punishment, but you will find it natural that I shorten the pain as
much as I can.
"Therefore, in short, if not for good:
"The relations with my mother, which I wrote to you before were so
satisfactory, became worse and worse in consequence of my decided
refusal to accept Felix as my husband, until an open rupture, which I
had long seen coming, was inevitable. I have borne myself in the whole
affair as I thought I owed it to myself and to you. It was a fierce
battle, I assure you. To oppose my mother requires courage, and my
father supported me but feebly, for he is feeble. Well! the battle is
over; the dead are buried, and the wounds begin to heal. Yes, Mary! the
dead. My Bruno, my pride, my knight, _sans peur et sans reproche_, my
brother, my friend, my darling Bruno, is no more! He died fighting for
me, and has breathed the last of his young, heroic soul in a kiss upon
my lips. The fierce grief about this loss--for I only knew what he had
been to me when I had him no longer--made me dull and indifferent to
everything and everybody around me. As this boy loved me, no one on
earth ever can and will love me again. I was light and air to him; I
was meat and drink to him; I was waking and sleeping--I was life itself
to him. How often have I laughed at him when he told me so, with
glowing cheeks and bright eyes and trembling lips! And I said, 'Come,
Bruno, none of your extravagancies! none of your fables! you are a
little fool!' Now I would give many a year of my life if I could but
hear it once more from his proud lips. A suspicion, which I cannot
shake off, tells me that I would have found in Bruno and with Bruno all
the happiness that this earth can afford; and that in losing him I have
lost every prospect of happiness here below. You smile; you think: a
boy! but I tell you, you did not know Bruno.
"Do not ask me to repeat everything in detail. I cannot do it. My heart
is too full. The remembrance of my lost pet does not leave me for a
moment, and I should like nothing better than to lay down my pen and to
cry to my heart's content. Tell me, Mary, is it really our fate, as we
have so often told each other in sad hours, to go through life
unsatisfied, without joy, without happiness, without the hope that the
future at least may bring us the fulfilment of our wishes? Is fortune
ever to appear to us only as a _fata morgana_--charming in its beauty
and treacherously fleeting? Or is it ever to present itself only in a
shape which, however great the inner value may be, offends our
delicacy--our prejudices, if you choose to call them so? Your lot, to
be sure, it seems, is to be different. In the same circles to which you
belong by birth and training, you have found the man who would have
been dear to your heart even if your judgment should not have approved
of the choice of your heart. A man, a hero, a lord! Happy, thrice happy
you are to have found one to whom you have to look up, proud as you
are! Smile with your aristocratic curve of the lip upon--your friend at
the boarding-school!
"It is true, I am very comfortable at this boarding-school. They treat
me, not as a pupil, but as a guest, and I am sincerely grateful to the
principal, a Miss Bear, for her goodness, and the delicate
consideration with which she treats me, as if she knew all. Perhaps she
does know all. Such events, in families like ours, are not apt to
remain unknown. Have I not myself learnt much about my own engagement
only several weeks afterwards, and not from my father, with whom I have
corresponded all the time, and who has even come to see me several
times from Grenwitz (my mother, who I am told is here in Grunwald, has
broken off all intercourse with me), but from a young lady, a Miss
Sophie Roban, a former boarder here, whose acquaintance I have made,
and with whom I have even formed a kind of friendship. She is engaged
to our physician at Grenwitz, who has recently settled here, and thus
her news seems to be reliable. She told me what had occurred after my
departure from Grenwitz, and what papa had carefully kept from me; that
the young man, of whom I wrote you already last summer, our tutor,
Doctor Stein, has become my knight and my avenger, inasmuch, at least,
as he has fought a duel with Felix, and given my great cousin a lesson
which he will probably not forget very soon, as I learn from the same
authority. I cannot tell you how strangely this news has affected me.
At first--I may confess to you--my pride was offended that my name
should be coupled in the world with the name of a man like Mr. Stein;
that a stranger, a hireling, should have assumed responsibilities for
me, as if he were a relative, and my equal in rank. But then I thought
of the old saying, 'that if the people were silent the stones would
speak;' I remembered that a brother could not have behaved more
brotherly, nor a knight more chivalrously toward me than this man had
done from the first moment. I recalled, above all, that this man was my
Bruno's dearest friend, and I forgot my pride, and felt, not without
wondering at myself, that I could be grateful to this man for his great
kindness and affection without feeling, as I generally do, that this
gratitude weighs upon me as a burden. Nay, even more, I felt the desire
to see him, who was abroad, once more, in order to thank him in person,
and when I saw him to-day, quite unexpectedly, pass by the window at
which I was sitting, I felt--you will laugh at me, Mary--I felt that as
I returned his bow the blood rushed into my face. When he had gone by I
could not help following him with my eye, and then I leaned back in the
window and wept bitter tears over the memory of Bruno, which the
appearance of Stein had suddenly and powerfully revived in my mind. I
wish I could speak to him undisturbed.
"But I must break off here. I hear Miss Roban, who comes to play with
me, and Miss Bear, in the next room."
Helen rose to meet the two ladies, who had entered the room upon her
_entrez_! Sophie Roban passed Miss Bear and embraced Helen, with an
affectionate haste which contrasted somewhat with the calm and
dignified carriage of the young aristocrat.
"I have really longed to see you, Helen! Why have you not come to see
me since the other night, when you promised to call again? Miss Mal has
not put her veto upon it?"
"_Point du tout_," replied Miss Bear, pushing her glasses on the top of
her head, in order to look more freely at the large, friendly blue eyes
of her favorite. "You know, little Sophie, that Helen is perfectly free
to dispose of her time. But that was not what I came for, dear Helen!
Here is a letter for you; one of your servants brought it; I suppose it
is from your father?"
Helen took the letter with a slight acknowledgment, cast a glance at
the direction, and said: "Yes, indeed; from my father!" and put it on
her portefeuille, which she had closed when the two ladies entered.
"I will not interrupt you any longer," said Miss Bear. "Little Sophie
comes to carry you home with her. Shall I send a servant for you?--and
when?"
"You are surely coming, Helen?" said Sophie, who had taken a seat on
the stool before the piano, and was looking at a collection of music.
"I have received some beautiful new songs. A splendid one by Schumann;
we must look at it together."
"With all my heart," replied Helen. "But I cannot well stay long,
because I must finish a letter for England to-night, so that I can send
it off to-morrow morning. I am much obliged to you. Miss Bear, for the
servant; but I shall be back before dark."
"As you like it, dear Helen," said Miss Mal, kissing first Helen very
lightly on the forehead, and then Sophie Roban very heartily; "_adieu,
mes enfants_."
And Miss Bear slipped her spectacles down again upon her nose, wrinkled
up her brow in imposing severity, and rustled back to her sanctum, from
which Sophie had unearthed her a few minutes before.
"How is your father to-day?" asked Helen.
"Thanks," replied Sophie, still looking at the collection of music; "he
is much better; he has stayed up to-day a couple of hours longer. But
now read your letter, Helen, and then get ready. We must go."
"Directly," said Helen, opening her letter, while Sophie was reading
the music. A few moments later she looked up and found Helen holding
the letter in one hand, which hung down, while her head rested in the
other, and she was evidently deep in thought. The long lashes concealed
the bright eyes, and the dark eyebrows were contracted as if in
indignation.
"What is the matter?" cried Sophie, hastily closing the book and
putting it down on the piano. "Have you had bad news?"
"Oh no?" replied Helen, who had gathered herself up at the first sound
of Sophie's voice, and tried to smile. "Oh no! Papa will be here
to-morrow, that is all!"
"To stay?"
"Yes!"
"And you--Helen?"
"I was just thinking about that. My father leaves the choice to me,
but----"
The young girl paused, and assumed the same half-thoughtful,
half-wrathful expression of face. She seemed to have forgotten Sophie's
presence. All of a sudden she asked, her eyes still cast down,
"Would you, if you had been insulted, be the first to offer the hand
for reconciliation?"
Sophie was seriously embarrassed by this question, the meaning of which
she could easily divine. Helen had never spoken to her about her
affairs, not even in allusions. She was not to know anything of them,
therefore, and yet it did not suit Helen's candor, and her friendship
for Helen, to affect an ignorance and an indifference which were not
real.
"That depends," she replied, after a short pause, "on what the offence
was, and above all, who was the offending person!"
"How so?"
"There are offences, I think, which only become such by our own making,
and offenders who can never be such--who ought never to be such--I mean
persons who stand so near to us, with whom we are so closely united by
nature, that it would be unnatural, if----"
"They hated us," interrupted Helen, quickly. "But if such a case did
occur: if those hated each other for once, who ought to love each
other; if they persecuted and warred against each other, who ought to
support, help, and bear one another--how then?" Helen had risen;
her face was all aglow; her eyes sparkled; her hands were firmly
closed--the image of a person rejoicing in combat and prepared for
victory or death, but never for surrender.
"I do not know," replied Sophie, affecting a calmness which she did not
possess; "I only know that I for my part could never be placed in such
a position. I could never hate brother or sister, much less father or
mother who gave me life, happen what would. Are they not--myself? And
how can one hate one's own self?"
"Are you quite so sure of that?" answered Helen. "How do you know it?
You never had brother or sister; your mother died very early; your
father has, as you told me yourself, always overwhelmed you with
unbounded affection; but I--I have other----"
Helen probably felt that if she added another word she would not be
able to keep up her reserve hereafter, and broke off with a suddenness
which showed the remarkable control this young creature had already
obtained over herself.
"But we are losing time," she said, with a totally changed air, tone,
and carriage, "and about most unprofitable things. Come, we must hurry
to get back to our music!"
It was not the first time that Helen had thus suddenly given a new turn
to a conversation that threatened to become too intimate. Sophie had to
submit to it, although she was pained by this want of confidence, and
especially as she felt how Helen was entirely left alone, and what a
blessing it would have been to her to be able to pour out her
overburdened heart into the sympathizing bosom of a true friend. She
did not feel offended, therefore, by Helen's haughty reserve; on the
contrary, she was more than ever resolved rather to make her way slowly
and stealthily into Helen's confidence, than to return pride for pride
and reticence for reticence.
There was to be more than one occasion offered her to-day.
They had been playing and singing at Sophie's house, almost without
interruption, until it began to grow dark in the large room, which was
in the lower story. They paused because they could not see very well
any longer, and were walking up and down in the room, arm in arm, while
the effect of the music was still vibrating in their hearts, and even
Helen's proud heart felt milder and softer. She had been forcibly
reminded of the death of her favorite by one of Robert Schumann's
beautiful songs, which filled her with sweet pain. The sad, mournful
words, with the sad, plaintive melody, continued in her ear--
"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear,
I saw it in my dreams quite near;
It was so angel-like, so sweet,
And yet with pain and grief replete.
The lips alone, they are still red,
But soon they also will be pale and dead."
She thought of the night when Baron Oldenburg had led her from the
midst of the dancers to Bruno's dying bed; she saw again how at her
entrance the boy's eye flamed up in his deadly-pale face.
"The lips alone, they are still red,
But soon they also will be pale and dead,"
she murmured, as if she were speaking to herself.
"This song seems to have made as great an impression upon you as upon
Doctor Stein," said Sophie.
"Upon whom?" cried Helen, suddenly aroused from her dreams.
"Upon Doctor Stein! your Doctor Stein!" replied Sophie, as
indifferently as if she had never given a thought to the relations
which might possibly exist between Oswald and Helen.
"When did you see him?" asked Helen again, in her ordinary calmly-grand
manner.
"Last night, here; for the first time. He had been two days in town
without having seen Franz. Yesterday Franz met him accidentally in the
street, and brought him home with him. Otherwise we should probably
have had to wait a long time for his visit."
"How so?"
"Well, it did not look as if the visit gave him particular pleasure.
Still I can hardly judge of that fairly, as yesterday was the first
time I ever saw him. But to tell the truth, he looked to me as if
nothing in the world was likely to give him much pleasure. Franz says
it is not so at all, but he admitted that Mr. Stein had changed
remarkably in the short time during which they had not seen each other.
How was he when you knew him?"
Sophie thought she felt that Helen's heart was beating higher, as she
asked this very harmless question. Yet she did not show any excitement
in her voice, as she answered:
"I have seldom seen Mr. Stein except in company and, you know, there we
have very little opportunity to see men as they really are. He looked
to me generally very grave, almost sad, reserved, and silent,
especially during the last weeks. But the state of things in my family
at that time was such as to produce very naturally such an effect. How
was he yesterday?"
"That is difficult to say for one who is as little of a psychologist as
I am," replied Sophie, determined to tell the truth, even if it should
hurt Helen. "He looked to me gay, almost exuberant, but not cheerful;
talkative, but not communicative; witty, but not entertaining; in one
word, a combination of striking contrasts, which produced a very
painful impression on me, because I love, above all, what is clear,
easily intelligible and simple. I was especially shocked at the manner
in which he spoke about his position here and his vocation in life. He
seemed to look upon everything as mere play. He gave us a sketch of a
party to which he had been invited at Mr. Clemens's house, and poured a
perfect flood of irony and sarcasm on the poor people. He described his
solemn installation at the college, which had taken place that morning,
and represented the whole as a scene in a puppet-show. Franz tells me
he has something of Doctor Faust in his nature; to me he looked rather
like Mephistopheles. Nor did I think him so very handsome, as Franz had
represented him. He looked pale and haggard, as if he were sick, or had
not slept for several nights. His large eyes had an expression weird
and ghost-like. I had all the time to think of the lines: 'It is
written on his brow, that he can make no vow of faithful love'--or
however the verse may be."
"Then he must indeed have changed very much," said Helen.
The tone in which the young girl said these words was so very sad, that
Sophie regretted having been carried away by the secret antipathy she
felt in her heart against Stein, and perhaps still more by a desire to
provoke Helen by violent contradiction, and thus to punish her for her
reserve.
"Still," she said, to soothe the wound; "still, this is not to be my
final judgment about Doctor Stein; it is nothing but a first
impression. I shall probably think differently about him when I see him
more frequently. Franz is so very fond of him, and, you know, we girls
when we are engaged are apt to be jealous. But I just remember, he may
be here every moment!" she cried, interrupting herself.
"Who?" said Helen, "Oswald?"
"I had really quite forgotten it. Thoughtless girl that I am!"
"What is it?"
"Stein and Franz had agreed to hear a lecture by Professor Benseler
together. And Franz went directly after dinner to see a patient of
father's in the country. I was to have sent word to Stein. I wonder if
it is time yet?"
"It is half-past five now," said Helen, stepping to the window to look
at her watch. "It is almost dark and I must make haste to get home."
At that moment there came a knock at the door.
"There he is!" cried the two young ladies _unisono_, trembling like a
couple of deer when a shot is fired in the wood.
Another knock.
"What shall we do?" whispered Helen, who seemed to have lost all her
self-control.
"Of course we must say: 'Walk in!' What else can we do?" replied
Sophie, laughing involuntarily. "Walk in!"
The person who entered was probably unable to recognize the ladies in
the half-dark room; he remained standing near the door, as if he
hesitated.
"Come nearer, doctor," said Sophie, holding Helen's hands. "I must ask
your pardon for receiving you in the dark; but we will have light
directly."
Oswald had approached her as she said these words, and had bowed to the
ladies. Evidently he had not yet recognized Helen, who stood aside,
looking towards the window.
"I have to ask pardon," he said, "for I fear I have interrupted the
ladies. But as I found nobody in the hall----"
Suddenly he stopped; the blood rushed to his heart. He shuddered all
over. Was not the silent figure by Miss Roban, Helen? He approached a
little nearer. There was no doubt; that head whose outline he had so
often admired almost reverently, could belong to no one but Helen ...
He hardly heard Sophie say "You do not recognize Fräulein von Grenwitz;
I will go myself to order lights." He heard the door close behind Miss
Roban; he only knew that he was alone with her. He knelt down before
her and seized her hand to cover it with burning kisses.
The surprise and the darkness favored Oswald's boldness. Helen trembled
so violently that she could not prevent him; she had barely strength
enough to say:
"For God's sake, Oswald, get up! I pray you, get up!"
It was high time, for at that moment Sophie returned, followed by a
servant who brought a lamp.
Oswald succeeded in checking his emotion. Helen turned to the window,
under the pretext that the sudden light was dazzling her eyes, and
looked down upon the street, while Sophie explained Franz's absence.
"Then I will not deprive the ladies for another moment of the enjoyment
of a friendly chat," said Oswald, bowing to take leave.
"Why, Doctor," said Sophie, gayly, "are you such a foe to friendly
chats that your presence must need make an end to them? You ought
rather to sit down and do credit to Franz, who calls you the most
entertaining companion he knows. Come, Helen, take a seat here by the
fire-place. Miss Mal will not cry too bitterly if you stay a little
longer."
Oswald had just been about to accept the offered seat; but when he
heard that Helen possibly might not stay, he contented himself with a
silent bow, to acknowledge Sophie's invitation.
"Thanks, dear Sophie," said Helen, turning round from the window, "but
I must really go--another time."
She had apparently regained her usual calmness; only a very acute
observer might have noticed in the deeper red of her cheeks the last
trace of past emotion, and in her cast-down eyes the desire to conceal
the latter from observation.
Oswald, who was looking around for the means to retain Helen a few
moments longer, saw the piano open, and music lying upon the desk. He
took up the first piece he found; it was Robert Schumann's composition.
"Oh pray, pray, Miss Helen," he said, "if you have a minute to spare,
sing this song. It deserves to be sung by you!"
"We have just sung it over," said Sophie; "it is really very fine, and
Fräulein von Grenwitz sings it beautifully. Will you sing it, dear
Helen?"
If there was a question of music, no one was more eager than Sophie.
Taking Helen's consent, therefore, for granted, she had placed the
music on the stand, taken her seat on the edge of the piano-stool, as
she liked to do, and was looking expectingly at Helen, while she played
a few bars of a prelude.
Thus Helen saw herself forced to lay aside her hat, which she was
already holding in her hand, and to step up to the piano, although she
felt at that moment little disposed to sing, since her young, full
heart was still trembling under the effect of the passionate scene
which had just taken place.
Oswald stood a few steps off, leaning with folded arms against the
mantelpiece, his eyes fixed immovably on the two slender forms. And,
indeed, the sight was such as to arrest his attention; a more charming
one could hardly have been found.
One might have doubted at that moment which of the two was--not the
more beautiful, for Helen was indisputably the fairer--but the more
interesting. The harmony of most lovely features, the velvety softness
of a dark complexion, and the bluish blackness of her rich hair--all
this spoke in favor of Helen, and seemed to raise her to inapproachable
heights of beauty; but the expression in Sophie's face as she sat
there, given up to her music, now bending over the keys, and coaxing
out, as it were, the soft notes, and now looking up as if she was
following the escaping sounds in the air, would have been ample
compensation for him who finds the greatest beauty in the most
spiritual expression. As a favorable glance of sunlight may often pour
over a landscape, which has no charms of its own, a marvellous beauty,
so the noble, art-loving soul of the girl lighted up and made brilliant
her face, which was far from being really beautiful. There was
something of Beethoven's nature in it--the meteoric light which the
freed spirit of man casts through the vast night of sensuality into the
unbounded regions of eternal brightness. And, strangely enough, in the
same measure in which music heightened the expression in Sophie's face,
it softened the harshness in Helen's energetic beauty, by giving her
proud features a mildness which they never showed in ordinary life. The
harmony of sweet notes awakened there the slumbering genius, and put
here the demon of pride and ambition to sleep, so that the poetic
excitement benefitted both, though in quite opposite ways.
So it seemed to Oswald, while his eyes rested on the charming picture
of the two girls at the piano. Helen seemed to him almost a stranger;
he had to become once more familiar with her beauty; and yet, it did
not make the same overwhelming impression upon him as before. He
ascribed this partly to the unaccustomed surroundings, partly to the
attractive form of Sophie, which interrupted him in his devotion. He
did not know that since he had seen Helen last, the mirror of his soul
had become dim, and was no longer able to reflect a pure image purely.
In vain he tried to catch a glance from Helen. If Sophie was so
entirely given up to her music that she had really forgotten his
presence, Helen seemed at least to be in the same state of mind. She
did not raise her eyes from the music. Oswald rejoiced at it. He
concluded from it that his stormy greeting was, if not forgiven, still
also not yet forgotten.
They had drifted, as is apt to happen in such cases, from one song into
a second, and from that into a third and fourth. But suddenly Helen
declared she must go home now. Oswald, who thought that of course a
servant from the institute was waiting outside, was just considering
how he should manage to ask her permission to see her home, when
Sophie's question: "but you cannot go home alone?" relieved him of his
trouble. What was more natural than that he should make his bow and
politely offer his arm to Fräulein von Grenwitz, and that Fräulein von
Grenwitz should accept it with a haughty bend of her head!
Sophie was just buttoning the young lady's velvet cloak, and tying a
white fichu around her neck, "that your voice may not come to harm,
Helen!" and Oswald was standing, hat in hand, by her side, when the
door opened, before any one had heard a knock, and in walked Mr.
Bemperlein.
Oswald, who was standing with his back to the door, only became aware
of Bemperlein's presence when he heard Sophie's greeting: "How do you
do, Bemperly?" and turned round to see the new comer. At the same
moment Bemperlein recognized Oswald.
They had not seen each other since that night in which Bemperlein had
come to carry Melitta to Fichtenau and surprised the lovers in the
park. They had then parted in cordial friendship; and now, after so
many weeks, when they saw each other again, neither offered his hand to
the other, neither greeted the other with a smile, nor with a hearty
word of kindness. Their whole welcome consisted in a formal bow and a
few indifferent phrases, so that Sophie, who had thought Oswald and
Bemperlein were intimate friends, was not a little surprised and did
not exactly know what she ought to do in such an unforeseen case.
However, the embarrassing situation was not to last long; for Sophie
had scarcely introduced Mr. Bemperlein to Fräulein von Grenwitz who
either did not recollect the tutor, whom she yet had often enough seen
at Berkow, or did not choose to acknowledge it in words--when Helen and
Oswald left the room. Sophie went as far as the door with them, while
Bemperlein remained standing near the fire-place, his hands on his
back, and his eyes rigidly fixed upon the ground.
It was almost night when Helen and Oswald found themselves in the
ill-lighted street.
"What way shall we go?" asked Oswald.
"I thought there was but one way?"
"Oh no! we might go the way by the ramparts. It is nearer and more
pleasant walking there than on the rough pavement."
"As you like it!"
"Will you take my arm now?"
It was the first time Oswald had had an opportunity to take Helen's
arm. He took pains not to shorten the pleasure of walking arm in arm
with the girl he loved through the dark night. The way he had proposed
was not only much longer, but also much darker. It led between the
walls of the city and the ramparts of the fortress--a pleasant walk in
summer and by day, but very unattractive on a dark autumn evening.
"It is darker than I thought," said Oswald, when they had left the damp
gate in the city wall, where the last lamp was burning, and had reached
the ramparts; "had we better turn back?"
"Not on my account; I like it quite well so."
"At least, please wrap yourself up well in your cloak; the wind is
blowing very keen from the sea, and the air is damp and cold."
They went on for a few moments in silence. The dry leaves of the trees,
with which the walk was covered, rustled under their feet; plaintive
sounds were heard in the air; it sounded like the groaning and sighing
of a shivering patient.
"How must it look now in the Grenwitz park?" asked Oswald.
"I was just thinking of it," replied Helen.
"I wish I could be there at this moment!"
"What would you do there?"
"I would saunter through the familiar walks, between the yew-hedges in
the garden below, and under the beech-trees on the wall above, and talk
with the slender crescent of the moon, as it dances in the clouds, and
with the night-wind as it blows through the branches and around the
castle, of the blissful hours that are no more, and can return no
more."
"Then you like to think of Grenwitz."
"Why should I not? Have I not spent the happiest days of all my joyless
life there? What do I care now for all the bitter drops that fell into
the cup of intoxicating sweetness? I know nothing more of them. I feel
as if I had lived then for the first and last time of my life, and as
if I had since died together with the flowers in the garden and with
the sunlight that was playing in the morning on the dewy branches and
scattering strange shadows on the paths. Happy he whose life really
came to an end with that precious summer."
"Happy indeed!" whispered Helen.
"Yes, happy! He enjoyed for an hour the sight of what was most
beautiful, most glorious to him, and then he passed away like the rosy
breath of morning in the rays of the much-beloved sun. He was relieved
of the burden of the oppressive heat and the stifling dust of noon. He
needed not cover himself shuddering against the sharp evening wind; he
did not see the beautiful, gay world sink into weird darkness. Pardon
me, I pray, Miss Helen; this is the second time to-night I am carried
away by the recollection of my departed darling. But I cannot tell you
how strangely the sight of you and your presence recalls to me his
memory. The scarred wounds bleed afresh, and the dry eyes begin to weep
once more."
"Is it not so with me too?" said Helen, and her voice trembled.
"Then you loved him too? But no, I did not mean to ask you that. How
could you help loving him--fair and brave, good and marvellously lovely
as he was, and when he loved you so! loved you inexpressibly! Oh, Miss
Helen, do you really know how dearly he loved you? Do you know that he
loved you unto death--that he loved you more than his own life?"
"I know it," said Helen, in a whisper.
"More than his life," continued Oswald, passionately; "beyond death. It
was on his last day, a few hours before his death, that he showed me a
medallion with a lock of your hair, which he wore in his bosom, and
begged me to place it in his grave by his side. I was not able to
fulfil his wish. You know that I left the castle the next morning, not
knowing whether I should ever put my foot inside again, whether I
should be allowed to watch over my departed darling till his last
moment. I could not bear the terrible thought that the precious jewel
might fall into profane hands; I took it therefore, with the intention
to hand it to you, who alone have a legitimate claim to it. I still
have it in my keeping. When do you desire me to send it to you?"
They had passed through the gate of the fortress, and were now walking
down a street in the suburb, beneath tall, whispering poplar-trees.
Oswald tried to read Helen's face by the uncertain light of the moon,
which was just peeping out from behind drifting clouds. She looked pale
and deeply moved. Her arm rested more firmly on his arm, when she
replied, after a pause,
"Is the medallion very dear to you?"
"Can you ask me?"
"No, no! do not misunderstand me; I am not insensible; not ungrateful
for love and friendship. Keep the medallion! Keep it in memory of
your--of our darling!"
"Only in memory of him? It is your hair, Miss Helen; and only in memory
of him?"
"And--of me!"
Oswald took the small hand which was resting on his arm and carried it
to his lips.
"You make me very proud and happy," he said. "I have done nothing to
deserve so great a favor; but then, on the other hand, would grace be
grace if it could be deserved?"
"You are overwhelming me with your modesty. You wish me to thank you
for all your kindness, as I ought to thank you, and yet am not able to
do. You have always been very kind to me; you stood by me when even my
nearest relatives rose against me, and at the very last----"
"I did nothing but what I would do again at the peril of my life. But
here we are at Miss Bear's house. Is the gate locked?"
"No."
They went through the small garden up to the house-door. Oswald rang
the bell.
"Shall I see you again?"
"I go often to Doctor Rohan's!"
The door was unlocked from within.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
Oswald seized Helen's hand and pressed it passionately to his lips.
The door opened.
"Till next time!" whispered Oswald.
"Till next time!" replied Helen, in a still lower tone. Oswald thought
she mentioned his name also. The next instant she had disappeared in
the house.
Oswald went back into the town in a state of excitement which was by no
means altogether joyous. Pure, chaste joy could no longer enter his
heart--as little as we are able to play a correct air upon an
instrument out of tune.
Thus he reached town. Where Market street opens upon the square all the
windows were brilliantly lighted up in the corner house, carriage after
carriage drove up to the door, dressed-up ladies and gentlemen stepped
out and disappeared under the lofty portal. When Oswald, walking close
to the house, had come immediately in front of me door, another
carriage was driving up. The driver checked the fiery horses too
violently, and the servant, who was just jumping down from the box, was
thrown violently upon the ground. He gathered himself up immediately,
but the pain was probably too great--he remained immovable, as if
stunned. Oswald, who had seen that there was only a lady in the coupé,
who had already risen, expecting the door to be opened, seized the
bolt, opened the door, and offered his hand to the lady, who, placing
her hand in the well-fitting white glove unsuspiciously upon his arm,
came down in a cloud of tulle and laces.
At that moment the light from the interior of the house fell brightly
upon the lady and Oswald, and the former uttered a cry, remaining
motionless, and staring at Oswald with wide, open eyes.
A deep blush overspread her face, her eyes flamed up--was it love or
was it hatred, who knows? Her lips trembled; evidently she had been
overcome with surprise.
The poor servant, who came limping up, hat in hand, broke the charm.
"Pardon me, my lady----"
Oswald's face showed an ironical smile.
"I congratulate you, _my lady_," he said, offering his hand to escort
her up the steps.
Oswald felt the slender fingers grasping his arm very firmly.
"Was it not your will?" she whispered. And now he knew that the great
gray eyes had flamed up with love, and not with hatred. "Many thanks!
Let me see you soon. I promise you Cloten will receive you well!"
They had reached the last step.
Oswald bowed.
"Then I shall see you again?"
"I will come!"
The young lady entered the house. Oswald went down the steps, past the
lame servant, who was still rubbing his knees, and looked wonderingly
at his improvised colleague.
Oswald laughed aloud as he went on: "Emily Breesen--Frau von Cloten!
And merely because I would have it so! And if I should not wish it to
be so any longer--what then?"
CHAPTER II.
During the next eight days the last crows had come to town from the
woods, and moved into their winter quarters in the steeples; likewise,
it was reported in well-informed circles, that of the noble families
who used to spend their winter in Grunwald not one of importance had
remained in the country. The increased animation which filled the
otherwise quiet streets, proved this sufficiently. At the theatre, the
front boxes, which were exclusively reserved for the nobility, now
overflowed every night. The good citizens of Grunwald were often
frightened out of their first sleep by the noise of furiously-driven
carriages, and twelve hours afterwards the same carriages came
thundering back again through the streets, when the disturbers of their
nightly rest had slept long enough, and felt an irrepressible desire to
see each other again after so long an interval, and to exchange their
views about the interesting events of the last ball--how often young
Count Grieben had danced with the youngest Miss Nadelitz, and what a
strange head-dress the Baroness Renrien had worn.
Last night there had been a great ball at Count Grieben's; and
to-morrow was to be a great party at the Grenwitz mansion, the first they
had given this season. As the local etiquette required that the invited
guests should call on their host before the party, as well as after it,
visits had to be paid to-day at both houses. The rolling of carriages
had, therefore, no end to-day.
When visitors were expected in larger numbers, the large
reception-rooms of the Grenwitz mansion, which fronted upon the street,
laid aside their reserve and opened their doors to all comers. So it
was to-day. A dozen visitors had been there; another dozen were
expected. Just now there was a pause. It so happened that only the
baron and the baroness were sitting in the parlor.
Any one who should have observed them just now, as they were escorting
Mrs. Nadelitz and her three daughters with smiles and compliments to
the parlor door, and who should have seen them after the door had been
closed, would have been greatly astonished at their altered appearance.
The old gentleman sank with an air of thorough weariness into his
easy-chair, and Anna Maria sat down opposite to him on a sofa, with a
face from which all smiles had vanished to give way to clouds of
deepest indignation. There had evidently been a scene between the two
before the last visitors came, such as is not unusual in regular family
dramas, and the question was now, simply, which of the two was to
resume first the interrupted dialogue.
In former days this would have evidently been the privilege of Anna
Maria, who enjoyed strife, and felt sure of victory. But strangely
enough, husband and wife seemed recently to have exchanged parts. The
baron was almost transformed since Bruno's death and Helen's departure
from home. Formerly good-natured, yielding, and peaceful, he had become
sensitive, grumbling, and obstinate. This change might have been in
part the effect of his bad state of health and his decline, which had
become very perceptible in the last weeks; but sometimes it looked as
if the cause was a deeper one--as if the recent events had roused the
old gentleman from his lethargy, and shown him many things and many
persons in a very different light from that in which he had seen them
before. He who had formerly hardly taken a glass of water without first
consulting his Anna Maria, suddenly began to act for himself, even to
think for himself, and to have positive views of his own, which he
maintained with that obstinacy and pertinacity which is often observed
in weak minds. He had had attacks of this obstinacy in former years
also, but now the sporadic occurrences seemed to have changed into a
chronic disease. People are apt to say of somebody who acts in an
extraordinary manner, "he won't live long;" and if there is any reason
for this assertion, the days of the baron must have been numbered.
Perhaps this was really so, and the baron suspected it secretly, so
that he made unheard-of efforts of his mind and his will, exactly as
old, very sedate canary-birds are apt to hop about and to flutter with
nervous violence a few minutes before composing themselves to sleep.
Such a nervous violence characterized the manner in which the old
gentleman, taking a pinch from his gold snuff-box, closed the top, and
then said, as if Anna Maria had given him the cue just then, and not
half an hour ago:
"Stay! Everything must have an end; we cannot leave Helen forever at
Miss Bear's."
"I am not accustomed," replied Anna Maria, taking up her
embroidery--she liked to be found busy at work when visitors came--"I
am not accustomed to say one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow.
Others may think differently about it. We would make ourselves
ridiculous before the whole world if we were to take Helen back after
four weeks."
"It is nearly six weeks," growled the baron.
"Four or six, that makes no difference."
"It does for me. I am an old man; I may die to-morrow."
"You have said so these ten years."
"If I have said so for ten years," replied the baron, deeply offended
by the indifference which lay in the words of his wife, "it is because
I have not had a well day for ten years; and one of these days the
morning will break when I am no more, and that is why I should like to
have my daughter near me again as soon as possible."
"And of your son you say nothing; you do not mind whether Malte is well
or unwell. And yet it is Malte in whom all our hopes are centring. You
ought to thank God that you have a son who can inherit the estate;
instead of that it is Helen, and all the time Helen, whom you consider
as all-important."
"I thank God that I have a son, and I thank you that you have given me
a son; not because he is my heir, but because he is my flesh and blood,
whom I can love, as I love my daughter also. As to the estate, you know
my views about that. I abhor entails, which only serve to create
discord in the family."
The baron took a pinch, evidently in order to becalm; but the remedy
seemed this time to have the opposite effect, for he continued, after
this interruption, with increasing violence:
"Why did you absolutely want to marry your daughter to Felix? Because
Felix may possibly one of these days inherit the entail! Why is Felix
your special protégé? Because he may possibly inherit the entail! Why
must O have Felix in my house, whom I cannot bear, and do without
Helen, whom I love? Because Felix may inherit the entail?"
"Don't repeat yourself so often, dear Grenwitz," said Anna Maria in a
quiet tone, which did not harmonize at all with the deep-red spots on
her cheeks and the piercing sharpness of her large gray eyes, "and do
not excite yourself unnecessarily so much, your cough will return
directly. It matters very little how you think about entailed estates.
You cannot change them, God be thanked. But as for me, you must permit
me to think differently about it, and to do in that direction what I
think is my duty. If, you have no duties to fulfil to your children, I
have. If you are willing to give your daughter to the first adventurer
who wants her, or whom she wants--you need not stamp impatiently with
your sick foot; and you will spill the snuff on the carpet if you knock
your box so violently on the arm of the chair. I say, if it is
indifferent to you whom Helen marries, it is not so to me. I have
advocated the marriage with Felix, not from obstinacy, which I leave to
others, but because I thought it was a good match, the best which a
girl without fortune could make. You can see how little obstinate I am
when you consider that I am no longer in favor of the match since
Felix's accident, since the doctor thinks he is consumptive. On the
contrary, as soon as it is well ascertained that Felix wont live long,
I shall be one of the first to drop him, especially as he will leave
nothing but debts."
The old gentleman seemed to be by no means pleased with this exhibition
of cold-blooded egotism. He had a kind of dim perception--not the first
of its kind--that his highly moral wife might possibly have a very bad
heart, and he sighed. It is bitter to have to give up in the evening of
life an illusion which we have indulged in for a quarter of a century.
He fell into silent meditation. What it was that had occupied his
thoughts, he showed in the first words that fell from him. After a
pause, during which Anna Maria had been busy at her work, in nervous
silence;
"At least, be kind to her to-morrow when she comes to see us."
"I have always known what my duty is," replied the baroness, looking up
from her work and raising her eyebrows. "I shall know it in this case
also."
The baron apparently did not feel quite reassured by her words; but
before he could find words to express his apprehension, the servant
opened the door and announced, "Baron and Baroness Barnewitz."
The two entered the room.
Baron Barnewitz and his wife had only come to town the day before.
Baron Barnewitz was a great hunter before the Lord, and did not like to
leave his dogs and his horses. He had not come much into the parlor
since the hunting season had opened, and he still bore the traces of
his last fox-hunt. His shoulders and his red beard looked still
broader, and his voice was louder and hoarser than usual. Hortense
Barnewitz, on the contrary, was a shade paler and lighter than in the
summer, and looked a great deal more wearied and fatigued. Her lips
were thinner, and her blue eyes had become sharper. She evidently began
to find life, all in all, unprofitable, especially since last night.
She had been sadly neglected at the ball for the sake of younger and
more attractive ladies.
"Oh, at last we have the pleasure!" said Anna Maria, rising to meet her
guests, with the stereotyped gracious smile which she always held ready
for such occasions.
"Entirely our own pleasure, madame," cried the fox-hunter, kissing the
thin hand of the baroness; "entirely our own. By God, could not come
sooner. Arrived yesterday at noon; last night at Grieben's. Pity you
were not there; famous, I tell you; had almost as much fun as at the
last hunt. My wife was tired; had no encouragement. People are always
tired when no encouragement. Ha, ha, ha!"
"You must pardon Karl's way of talking," said Hortense, taking a seat
by the baroness on the sofa; "he has lived the last six weeks almost
exclusively with grooms and huntsmen."
"And with you, my darling! ha, ha, ha!" laughed the gallant husband.
"Well, Hortense needn't take it amiss. Husbands, wife, can afford a
joke, eh?"
"How do things look at home?" asked Anna Maria, trying to give a more
interesting turn to the conversation.
"Oh, so so!" said Baron Barnewitz. "The winter wheat is generally doing
very well; here and there the mice have done some harm. The summer was
too hot. I think the rain will do us some good now. _Apropos_ of rain,
Grenwitz! we must settle that question about the ditches, else we shall
all of us be drowned one of these days. I talked about it to Oldenburg,
a few days ago. He belongs to our district, with his estate at Cona. He
thought, too, the thing would have to be done this fall."
"Why, does the baron nowadays take an interest in farming? That is
something entirely new," said Anna Maria.
"Entirely new, madame," affirmed Baron Barnewitz; "the very last news,
ha, ha, ha! since his return from his travels; that is to say, about a
fortnight. I think he will be crazy next."
"Or marry your cousin Melitta," said the baroness, smiling.
"Perhaps that would be the same thing," suggested Hortense.
"But, dear Hortense, you ought not to be so satirical," said the
baroness, threatening the satirical blonde with her uplifted finger
jestingly.
"Are jealous; you are jealous!" cried Baron Barnewitz. "You have always
envied her her beaux, because she has one for every finger."
"It is a great art to be attended by gentlemen, if one leaves no means
of coquetry unused," said Hortense, dropping her cloak far enough to
show her white shoulders.
"Well, it is not quite as bad as that," replied her husband.
Hortense shrugged her white shoulders.
"Bad is a relative idea. Melitta has given so much ground for gossip in
her life that people are not so very strict with her."
"But that might be the case with Baron Oldenburg too," said Anna Maria.
"Possibly," said Hortense. "I do not know Baron Oldenburg well
enough----"
The fox-hunter saw himself compelled to pull out his handkerchief, and
to blow his nose furiously.
"Not well enough," repeated Hortense, who probably discovered some
connection between her words and the violent blowing of her husband's
nose; "but, if he can get over Melitta's last affair, he must, indeed,
be very tolerant."
"Last affair!" said moral Anna Maria, raising her eyebrows; "why, I had
not heard of anything!"
"Gossip, madame, gossip!" said Barnewitz, who remembered that Melitta
was his first cousin, and that he had, as a boy of seventeen,
worshipped the beautiful girl of twelve. "Nothing but the gossip of a
set of old women."
"Old women often have very useful, sharp eyes," remarked Hortense,
examining attentively the stucco ornaments of the ceiling.
"You make me very curious," said Anna Maria, sitting down comfortably
in the sofa-corner.
"It is nonsense, madame, I assure you," said Barnewitz, angrily. "A
couple of old women from our village, who were stealing wood at night
in the Berkow forest--at least I cannot see how else they could have
been there--say that Melitta has had secret interviews in her little
forest cottage with--Heaven knows whom!"
"Why, that is quite a piquant story," said Anna Maria.
"Yes; and what makes it still more piquant," said Hortense, her eyes
still busy at the ceiling, "is this: that the Heaven knows who always
came by the road from Grenwitz, and always went back again the same
way!"
Anna Maria's eyes opened as wide as they possibly could when she heard
this statement.
"When is that reported to have taken place?" she asked, with severity,
"I will not hope----"
"Oh, do not trouble yourself about it," interrupted Hortense; "Felix
came much later. It was about the time when we gave our first ball, and
Oldenburg, who was assigning the guests their seats at table with Karl,
made my cousin go to table with Doctor Stein, and carried him
afterwards home in his own carriage. It was a touching attention,
though not without its comical side in this case; as well as the warmth
with which Oldenburg afterwards took Mr. Stein's part when your nephew,
Felix, had that unpleasant affair with him. Oh, it is too amusing! But
nobody can accuse my cousin that she does not know how to make friends
of her friends."
The old baron had listened to this interesting conversation in perfect
silence, and apparently with utter indifference. All the more
surprising was the vehemence with which he now said, shaking his gray
head indignantly,
"Frau von Berkow is a dear lady, whom I esteem; Baron Oldenburg is a
man of honor; I have always known him as such, and have had quite
recently occasion to see it again in some very important business I had
with him. I am sorry, my friends, to hear you speak of them in this
hard and unfeeling manner--very sorry! very sorry!"
And the old man trembled so violently with deep emotion that he could
hardly carry the pinch he held between his fingers to his nose.
Baron Barnewitz nodded his head, as if he wished to say: The old
gentleman is not so far out. But Hortense was not in the humor to
accept the correction patiently.
"Don't trouble yourself about that, my dear baron," she replied
scornfully; "you know that the name of this Mr. Stein has elsewhere
also obtained quite a celebrity in the annals of the past summer. The
more frequently it is, therefore, coupled with my cousin, why, all the
more rarely can it be put in connection with the names of other
ladies."
It was fortunate for the old gentleman that he did not understand this
allusion to Helen, since it had never occurred to him in the most
remote way that his daughter could have been the cause of the duel
between Felix and Oswald.
In the meantime Hortense seemed to feel that she had probably gone too
far. She hastened, therefore, to say that it was quite late already,
and she was just about to rise in order to take leave when more
visitors were announced, which compelled her to stay. No one was to say
of Hortense Barnewitz that she had fled before a rival. But such a
rival was, in more than one respect, Emily Cloten, who now rushed in
ahead of her husband.
Emily had been married a fortnight. She had preferred not to make any
other wedding tour than from the estate of her parents, where the
wedding had taken place, to Grunwald. She did not wish to miss the
beginning of the season. She longed to appear at once on the stage of
her future triumphs, in order to prevent any possible competition.
Emily Breesen did not wish to become Frau von Cloten for nothing--the
wife of a man to whom she had engaged herself in a fit of
jealousy--whom she had married from pure caprice.
The success which she had obtained at the first balls of the season
fulfilled her boldest expectations. She saw all the men at her feet,
and the consciousness of the power of her charms furnished an excellent
relief for her coquettish beauties. The certainty of victory beamed
from her large, almond-shaped gray eyes; the certainty of victory
played around her rather large but well-shaped mouth, with its dazzling
white teeth; the certainty of victory peeped stealthily from the
dimples in her rosy cheeks; the certainty of victory even proclaimed
itself in the rustling of her long silk dresses and the nodding of the
white ostrich-feather on her black-velvet hat, from under which the
luxuriant brown hair overflowed in all directions.
Baron Cloten, on his side, seemed to have found out that the sublime
good fortune of being the husband of so brilliant a lady was somewhat
equivocal. There was around his eyes a faint expression like that
of a turkey-hen who has for weeks been dreaming and boasting of the
hoped-for happiness to promenade in the poultry-yard at the head of a
number of young, respectable turkeys, and who suddenly sees her brood
swim on the pond in the shape of wild, disrespectful ducklings. Those
who had known him before could not help noticing that he twisted his
blond moustache less frequently, and that his voice sounded by no means
as self-complacent as formerly. Perhaps he was all the more
disconcerted as he had unexpectedly and without any desire of his own
met his lady-love, whom he had faithlessly and somewhat cowardly
abandoned; while on the other hand, this very circumstance seemed
visibly to increase the good humor of his young wife. She had the
pleasing consciousness of having totally eclipsed Hortense last night,
and she now enjoyed the sight of her rival most heartily. Of course she
greeted her with all the signs of most cordial friendship, and asked
her with deep sympathy whether the night's rest had relieved her of her
headache of last night.
"What a pity, dear Barnewitz, that your migraine compelled you to leave
before the cotillon. I assure you, it was the most lovely cotillon I
have ever danced. Prince Waldenberg--you know I led the cotillon with
Prince Waldenberg; Max Grieben had begged us to do so--knew a number of
the newest figures, as they dance them at the court balls in Berlin. I
tell you such a cotillon was never danced yet in Grunwald. Was it not
charming, Arthur?"
"Oh certainly, certainly?" rattled the obedient husband, who had been
condemned to dance with a poor, hunchbacked countess; "I assure you, it
was divine; upon my word, divine!"
"I thought the company, to tell the truth, was rather mixed," said
Hortense, who looked a few degrees more _blasée_ since Emily had come;
"I counted not less than four--say four--artillery officers who were
not noble."
"Why, that is very likely," said Emily, "although I had no time to
count them. I have even danced with one of them--Jones, or Smith, or
whatever his name was--and, by the way, he waltzed as magnificently as
I could wish."
"But, dear Emily, might you not have escaped that?" said Hortense,
drawing up her cloak.
"Precisely the same question which Prince Waldenberg asked. 'Your
Highness,' I replied, 'I am no enthusiast about the artillery; but,
after all, I would rather dance with a man who is not noble than not to
dance at all."
This allusion to a misfortune which had twice occurred to Hortense last
night, put the poor lady in such an excited state that the rouge on her
cheeks became quite useless. She was just about to commit the folly of
betraying by a violent answer how deep the venomous arrow shot by Emily
had wounded her, when the servant announced "Professor and Mrs. Jager."
The man was so well trained that he did not, as usually, admit the
persons he announced at once into the parlor, but closed the door
behind him and remained standing there bolt upright, waiting for
further orders.
"You will excuse me, my friends," said Anna Maria, apologizing, and
turning to the company present, "if I receive the professor and his
wife. The good people have always shown themselves loyal, and quite
aware of their social position. I think it is our duty to encourage
such people."
Upon a sign of his mistress the servant went out, and there appeared
the man of the Fragment and the poetess making deep bows and
courtesies, which were returned with a gentle nod by the noble company.
Only the old baron rose, shook hands with them, and bade them welcome
in his cordial, unvarnished manner.
If Primula, who looked somewhat shyly from under the cornflowers on her
bonnet, seemed to stand rather in need of some such encouragement, the
editor of Chrysophilos evidently could very well do without it.
Humility, it is true, spoke from his small eyes, which squinted
suspiciously above the golden rim of his spectacles as he approached
with bent back; modesty, it is true, smiled from the unpleasant lines
which, marked the large mouth with its low-drawn comers; but they were
the humility and the modesty of a cat rubbing her back against
the foot of the ladder which leads to the garret where the fat pigeons
are cooing. He went up to the baroness, kissed repeatedly her
graciously-extended hand, bowed low to the other two ladies, not quite
so low to the gentlemen, seated himself after some hesitation on the
edge of a chair which stood rather outside of the circle, and waited,
his head slightly on one side, till somebody should feel disposed to
honor him with a question.
The conversation of the company turned on a most interesting subject,
the person of his Highness, First Lieutenant Prince Waldenberg, who had
been ordered a few weeks ago from his regiment of the Guards at the
Capital to the line regiment which was in garrison at Grunwald, and who
had of course, from his first appearance, become, the lion of the whole
country nobility now residing in town.
"Only I should like to know why he has been ordered here," said
Cloten. "Felix, with whom I talked it over yesterday--_apropos_, it is
very well, madame, you make him keep his room; he looks really very
badly--Felix thinks the prince has probably had another duel; they say
he is the most passionate man in the world."
"Why, Arthur!" said Emily. "You talk as if passion were a crime. I wish
some people I know had a little more of it."
"Are not the Waldenbergs of Slavonic descent?" asked Hortense. "It
seems to me the prince looks like a Mongolian."
"Oh! you have not seen him near, my dearest Barnewitz," said Emily; "he
is one of the handsomest men I have ever seen, and he dances divinely."
"I believe the Waldenbergs are originally a Polish family," said Anna
Maria.
"Not at all, madame," cried Cloten; "pure Germanic, upon honor, pure
Germanic."
"I am sure Professor Jager can tell us something more about that," said
the baroness, turning with a gracious smile towards the man of science.
"Indeed, my gracious lady," said the latter, glad to have found an
opportunity for the display of his knowledge; "indeed, I have always
taken special pleasure, while pursuing my historical studies, to trace
out the genealogies of noble families, and thus it happens that have
given special attention to the history of the Waldenberg family, which
is in many respects a most interesting one. The Waldenbergs were, if
you will excuse me for correcting your remarks, of purely German
descent. They came originally from Franconia, and only went to Prussia
with the German knights. Afterwards, it is true, they have largely
intermarried with noble Polish families, and hence they own still large
estates in the Lausitz, where the family estate lies, and in Russian
Poland. The present prince, also, has both Slavonic and Germanic blood
in his veins. His mother, the Princess Stephanie Letbus, of the house
of Wartenberg, married in eighteen hundred and twenty-two, in St.
Petersburg, where she has lived from her early youth--I mentioned
before that part of their possessions are in Russia--a Count Constantin
Malikowsky, the last scion of a once very rich and powerful Polish
family, who is now, however, quite reduced. The Emperor Alexander, who,
as they say, was under obligations to both families" (here the
professor ventured upon a stealthy smile to the young princess, who was
lady in waiting to the empress and exceedingly beautiful, and to the
count whose family had been mainly ruined by Russian confiscations,)
"has the credit of having made the match. Such influence was perhaps
necessary, because the reputation of the count was--I trust you will
pardon the veracity of a conscientious historian--was, how shall I call
it, somewhat doubtful. Young noblemen must sow their wild oats, we all
know that; but Count Malikowsky had probably carried the matter a
little too far. However that may be, the offspring of this marriage of
Count Constantin Malikowsky with the Princess Stephanie Letbus is the
prince, who at first was in the Russian service; but when with the last
Prince Waldenberg the male succession in the family came to an end, and
the estates lapsed back to the crown, the King of Prussia as a special
favor declared him qualified to succeed, and he entered our service as
Prince Count Malikowsky Waldenberg. His full name is, as you may
possibly not know yet, Raimund Gregorius Stephan, Prince Count
Malikowsky Waldenberg, hereditary lord of Letbus."
The company had followed the genealogical lecture of the learned
professor with the same attention with which a company of ordinary
crows might listen to the report of an owl about the descent of a rare
raven who measures four yards from tip to tip. The devout silence was
suddenly interrupted by the voice of the servant, who opened the door
with nervous haste and called out, "His Highness, Prince Waldenberg!"
The nervous servant seemed to have electrified the whole company in the
room. A moment later and they all stood straight up before their
chairs, anxiously looking at the door, through whose wide-open frame
the prince was entering so quickly that Anna Maria was not able to make
the three steps to meet him which etiquette required, but had only time
for one and a half.
"You have had the kindness, madame," said the prince in excellent
French, slightly bending over the hand of the baroness, "to anticipate
my wishes by your invitation, before I had an opportunity to make
myself worthy of such an attention. Permit me to try to make amends for
my neglect."
"An effort, _mon prince_," answered Anna Maria, with her sweetest
smile, also in French, "which in a gentleman like yourself is sure of
success. I regret exceedingly that, rarely as we are from home, an
unfortunate accident should have caused us the other day to be absent
just when you thought of honoring us with a visit. Permit me to present
to you my friends: the baron, my husband; Baron and Baroness Barnewitz;
Baron and Baroness Cloten."
"I have already the honor," said the prince, smiling.
"Professor Jager, an excellent scholar, and a friend of our house; Mrs.
Jager, a lady whose poetical talent deserves encouragement."
The prince bowed to each one of the persons presented--even to the
last-mentioned, which made quite a sensation--with the same dignity and
courtesy, and gave the signal to sit down by choosing himself a seat by
Anna Maria on an easy-chair.
During this long salutation those who had not known the prince before
had an opportunity to study his outward appearance. His was a Herculean
form, calculated to impress a professional boxer forcibly, and to
create a sensation in a circus, dressed up as an athlete; but for
ordinary life was, perhaps, a little too large. Upon the large,
powerful body, whose height was in full harmony with the breadth of the
shoulders and the magnificent chest, there was set a head more angular
than round, covered all over with short, curling black hair, and firmly
resting upon a neck which looked too short for the size of the head.
The features of the face corresponded with the whole. The brow was low
and straight, the eyes of bright darkness but small, and apparently
still further reduced in size by the heavy eyelids with their dark
lashes. The nose as well as the thick lips were somewhat protruding. A
beard, thicker and blacker than the hair on the head, covered the
cheeks and the upper lip. The chin alone, shaved smooth, in military
style, was the energetic base of this energetic face. Taken all in all,
the assertion made by Hortense that the prince looked like a Mongolian
agreed as little with the reality as Emily's judgment that he was
strikingly handsome. Nevertheless, the whole was a far too striking
individuality and too full of character to be called plain, even if the
strict rules of ideal beauty were not all observed. A physiognomist
would in vain have looked for ideal qualities of any kind in the face
of the prince, but he would have discovered, in return, a most
energetic, powerful will; and, perhaps, if he had examined carefully, a
boundless pride, which slept with open eyes behind the mask, like a
lion behind the bars of his cage, and could be roused by a mere
nothing.
The prince wore the simple uniform of the regiment in garrison in
Grunwald, but the two decorations on his breast--a small cross set in
diamonds, probably Russian; and the order of the Blue Falcon of the
second class, with crossed swords--proved abundantly that he was a man
whose importance was great, aside from epaulet and sword-knot.
Anna Maria treated her great guest with a distinction corresponding
fully with this higher mystical importance, which was only revealed to
the profane eye by the awe-inspiring sparkling of the diamonds. It was
this that caused the modest silence into which Barnewitz and Cloten had
fallen since his arrival; the coquetry with which Hortense and Clotilde
tried to attract his attention, and the embarrassment of the author of
the fragments and the poetess, who had a vague impression that they
were more than superfluous in this most noble company, and yet did not
dare to rise from their seats and to go away. The prince and the
baroness at first kept up the conversation alone, until Hortense
succeeded in wedging in a casual remark, expressed in excellent French,
and thus to obtain the word to the great annoyance of Emily, who had to
leave her adversary in the undisturbed enjoyment of this triumph, as
she spoke French but imperfectly, and was hardly able to follow the
rapid utterance of her rival. Hortense, who knew Emily's weak point,
carried her malice so far as to turn round to her continually with a
"_qu'en dites--vous, chère amie? N'est ce pas, Emilie?_" and to force
her in this way to reply in a manner which might be clever in spirit
but was very imperfect in form. Any one who could have noticed the
intense delight with which Hortense enjoyed her triumph over her
adversary would have been compelled to acknowledge that even malice has
its moments of happiness. The delight, however, became almost too great
to be borne, when at last the prince hardly noticed Emily any longer,
and gave himself up entirely to the charm of Hortense's amusing
conversation.
Emily, however, was far too frivolous and too bold to lose her good
humor at once, because of such a momentary defeat. The prince was not
to her taste, although she had before praised him in order to annoy her
rival; and if he did not choose to speak German to her, as he had done
the night before, he might leave it alone. Emily played with her beaux
as a trifling child plays with its dolls; it was utterly indifferent to
her whether she broke the head of one, or the other fell into the
water; she felt it only when one of her favorite dolls and she had
occasionally, for the sake of variety, one that she overwhelmed with
caresses and kisses--was not willing to be tender to her and to return
her affection. Oswald had been such a favorite, but cold, desperately
cold doll for her. She might have married him and become his faithful
wife if he had belonged to the same circles in which she lived--at
least her fancy represented it to her as possible in dreamy hours--but
now she was Baroness Cloten, and then--what did it matter to her? Was
she not handsome and young, and ten times cleverer than her foolish
husband with his everlasting "upon honor!" and "divine!" Why will
foolish men marry clever and handsome young wives, especially when
these wives have a fondness for fancies brighter than the dull gray of
actual life? Are the wives to be blamed in such cases if they go their
own way, which is sometimes so narrow and dark that virtue and honor,
the faithful companions of good wives, are lost by the way?
Emily Cloten had been watching the whole time for an opportunity to
enter into conversation with Mrs. Jager, who, she suspected, might be
able to give her some news about Oswald, whom she had not seen again
since the night before. She availed herself, therefore, of the
favorable moment when the prince was speaking to the baroness and
Hortense, and the baron to the reverend gentleman, in order to inquire
of Primula about "that young man who was tutor at Grenwitz last
summer--Fels, I think, or Rock, or Stein, or whatever his name
was--since a friend of hers was in need of a teacher." Emily was not
mistaken; Primula could give her all information about Mr. Stein--"not
Fels, although he has a heart like the poet's hero, Felsenfest; not
Rock, although he towers like a rock above all men"--as the
enthusiastic poetess added warmly. He called nearly every day, she said
(Oswald had been there once); he was like a member of the family, and
as truly united with her in warm friendship as in their common
aspirations. "Excelsior!" She did not think, however, Oswald would just
now accept such a position, as he was "suffering in the dull bonds of a
school," but she would mention to him the offer.
"Perhaps you had better not say anything," said Emily, after a short
meditation. "You know Mr. Stein--how could I forget the name--did not
leave our circle in perfect harmony. He might reject the offer at once,
if it came to him in that way. Could you not--how shall we manage
it?--yes! that's the way! Could you not arrange it so, my dear Mrs.
Jager, that I should meet him at your house as if by mere chance? I
have long since desired to see the table on which the author of the
'Cornflowers' composes her beautiful poems."
"You overwhelm me with your kindness," cried Primula. "I can only say
with Zeus at the distribution of the gifts of the earth: if you really
wish to enter my lowly hut, as often as you come it shall be open to
you. Shall we say day after to-morrow, at seven?"
"That will suit me exactly," said Emily.
Emily had given herself so completely to this interesting conversation
that her husband had to remind her of the intended breaking up of the
company. The prince had risen; the others had followed his example.
"_Madame_," said the prince, "_jai l'honneur_"--the word died on his
lips, for he saw in the large mirror before him the form of a
marvellously beautiful girl who had suddenly entered the room without
being announced by the servant. He turned round almost frightened, and
stepped aside, with a low bow, to make room for the young lady, who
went up to the baroness. The young lady was Helen Grenwitz.
Her appearance here was unexpected by all except the baron and the
baroness, and surprised and interested each one in his own way. The
prince, who saw her now for the first time, was the only one who knew
nothing of the difficulties in the family; the others had discussed the
Grenwitz catastrophe for weeks with great zeal and vast ingenuity in
all directions, and as Helen had thus been the common topic of
conversation, this first meeting of mother and daughter was therefore
to them all a most attractive scene. But if they had expected anything
extraordinary they were doomed to disappointment. The baron, to be
sure, showed some emotion as he rose to meet Helen and to kiss her
brow, but mother and daughter met with courteous coldness, which
furnished little food for the curiosity and thirst for scandal of the
assembly, ready as they were to notice every gesture, and to treasure
up every word.
"Ah, good-day, my dear child," said the baroness, in French, kissing
Helen likewise on her forehead, but very lightly. "You come just in
time. Permit me, _mon prince_, to present my daughter, Helen--His
Highness, Prince Waldenberg, my child, the most recent as well as the
most brilliant acquisition for our society."
Helen returned the low bow of the prince, apparently not dazzled by his
high rank and his imposing appearance, and then turned to Emily Cloten,
who welcomed her most heartily. Emily's sharp eyes had not failed to
observe the impression which Helen's startling beauty had produced on
the prince. Let the prince admire whom he pleased, so Hortense lost her
triumph!
"Oh, how nice!" she cried, embracing Helen, "that you show yourself at
last. I was coming to see you soon; we have a whole world to tell each
other." And she seized her friend by both hands and drew her aside a
few steps, so as to be able to say to her: "Look, the prince is done
for, _totalement_ done for! He does not take is black eyes off you for
an instant! If you want him, I'll let you have him. He dances
beautifully, but he is not my _genre_. Encourage him a little; it
annoys the Barnewitz fearfully. Just think, the old coquette still
wants to play her part, although she has now to paint even her veins
blue, and last night remained twice without a partner! How do you like
the She Bear? _Apropos_, have you heard anything of Oswald Stein? I
shall never forget that evening at your house! We came too late with
our warning, but he pulled through beautifully. Even Arthur says he
acted like a perfect gentleman. Don't turn round, the prince is coming
this way. He no doubt wants to secure the first waltz for tomorrow."
Emily's cunning had guessed right. The prince had really, while keeping
up a conversation with the baroness, looked incessantly at Helen, and
had been so absent in his answers that one could easily see his
thoughts were elsewhere. Suddenly he interrupted a brilliant sentence
of Anna Maria's by asking whether there would be dancing to-morrow, and
whether he might be allowed to ask Fräulein von Grenwitz to keep him a
dance? When both questions had been answered with a gracious "_Mais
oui, monseigneur!_" he approached the two ladies with a bow.
"I beg pardon," he said in German, "if I interrupt the ladies in an
interesting conversation; but I cannot leave without having made an
effort to secure a dance for to-morrow. May I hope, madame? May I have
the honor, Miss Helen?"
The madame and the miss had the goodness to grant the prince's request,
and his highness left with a haste which clearly showed that nothing
had kept him so long but the accomplishment of this important task.
The departure of his highness was a signal for the other company, who
had been waiting for it to go likewise, to the great satisfaction of
coachmen and servants in the street below, who began to be as impatient
as the horses.
The carriages had rolled away. The reception-rooms were once more
empty; only the baron and the baroness remained, for the two Clotens
had taken Helen in their carriage; the interrupted dialogue might have
been resumed. But it was not done. The old gentleman felt too tired,
and Anna Maria began to look in an entirely new light upon the question
whether Helen should remain at the boarding-school or not? For about
ten minutes ago the thought had suddenly entered her mind that it
might, after all, be wiser to be reconciled to her daughter, who had at
least as much prospect as any other young lady, and probably more, to
become Princess of Waldenberg Malikowsky, Countess of Letbus.
CHAPTER III.
A man who is to be married in a few weeks finds it usually very hard,
even in ordinary cases, to do equal justice to his professional duties
and to his duties as a betrothed. But in the case of Franz this
dilemma, insuperable to many persons, was perhaps the easiest part of
his task, although he had an abundance of business as one of the
representatives of the privy councillor in his medical practice
(another part had been assumed by one of his colleagues). But more
difficult by far than these duties were the troubles arising from his
effort to arrange the extremely complicated money matters of his future
father-in-law. It appeared gradually that the debts of the privy
councillor would not be so overwhelming, if it should be feasible to
collect the sums which were due him on all sides. But this was in most
cases highly improbable. The debtors of the privy councillor generally
lived in garrets and cellars; they were the lame and the crippled, the
infirm and the invalid, often widows and orphans, as often also
unworthy people, who had wretchedly abused the well-known liberality of
the privy councillor. What enormous and, alas! what useless efforts
this man had made to fill the Danaids' tub of the poor! with what zeal
he had made himself poor in order to overcome the poverty around him,
like the fabled pelican, who feeds his young with his own blood. What
embarrassments he had wilfully assumed, in order to relieve others from
the same troubles! How often he had given up his own sleep that his
neighbor might sleep! How he had borrowed money at usurious interest in
order to pay the debts of others. How he had entered into the most
hazardous speculations, of which he knew nothing, but which must
succeed and return a hundred per cent, if you believed the originators,
but which of course never did succeed, and overwhelmed the good-natured
and credulous privy councillor with new indebtedness--only to help
others on in their own business!
It would have been a difficult task for the most experienced lawyer to
find his way through this vast mass of more or less complicated
questions, and to decide in each case what was to be done for the
moment, and what for the future; how much more for Franz, who had no
experience in such matters of business. But love lent him miraculous
power, and sharpened his natural delicacy in his peculiar relations to
his father-in-law, which called upon him continually to encourage, to
appease, and to persuade. "I should not hesitate a moment," he would
say, "to jump after you into the water, if I saw you were in danger of
drowning, and you and everybody who should see it would think it
perfectly natural. Now you are in a danger which to many people appears
more formidable even than drowning--for many escape it only by rushing
into eternity--and I risk for your sake not my life, which you could
not give me back, but a few thousand dollars, which you can pay me back
at any time, when, as it seems highly probable, your health is
completely restored, and which, even if the worst should happen, it
would not make me unhappy to lose."
In this way Franz tried to help his father-in-law through many a sad
hour, in which the sense of his disease and the consciousness of his
position weighed too heavily on his soul. Franz hoped that the
excellent constitution of the man would do the rest. The privy
councillor had indeed hardly gained the conviction that--thanks to the
able and energetic help of his son-in-law--no dishonor could be
attached to his name, even if he were to die now, than he laid aside
all thoughts of death and determined to get well as soon as he could.
"Not quite well," he said, "for that I can never be again; but half
well, or two-thirds well--just well enough to be able to bring the hay,
which is now lying fresh on the meadow, dry into the barn. I feel it,
there are a few evening hours left me yet; I mean to make good use of
them. You shall not spend your money upon me, and into the bargain
sacrifice your future prospects for my sake."
Unfortunately this sacrifice had already been made.
Just at this time it happened that a famous professor of the university
in the capital had seen a monograph on typhus, published by Franz
during the summer, and had then been reminded that Franz had formerly
been one of his most talented pupils, for Franz had pursued his studies
for three years in the capital. He wrote to Franz congratulating him on
his work, "which gave excellent evidence of his sharp acumen, and of
his astounding erudition, rare in so young a man. But," continued the
letter, "while thanking you in the name of science for your book, I beg
leave at the same time to make you a proposition, which I hope you will
consider promptly and seriously. Next Easter the place of first
assistant in the great hospital here will be vacant. I know among our
younger men of eminence none to whom I would entrust this place as
readily as to you." The great man then spoke at length of the
advantages which Franz would secure by accepting this position, and
concluded with the words: "You see this is a prospect as favorable as
you will ever have. I am, as you know, a very cool judge of men and
things; and as matters stand now in our university, you cannot fail, if
you wish, to obtain in a few years the appointment as full professor. I
am convinced that my friend Roban, to whom I beg you will give my
kindest regards, will look at the matter in the same light. Consult
him, and let me hear from you as soon as you can."
Franz had answered, but without having consulted his father-in-law. He
had declined the offer, though he was fully alive to the advantages it
held out. The career which was opened to him was one of great
attractions to a man of science, and promised in the end to satisfy
even the most insatiable ambition; yet it did not appear to be
lucrative for some years to come, but, on the contrary, to require at
least a small independent fortune, which Franz did no longer possess.
He had placed himself by his generosity in the disagreeable position to
have to move into a new house before it is finished or dry--an
embarrassment in which many honest men find themselves; or, to speak
more clearly, to have to look to money-earning at a time when
he needed money to spend on his full preparation for his profession.
And for such a purpose Grunwald and his position as son-in-law of the
most prominent physician of the place were peculiarly well adapted.
Therefore--farewell thou golden toy of a life overflowing with mental
enjoyment and high aspirations!
"Away, thou dream, so bright and golden,
But life and love are not yet lost."
Thus Franz consoled himself while he made this great sacrifice of his
ambition and his hopes for the sake of those he loved, and his only
great care was now to keep this sacrifice a secret from those beloved
ones, especially from his betrothed.
This care seemed to be unnecessary. Sophie found an explanation for the
clouds which darkened Franz's brow when he thought himself unobserved,
in the overwhelming burden of his professional duties; and for his
frequent and long interviews with her father, in the nature of his
practice. Since the condition of her father no longer filled her with
apprehensions, the happy cheerfulness of Sophie had fully reappeared.
She worked hard at her trousseau, and complained to Franz of the
confusion which the care for so many and so varied things produced in
her head. How much would a knowledge of the transactions that took
place between Franz and her father have interfered with the happiness
which she enjoyed in these days, as she labored to build her little
nest like a merry bird full of song and playful flutterings, if she had
known that the money with which she paid her long bills so cheerfully
had come from the purse of her betrothed? She had easily consoled
herself as to the grief arising from her inability to get ready by the
day on which Franz insisted with very unusual pertinacity; she had even
openly confessed that she had never looked upon it as such a very great
misfortune to have to begin her housekeeping with a few dozen napkins,
towels, etc., which were not yet hemmed, or marked in full.
Nothing, therefore, was more painful to Sophie in these days of
excitement and great pressure than that the familiar circle could
not, as usually, assemble at night around the fire-place in the
sitting-room. The father, although able to sit up daily a little
longer, had yet to retire quite early; Franz was often down town till
far in the night, or he had to study in his rooms; even "the third in
the league," the old student, as he called himself, Bemperlein, _alias_
Bemperly, did not show himself nowadays, and Sophie had at last deemed
it her duty to inquire for him at his lodging, thinking that he might
be sick, and that Franz had kept it secret from her so as to cause her
no apprehension. But she found the old student in his laboratory, in
the midst of phials, retorts, boxes, and instruments--looking, if not
like Faust, at least like Faust's famulus--at all events very busy and
industrious, but evidently not in danger of death from sickness.
Bemperlein excused himself on the score of his work--a very complicated
chemical analysis, which must not be interrupted. How could Sophie
think he had taken anything amiss?--he, and take amiss! and from
Sophie!--really, the analysis alone was to blame, and as an evidence of
it he promised to come that very night and stay as long as ever.
Sophie's eyes, though a little near-sighted, were yet very well able to
see things near by, and thus she had not failed to notice a certain
veil of embarrassment which hung over Bemperlein's honest face, while
he blamed the troublesome analysis. As the young lady was slowly
walking homeward, and thought what might be the real reason why
Bemperlein had stayed away, she came, just as she was turning around a
corner, upon a gentleman who came hurriedly from the opposite
direction.
"Pardon!" said the gentleman, lifting his hat and hurrying on.
It was Oswald Stein. He had evidently not recognized Sophie.
This unexpected meeting gave a new direction to Sophie's thoughts. She
remembered now that Bemperlein had not been at her house since he had
met Oswald there, who was just about to leave with Helen; that the
meeting of the two gentlemen had been very cold, strangely cold, and
that Bemperlein had given evasive answers to all their questions about
the relations in which he stood to Oswald. Was it Oswald, who had since
spent several evenings there, once in company with Helen Grenwitz, who
had frightened away Bemperlein? Was Bemperlein jealous?
As Sophie knew nothing of Bemperlein's former relations to Oswald, she
could of course hardly expect to guess rightly. The truth lay somewhere
else.
When Anastasius Bemperlein was no longer willing to shake hands with a
man whom he had once esteemed highly and loved heartily, one might rest
assured that a goodly portion of strong poison must have been mixed
with his milk of human kindness. Anastasius Bemperlein had fully
trusted Oswald Stein. He had seen the life and happiness of those he
loved best in his hand without fear, and he had overcome all his
apprehensions about a union formed so suddenly and resting on the
unsafe basis of entirely different social positions. He had said to
himself, "All this is idle nonsense in comparison with the invaluable
price of true love. Is not love stronger than faith and hope; how can
it fail to be stronger than foolish prejudices?" He had reached a point
where he had seen in the union of Melitta and Oswald a triumph of pure
humanity over the barbarism of civilization, and victory of truth over
falsehood.
But only upon such a lofty basis was such a union justifiable and
possible. If one or the other sank below the level, both were lost.
Bemperlein had known Fran von Berkow for seven years; he knew that her
heart was true and good. Bemperlein had known Oswald for as many weeks,
and he thought Oswald was worthy of her. He thought so because he had
no choice; because to doubt would have seemed to him to insult his
much-beloved friend.
And yet such doubts had made their way to his heart, slowly, silently,
as in our dreams a fearful monster drags itself towards us and we try
in vain to escape. He had struggled against these doubts until he could
struggle no longer.
Melitta had returned from her second journey to Fichtenau, on which
Bemperlein had in vain offered to accompany her; but after a few hours'
stay at Grunwald she had gone on with Julius to Berkow, without sending
for Bemperlein. The latter did not hear of her having been there except
through old Baumann, who had remained behind to arrange Julius's
things, and to execute some other commissions. Bemperlein had never
spoken to the old man about Oswald. This time the latter began himself
He told him that Oswald had been at Fichtenau when they were there,
that he had learnt from the waiter that his mistress was at the hotel,
but had left again without calling on her. Here he paused, evidently in
order to hear what Bemperlein would say about this piece of news. But
when Bemperlein said nothing but "so so!" "indeed!" the old man could
no longer control himself, and poured out his full heart, and with it
the full cup of his wrath over Oswald.
"He had never trusted the fine gentleman from the first moment, and now
he thought it as clear as light that the scamp had deceived his
mistress infamously. He had spoken himself to his mistress about it,
with all deference--for he knew he was nothing but a servant, and knew
his place--but also very seriously, for he had carried her about as a
child in his arms, and had always loved her tenderly; and she had
always confessed to him on all such occasions, not entirely and not by
halves, but sufficiently full for him, who knew her as well as his own
hand. And then he had had a great desire to shoot the fine gentleman
who had played his mistress such a mean trick, like a mad dog; and
little had been wanting one night on the heath between Grenwitz and
Fashwitz. But now he thanked God that he had held his arm and saved him
from such a crime, especially as He had allowed it to happen that the
story did not break the good lady's heart, but opened her eyes and
showed her the way in which alone she can find happiness on earth."
What this way was the old man had not said, but had risen and marched
straight out of the room, as if he wished to make all further questions
utterly impossible.
It may easily be imagined how much this conversation, which confirmed
his worst fears, had affected Bemperlein; and what impression it must
have made upon him, when he came, quite full of these sensations, to
Doctor Rohan's house, and the first man who met him there was Oswald.
This meeting had been so painful to him, and a possible repetition
seemed to him so intolerable, that it took him a whole week to recover
from his fright; and that he would perhaps never have recovered
entirely if Sophie had not come and made an end to his indecision. Poor
Bemperlein! He had longed to see his fair friend so much! He had to
tell her matters of such importance--of amazing importance for
Anastasius Bemperlein.
Fortunately Sophie was alone when he appeared an hour later in her
sitting-room. Franz had just left, promising to be back later. Sophie
was surprised by Bemperlein's repeated question: "But there will be no
other visitor to-night?" and she naturally connected these questions
with her suspicions about the causes of Bemperlein's absence. As it was
not her nature to keep a thing long to herself, she said, after
watching Bemperlein for a time in silence as he was continually
stirring the fire with a poker,
"Was not the true reason, Bemperly, why you have not been here for a
whole week, that you did not wish to meet Oswald Stein here?"
"Who says so?" asked Bemperlein, pausing in his occupation, quite
frightened.
"A question is no answer," replied Sophie. "Out with it, Bemperly! It
does not pay to attempt keeping secrets in your intercourse with such
clever people as I am. I know everything."
"What do you know?" exclaimed Bemperlein, in great excitement, and
jumping up from his chair.
"Why, Bemperly!" said Sophie, "you forget all consideration for my
nerves. You frighten me out of my wits, standing there with the red-hot
poker in your hands like the man in Shakespeare. Compose yourself, I
pray you! I know nothing at all. But you would really do me a favor,
if--pray sit down again and put the poker down!--well! if you would
tell me in all peacefulness and friendship what is the matter with you,
for the more I look at you the more change I see in you."
"Miss Sophie," replied Bemperlein, "you know we cannot always be quite
open, even with our most intimate friends--and there is no one in the
wide world I would trust rather than you--because our secrets are in
many cases not our own, but are shared by others, and have to be kept
sacred for their sake."
"Why, Bemperly!" said Sophie, "you surely do not think I want to pry
into your secrets! I am neither so impertinent nor so curious. Let us
drop the matter and talk of something else!"
"No, no," exclaimed Bemperlein, eagerly, "let us speak of it! You
do not know how I have longed to talk with you--about--certain
things--certain persons--who----"
Mr. Bemperlein had once more seized the poker, which had not yet cooled
off, and stirred the coals more assiduously than ever. Sophie shook her
head as she watched his doing so. It occurred to her that Bemperlein
might have made too great exertions in his chemical analysis, and that
his mind might have been somewhat injured.
"As for my not coming here," continued Bemperlein, of a sudden, "you
were quite right. I stayed away because I did not wish to meet Oswald
Stein here."
"But," said Sophie, "Franz told me you and Oswald Stein had been very
good friends. How did you fall out?"
"How?" said Mr. Bemperlein. "Why, Miss Sophie, that is exactly what I
cannot tell you, much as I would like to tell you. Would you be friends
with somebody, or rather would you not try in every way to avoid
meeting somebody, who had mortally offended a third person whom you
love and revere?"
"Certainly," replied Sophie, "for then he would have offended myself.
But are you quite sure that that is so? Have you heard both parties? As
for myself, I am not so enchanted with Mr. Stein; or, to tell the
truth, I dislike him the more the oftener I see him; but Franz, who is
very clever, and a capital judge of men, is quite enthusiastic about
him. How could that be if Stein were a bad man?"
"I did not say he was bad," replied Bemperlein, working hard at a big
lump of coal; "bad is a very relative idea, and what I call acting
badly, Mr. Stein calls, perhaps, only acting thoughtlessly, in a
cavalier manner, or some such name. But I call it acting badly, if a
man----"
Here Bemperlein interrupted himself, and poked more violently at the
coal than ever.
"How would you call it, for instance--I do not speak now of Mr.
Stein--if a man were to promise marriage to a poor dependent girl,
without parents, without friends, who has not a soul in this wide, wide
world to protect her, who has believed his oaths and is willing to
follow him, and who then finds herself sold and betrayed to a--Oh it is
rascally, it is atrocious!"
"But, for Heaven's sake, Oswald surely has not----"
"I told you I am not speaking now of Mr. Stein. There are more
cavaliers of the sort in this world, and they look as much one like the
other as one viper looks like another viper."
"My dear Bemperly, I pray you put the poker down; I can really stand it
no longer. Take this cushion, if you must absolutely have something in
your hand."
"Thanks," said Bemperlein, putting down the poker, and seizing the
cushion; and then, holding it like a baby in his arms, sinking into
deep silence.
Sophie began now in good earnest to be troubled about Bemperlein's
excited condition. But what was her terror when Bemperlein suddenly
jumped up, let the cushion in his arm fall on the ground, knelt down on
it with both knees, seized one of her hands in his own, and bowing low
before her, groaned in most piteous tones: "Oh! Miss Sophie, Miss
Sophie!"
"For Heaven's sake, Bemperly," exclaimed the young lady, "get up! If
anybody saw you--saw us!"
"Let me kneel," murmured Mr. Bemperlein. "I must tell you; and I
cannot tell you if you look at me with your big eyes, or if you were to
laugh----"
Sophie at first did not know whether she should laugh or cry at this
unexpected declaration of love. For Bemperlein's sake she could have
cried; but for her own person, she could hardly help laughing aloud.
"Bemperly," she said, "Bemperly, compose yourself; think of what you
are saying, of what you are doing."
"I know," murmured Bemperlein. "I have told myself so a hundred and a
thousand times. At my age--"
"Leaving that aside," said Sophie, in whom the inclination to laugh
gradually became too strong, "how can you, Franz's best friend,
and--at least I have looked upon you in that light until now--my best
friend----"
"I shall remain your friend; I shall remain Franz's friend," cried
Bemperlein with great animation. "Love and friendship shall both find
room in my heart; they shall become only the purer, the deeper, the
holier, the one through the other."
"But, Bemperly, how do you reconcile it with such a lofty Platonic love
to lie on your knees like a Don Carlos? If Franz should at this moment
come in at the door----"
"And if he came," cried Bemperlein, jumping up, "'_il n'y a que le
premier pas qui coûte._' I feel, now that I have spoken--that I have
spoken to you--the courage to tell it to all the world. Franz will
approve of my choice when he knows her as I know her."
"As you know _me_?"
"And you also will approve of it," cried Bemperlein, utterly unmindful
of her interruption, and waving the cushion like a flag in the air;
"you will be a friend and a sister to the poor girl; you will do it for
my sake, because I love you and esteem you so very much; you will do it
for her sake, for you may believe me, Miss Sophie, she deserves it."
"But whom do you mean, Bemperly?"
"I thought you knew long since," said Bemperlein, suddenly, half
frightened; and then he added in a very low voice: "Marguerite Martin,
the governess at Grenwitz!"
Fortunately, Bemperlein's excitement was too great to allow him to
observe the confusion created by this announcement in Sophie's mind.
The knot was cut most unexpectedly. She had been so near committing a
great folly by suspecting her friend of another great folly! And yet
she was not quite free from a little disappointment that she was not
the exclusive idol of Bemperlein! Such a feeling could of course only
pass for an instant through Sophie's heart as a light breeze curls the
mirror-like surface of a deep lake only in passing, and before
Bemperlein had quite recovered his equanimity she was again wholly the
sympathizing, prudent friend for whom Bemperlein had been longing in
the anguish of his heart.
As to the fact that Bemperlein, quiet, old-maidish Bemperlein, had been
seized with a passion--that did not surprise her so much. Her main
apprehension was, that the modest, unsuspecting man, who in spite of
his thirty years was utterly inexperienced, might have fallen into the
net of a coquette; and this fear was all the more serious as she had
heard the brown eyes of Marguerite spoken of more than once in
connection with events which seemed to confirm her suspicion. Her first
question was, therefore,
"Do you really know Mademoiselle Marguerite, Bemperlein? I mean, do you
know that she is a good girl; that she has a good heart; in one word,
that she is worthy of my good Bemperlein?"
"She worthy of me?" cried Bemperlein, most enthusiastically.
"You mean to say, that I am worthy of her?"
"I wanted to say exactly what I said. I, your best friend--for that
privilege I am not willing to give up yet--I have the right and the
duty to be strict, and to examine before I say: Yes and Amen."
"Oh, Miss Sophie, I assure you my Marguerite is an angel."
"Your Marguerite? Why, look at the lion-hearted Bemperlein? Has it come
to that already? But, jesting apart, Bemperly! what do you know of the
angelic character of your Marguerite? I mean of that angelic nature
which is perceptible to other mortals also? Come, sit down here by me
quietly, before the fire, and tell me the whole thing from the
beginning. Here, take your cushion again, but please leave the poker
where it is!"
In spite of the trifling words, Sophie's voice sounded so faithful and
good, and her large blue eyes looked so full of sympathy and kindness,
that Bemperlein was not in the least afraid now to let the dear girl
look into the holiest of his heart, and to tell her everything, which
he did not even dare to think of but with trembling!
"You remember, Miss Sophie," he began, "that I told you and Franz
recently how I went to the Grenwitz House in order to find out what the
baroness, who had sent for me, wanted of me. I told you also that I
found Mademoiselle Marguerite in the ante-room, and the remarkable
scene which there took place; but I did not tell you, and I have not
let anybody see yet, the deep impression which that scene had made on
me. A man who has grown up in great poverty, as I have, and who has had
to struggle hard with cares and troubles, learns to understand
thoroughly what it means to be helpless and forsaken. You will
understand, therefore, what I mean, when I say that such a man, when he
sees others suffer, feels and thinks very differently from those who
have never been in such a position. That was the reason why I could not
get rid of the sight of the poor, forsaken girl in tears. I saw her
continually before me as she was standing near the door which led to
the rooms of the baroness sobbing and pressing her little hands upon
her eyes, while the bright tears were slipping through the slender
fingers. I heard continually the words: '_Oh, je suis si malheureuse_,'
and I worried myself to find out why the poor girl should be so
unhappy; for I could have sworn that there must have been another cause
than the mere sense of dependence, or the pain of having been once more
unjustly scolded.
"This troubled me so much that I could not sleep all night long, and
the next day it seemed to me an eternity before the time came when I
was to wait on the baroness. At last it struck two o'clock. I went to
the house and was admitted at once. The baroness was alone in her room.
She was uncommonly gracious, inquired after Frau von Berkow, asked how
I liked Grunwald, if I had much to do, and at last came out with her
request. She could not make up her mind, she said, to send Malte to
college, for reasons which she mentioned, but which were so foolish
that I will not repeat them here; but she was as little inclined to try
another tutor after the sad experiences which she had made. The lady,
therefore, decided to have him taught at home by private tutors, who
must, of course, be tried men of well-known principles, and--now we
came to the point--would I whom she esteemed most highly, aid her in
her work, and give her son, daily, one or two lessons in ancient
languages! Now you may imagine, Miss Sophie, that I would have refused
under other circumstances without hesitation; because, setting every
other consideration aside, I could employ my time much better than by
sacrificing it for the sake of a stupid boy, whom I never could bear;
but I considered that this might give me an opportunity to meet poor
Marguerite more frequently, and as this was my most ardent wish, the
offer of the baroness seemed to me a sign from on high, and I accepted
it at once."
"Bravo, Bemperly!" said Sophie; "I see you have, after all, more talent
for a little innocent intrigue than I expected."
"Oh, it comes still better," replied Bemperlein, smiling; "you will
marvel at my talent. In the course of the conversation the baroness
spoke also of French lessons, and mentioned how inconvenient it was to
have to engage a French teacher, although she had a French woman in the
house, because she had little confidence in mademoiselle's grammatical
knowledge. I said at once--I do not know yet how I gathered courage to
do so--that I was sure mademoiselle would very quickly learn grammar,
and be able to teach it hereafter, if she had been carried once through
a regular course of grammar. My time, I told her, was fully occupied;
but half an hour every day--the baroness did not let me finish, and
accepted my offer at once. The very next day the lessons were to
begin."
"When did you have that interview with the baroness?"
"Yesterday was a week, on the same day on which I had come home very
full of this interview, and of another which I had had on my return
home with--with--I must not tell you, Miss Sophie, with whom--when I
hastened to you. I found Mr. Stein here."
Bemperlein paused; his face darkened once more, and he took hold again
of the poker.
Sophie took it quietly out of his hand, placed it further away, and
said:
"You were excited that evening, and did not stay long. Does the other
interview with the great unknown stand in any connection with your
story?"
"Not directly," replied Bemperlein, seizing once more the cushion,
"only, inasmuch as it increased my interest in poor Marguerite,
to whom--and afterwards my suspicions have been most remarkably
confirmed--some thing similar might have happened; but never mind that!
Next day, then, I began my lessons. The lesson with that boy, Malte,
was soon over. I was left alone in the room, and waited for my fair
pupil; I can tell you, Miss Sophie, my heart beat! Why, I could not
tell myself. I only know that I felt all of a sudden as if I were a
very bad man. I had never yet in all my life played comedy; and these
lessons in grammar were, after all, nothing but comedy. I had a great
mind to run away; but as that could not very well be done, I could only
pull up my collar, make a bow before the mirror, and say with my best
accent: '_Ah, bon jour, Mademoiselle, comment vous portez-vous!_' As I
repeated the question a third time--and this time to my complete
satisfaction--the lady came into the room, a book in her hand, and I
was so much confused by the fear she might have seen me before the
mirror that I blushed all over, and stammered something, which might
possibly have been French, but which certainly was very foolish, for
Mademoiselle Marguerite smiled and said something of _bonté_ and
_enseigner_. Next I only know that we were sitting opposite each other,
and that we were turning over the leaves without saying a word--what
else can I tell you, Miss Sophie? What is best and most necessary I
can, after all, not tell you. I have been with Marguerite now for a
week daily, quite alone, during a whole hour. We have not studied
grammar; at least, we never read beyond the first pages; but, in
return, she has opened to me the book of her life, and I have been
allowed to read it, word by word, from the first to the last page. I
tell you, Miss Sophie, there is not a bad word in it, and not a page of
which she need be ashamed. She has had to fight her way through the
world, poor thing--much worse than I! Her parents died so early that
she has never known them; brothers and sisters or near relations she
never had, except a wicked aunt, who made her life a hell, until at
fourteen she fell among strangers, who at least did not beat her like
her wretched aunt. Alas! Miss Sophie, if I were to tell you what the
poor thing has suffered, you would say: 'Such things are impossible,'
and your heart would overflow with sympathy as mine did."
Mr. Bemperlein paused because his emotion was too deep. Sophie took his
hand and said, "Good Bemperly!" Bemperlein returned the pressure
warmly, and continued, after having cleared his voice repeatedly to
hide his emotion:
"She kept nothing from me; not even that she has of late come in
contact with a bad man (I repeat, Miss Sophie, that I am not speaking
of Mr. Stein)--with a man who has cheated her most egregiously, and who
wished to hand her over to a notorious scapegrace. But that is such a
mean, low story that I would rather not speak of it, even if I had not
promised Marguerite never to mention the person in question to any one,
whoever it be. And now," concluded Bemperlein, taking both of Sophie's
hands in his own, "what do you say, now you know all?"
Sophie was somewhat embarrassed by the sudden question. She had formed
a picture of Marguerite from casual remarks made by Helen, Oswald, and
her betrothed, which was by no means flattering for the young lady; and
even Bemperlein's account was not calculated to remove her prejudice
completely. She was pained to have to hurt the feelings of the poor
man, whose kind face was turned towards her with an excited, anxious
expression, as if life and death depended on her decision, and yet she
could and would not prevaricate, and an answer she must give. She
assumed, therefore, a charming air of wisdom, shaking her head gently
and thoughtfully,
"Love is a curious thing, Bemperly. I have often reflected on it since
the time that I learned to know Franz and to love him. There are
sensations which are very praiseworthy in themselves, but they are not
love, and we must be careful not to mistake them for love. And the
nobler the heart the more easily it falls into the danger of committing
such an error, just as the most trustful people are always the readiest
to take false money instead of good money. I, for instance, never
failed to find a false coin in my purse upon returning from market, if
there was a false piece in the whole crowd. Now, there is no sensation
which looks so much like love, and which so readily deceives a noble
heart, as sympathy. Might it not be, Bemperly"--and here the young lady
put her hand upon Bemperlein's hand--"that, as your interest for Miss
Marguerite first arose from sympathy, it may to this moment not be the
genuine love, but only sympathy?"
Bemperlein's face had been growing longer with every word of this long
exposition. He had expected a very different welcome for his news here.
Almost despairing, he asked, therefore,
"But, Miss Sophie, how do you distinguish sympathy from love? Is not
the love of our neighbor, the purest form of love, identical with
sympathy?"
"The love of the neighbor?" replied Sophie; "yes! but not that love of
which we are speaking--the love which we must feel if we wish to marry
somebody--the love, for instance, which I feel for Franz, and which
Franz feels for me. That is something very different, quite
different,"--and the young philosopher nodded thoughtfully her wise
head.
"But what is it then?" cried Bemperlein, desperately. "How can we find
out if we really love?"
"That is very difficult," replied Sophie; "yet it is also very easy.
For instance; have you always simply wished to transfer Miss Marguerite
from her dependent position to a better one, to shelter her, to protect
her against all trouble and danger; or have you sometimes desired----"
Here the philosopher hesitated and blushed.
"Well?" asked Bemperlein, eagerly.
"To give her a kiss!" said Sophie, determined to clear the matter up,
even at the risk of being thought indiscreet,
"If that is all," said Bemperlein, triumphantly, "I can answer that
question with 'Yes.'"
"Bravo, Bemperly! And _have_ you given her a kiss?"
"No!"
"Have you confessed your love to her?"
"No!"
"How do you know, then, that she loves you too?"
"I don't know that."
The gradually decreasing certainty of these negations was so comical
that Sophie could hardly keep from laughing.
"But, Bemperly," she cried, "how will you find that out?"
"I will ask her!" replied Bemperlein, resolutely.
"Very well! And if she says No?"
"She cannot say so; she will not say so;" cried Bemperlein, pale with
emotion. "I have never thought of it, but that would be terrible. I--I
thought it would be so beautiful if she should become my wife and I
could work for her, and I could love her and she should love me back
again! For I must love somebody with my whole heart, and I must feel
that somebody loves me with her whole heart, or I should be the most
wretched man in the world. Oh, Miss Sophie! surely, surely. Marguerite
will not say No!"
His voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears. The kind-hearted
girl was hardly less deeply moved. The passionate feeling of Bemperlein
had touched a sympathetic chord in her heart. She felt suddenly under
an obligation to protect the youthful love of her thirty-year-old pupil
with all her power.
"What do you say, Bemperly?" she said, very decidedly. "We can soon
find out. Bring Marguerite here!"
Bemperlein breathed freely again.
"May I, really?"
"Of course. I cannot very well call on her, because that would attract
attention; but she can come here without its being noticed. Just tell
her I should like to make her acquaintance. If she loves you, she will
come soon enough; and if we once have her here, the rest will follow of
course. Yes, yes," continued the young lady, clapping her hands with
delight, "that is the way! that is the way! And when we are good
friends, then we have another plan--oh, Bemperly, another plan--if you
knew what--but no, no!--you must not know yet--nor must Franz know.
Hush, there he is. Not a word, Bemperly, of _our_ secret!"
CHAPTER IV.
Felix had changed sadly in these days, and it looked almost as if his
last appearance as a star in Grenwitz, which had been such a lamentable
failure, should also be his last performance in the salons where he had
so often shone brilliantly. The wound which he had received in his duel
with Oswald, though in itself not dangerous, had thoroughly undermined
his whole system, already weakened by a wild, profligate life, just as
a house in which the timber is affected with dry rot will be in danger
of tumbling down at any time, if but one of the joists be removed. The
ball had not injured any of the vital parts, and he had had the best of
medical advice, and yet the wound would not heal. And when it began at
last to look a little better, very grave symptoms of pulmonary disease
in an advanced stage had suddenly shown themselves. The physicians who
were called in shook their heads, spoke of the necessity of a change of
air, and a longer residence in a southern climate.
But Felix refused to see what was very clear to all others. Those
little scars?--why, I have been spotted very differently before. That
little fever?--ridiculous; I have felt worse many a morning after a
wild night. My lungs?--nonsense! What does that old wig, Balthasar,
know of my lungs? I don't believe in wise wigs. Felix Grenwitz wont die
so easily!
Perhaps it was a desire to confirm himself in this conviction which
made the _bon vivant attempt_ to succeed in the part of a lover as soon
as he was allowed to leave his room again after several weeks'
confinement with a diet of medicine and mucilage. He had looked upon
neat, pretty, blue-eyed Madeline, as soon as he had seen her, as a
rose-bud which it might be worth his while to gather, and he would have
made some efforts in that direction long since if Albert had not, for
very good reasons, dissuaded him earnestly. Besides, he had then not
given up the hope of winning the fair Helen, and his eyes had been
captivated for a time by her exceedingly pretty maid, Louisa. Now, when
those hopes were gone, he found in the monotony of his convalescence
the necessary leisure and ample opportunity to turn his attention
towards little Marguerite. Felix Grenwitz knew only two classes of
women: pretty women and ugly women; any other division, virtuous women
and others, he did not admit. He did not believe in female virtue; he
had never met with it; at most, caprice, coquettish cunning, and the
art to enhance the value of the merchandise so as to induce the buyer
to pay the highest price. Hence Felix Grenwitz did not believe that
Marguerite was virtuous, and this all the less as this experienced man
soon discovered that "Mamselle" had carried on a love affair with Mr.
Surveyor Timm while the masters were at the watering place. Timm
thought about women just as he did himself, as Felix knew perfectly
well; he had therefore won the game even before beginning it. Could
Felix Grenwitz fail where Albert Timm had succeeded? Nevertheless,
there was another item in the bill which he had overlooked, and the Don
Giovanni was not a little surprised, therefore, when he failed after
all. Little Marguerite had a soft heart, thirsting after love, and she
had so small a share of love alloted her in life! Hence Albert Timm had
been able to overcome the heart of the girl, but not her virtue. For
little Marguerite was proud--proud as poor beings are who have been
enslaved and ill-treated from childhood up without losing their native
nobility, and whose only defence against the contempt of the world lies
in their self-respect. She would have sacrificed for her lover the
whole of her hard-earned little fortune, but nothing else. If Albert
could not succeed who really loved her, Felix must of course fail, for
she detested him. And yet he was not fastidious in the means he
employed. He presented Albert to her in the darkest colors; he laughed
at the poor girl for having allowed herself to be cheated by a man who
wanted nothing but her few hundred dollars; a man who would do anything
for money, and who would yet gamble away in a single night all the
money he might have secured by fair means or foul. He effected by this
description, which was unfortunately not untrue in its main features,
nothing but that the little one said with flaming eyes and deep-red
cheeks in her broken German: "And if _Monsieur Albert_ is really a bad
man, you are not any better by a hair, _Monsieur le Baron_!" Poor
child! she was soon to become fully aware that _Monsieur Albert_ and
_Monsieur le Baron_ were really of precisely the same value! She had
been in the adjoining room when Felix and Albert Timm had been holding
their conversation, and she had felt as if she ought to sink into the
ground for shame and indignation when she heard how the two gentlemen
bargained so unceremoniously for her virtue, as if they had bargained
for a horse. To dispel every doubt as to what she had only half
understood, she had managed to meet Mr. Timm when he left the baron in
the ante-room. Here she had asked him, hot-blooded as she was, about
the matter, and received an answer which caused her to be bathed in
tears, when Mr. Bemperlein came in a few minutes later.
Felix, however, was content to have driven off his most dangerous
rival, and did not pursue his advantage for the present. The whole
affair had become too serious for his taste for one thing, and then
another business was just now claiming his whole attention. His health
had become so much worse during the last days that even his frivolity
could no longer make him blind to the imminence of actual danger. The
wounds, but half healed, opened once more; a slow fever undermined his
nervous system by day and by night, and he had hardly fallen asleep
when a hacking cough waked him from dreams so fearful that even
sleeplessness seemed a benefit in comparison. The anxiety about his
health was increased by other cares which he had formerly treated very
lightly, but which now had a sad effect upon his hypochondriac temper,
and confused and troubled him sorely. People would crowd into his
bed-chamber who would not be refused admittance by his servants--people
with odd faces and remarkably soiled linen, who had no sooner succeeded
in making their way to his bed-side than they opened large pocketbooks
and presented the baron with a little bit of a note "for two hundred or
three hundred dollars--a mere trifle for the baron."
Perhaps the baron would have been able to redeem these ominous papers
if he had been what he had hoped to be when he adorned them with his
signature: the acknowledged affianced of Helen, and the son-in-law of
the richest landowner of the province. But unfortunately he was neither
the one nor the other, had no prospect of becoming such, and could
therefore not be very much astonished if the baroness was less gracious
every time she met one of these suspicious personages. It had been
different a few weeks ago, when the sun of his invincible power of
charming was still in the zenith. Felix knew perfectly well that his
aunt was so liberal only, in spite of her natural disposition, because
she knew him to be in possession of a grave family secret. But even
this last tie, which could be replaced by no other, was hanging on a
single thread.
For he could not doubt that it was only the fear of "the stupid honesty
of the baron"--the identical words of his amiable wife--which kept her
from bringing matters to a crisis in her conflict with Albert Timm, and
Felix was by no means quite sure whether even this fear was likely to
induce her to assent to the bargain which he had made with Albert in
her name. He had, therefore, not dared yet to tell her the full amount
for which he had purchased Albert's silence.
His timidity in the whole business had a very good motive in his
critical situation. He had to keep his aunt in the best possible humor
in order to obtain from her the sums he required for his personal
wants. It would be time enough hereafter to enlighten her on the
subject of Timm's demand. Felix hated Oswald intensely, and it would
have been intolerable to him to see the hated man obtain possession of
the large fortune with Albert's aid, and perhaps after awhile also of
Helen's hand; but all that had to give way for the present to the
imperative necessities of his position.
This was the condition of things when the baroness came on the morning
after the party, where Felix of course had not been able to be present,
to pay the patient a visit, after having been ceremoniously announced.
Felix was wrapped up in a large dressing gown, and sat shivering close
to the stove. His big eyes, once so supercilious, and now glassy and
staring, and the sickly, well-defined red spot on his lean cheeks, bore
witness to the rapid progress which the disease had made during the
last days. Somewhat astonished at such a visit at so unusual an hour,
he half rose from his chair, and offered his aunt his thin feverish
hand.
"_Bon jour, ma tante!_ must I say, so early or so late? for you have
been dancing till very recently. I heard the bass viol all the way down
to my room here: brm! brm! brm! until it nearly made me crazy; and if
you had not cured me of cursing, my dear aunt, I could have wished the
accursed creature who made all the tantrum down to the deepest place
in----"
"I hope your health is not worse to-day than your cursing," said Anna
Maria, smiling. She settled down in an arm-chair before the patient,
and took out some work as an evidence that she intended to pay a long
visit. "But seriously speaking, dear Felix, I have been sorry for you,
and I have come to ask your pardon for the interruption."
"Why, you are prodigiously gracious to-day, _ma tante_?"
"I thought I always was so," replied Anna Maria; "only there are people
who will never be persuaded of it."
"I am not one of them, dear aunt."
"I know it, Felix; and I trust you will acknowledge that I have always
done for you whatever was in my power."
"Yes indeed; yes indeed!" murmured Felix, reflecting whether this was a
favorable moment to mention to his aunt a little affair in which he was
involved--now nearly three months--with a certain Mr. Wolfson, of the
firm of Wolfson, Reinike & Co., and which had to be settled in a few
days.
"The company--who, however, broke up punctually at a quarter past two,
dear Felix--seemed to enjoy themselves very much," continued the
baroness, "and I was heartily sorry that you could not be there. It is
really high time you should report yourself well again."
"God knows!" sighed the patient, impatiently tossing about in his
arm-chair, "I am turning a perfect hypochondriac in this hole. But tell
me something about yesterday. Who was there?"
"Oh, not a great many; you know I do not like very large parties:
Grieben, Nadlitz, Bamewitz, Cloten----"
"That is not a bad arrangement of names," said Felix. "Did not Hortense
and Clotilde scratch each other's eyes out?"
"Oh, no! they are the best friends in the world; and besides, yesterday
they had no reason to dispute each other the palm, as that had been
decided before by the unanimous judgment of the whole company."
"Oh, indeed! And who was this bird Ph[oe]nix?"
"Your cousin, dear Felix," said the baroness, counting the stitches in
her work; "she looked really magnificent last night. I was quite
surprised myself; but she was universally admired."
Felix listened attentively. To hear Helen praised by her mother was
such a new air that he did not trust his ears.
"It looks as if the last weeks--five, six, seven--had, after all, had a
very happy effect upon her. She has eight, nine, ten--lost a good deal
of her haughtiness; the Countess Grieben congratulated me on her
modest, truly womanly manners."
"Pardon me, dear aunt," said Felix, most bitterly; "but I can hardly
rejoice as much as you at this favorable change. I wish it had taken
place a few weeks before. Perhaps I should then not be lying here
helpless, like a horse who has been hamstrung;" and he struck the arm
of his chair violently with his sound hand.
"I know you have some reason to complain of Helen," said the baroness;
"but hatred and revenge are very unchristian feelings, especially
between relatives, whom nature has ordained for mutual love."
"Oh, certainly," interrupted Felix. "You are perfectly right, dear
aunt! Our whole plan was built upon that supposition. What a pity,
though, that Miss Helen did not care at all for this Christian love for
our relatives!"
"You are bitter, Felix; and, as I said before, I admit that you may
complain. But let us talk now of the matter that brought me here so
early in the morning. The state of your health, dear Felix, causes me
such great concern that I have been thinking of it all last night, and
now I have formed a plan. You must start, and as soon as possible, on
your trip to Italy."
Felix was destined to-day to pass from one astonishment into another.
The physicians had advised this trip urgently for a fortnight; Anna
Maria had opposed it as strenuously, because neither Felix, as she
thought, nor she herself could at that moment afford to provide the
necessary means. All of a sudden these means were forthcoming! All who
knew the consistency of the baroness must have known that only a very
extraordinary reason could have produced so sudden a change in her
views.
What this reason was Felix did not learn in the further course of the
conversation. He did not care particularly to know it. The last days
and nights, full of pain, had broken his spirit; the frivolous
haughtiness which he had so far boastingly exhibited had given way to
mournful nervousness, in which but one thought remained uppermost--the
desire to be well again at any cost. For this great purpose any means
were welcome. If his aunt was willing to furnish the means for his
travels, which he knew were indispensable for his recovery, well!--and
all the better, the more she gave! Why she gave--why she gave now,
after having declared it only a few days before utterly impossible to
raise the means--what did he care for that? No more than a man who is
in danger of drowning inquires from whence the saving log comes
swimming down to which he clings at the very last moment.
When the baroness rose an hour later and folded up her work, the
Italian journey was a settled matter. Felix was, if his condition did
not grow worse, to start in a few days. "You know, dear Felix," said
Anna Maria, "I am in favor of doing promptly what has to be done. And
here there is danger in delay; besides, I should forever reproach
myself bitterly if I had not done whatever was in my feeble power to
avert this threatening danger from you."
She offered him kindly her bony hand, and Felix kissed it reverently.
Anna Maria then left the room.
"The old dragon," grumbled Felix, sinking back exhausted; "what can
have gotten into her head to make her all of a sudden so liberal? How
lucky I did not tell her how much that rascal Timm is asking for! She
will have to hear it one of these days; but not before I am down in
Italy. Oh! my arm! I must submit to a regular cure; and, after all,
every man is his own nearest neighbor."
"The foolish fellow," thought Anna Maria, as she slowly walked back to
her room through the long passages; "it is hard that I have to go to
such fearful expense after having paid so much for him already. But it
cannot be helped. He must leave the house, and this is the most
respectable and the least noisy way to get rid of him."
The explanation of the generosity of the baroness was very simple. The
ambitious thought that her daughter had at least as much prospect to
become the wife of the prince as any other lady, had been so much
encouraged last night during the party that it had grown up into a
well-built plan. The prince had distinguished Helen in the most
flattering manner. He had not only against all rules, danced twice with
her, but he had, besides, borrowed her from her regular partner as
often as an opportunity offered; he had led her to supper, and during
the whole evening not lost sight of her for a moment; he had, finally,
spoken in the most exalted terms of the incomparable beauty of the
young baroness to the Countess Grieben, who had reported his words five
minutes later to the baroness. All this was the more striking as the
cool reserve with which that grand seigneur generally received all the
homage offered him by the provincial nobility had already become
proverbial. What was poor Felix in comparison with this proud eagle? A
poor crow, plucked bare by misfortune and countless creditors. And
especially now since the physicians began to shake their heads
ominously, and when the baroness asked them upon their consciences,
answered: they would give the young baron six months, unless a miracle
took place! What was Felix when he ceased to be the presumptive heir to
the entailed estates? Nothing!--less than nothing; a very expensive
pensioner on the bounty of the family, whose only merit was that he
would in all probability not draw that pension long! No, no! That sun
had set in mist and fogs; now a more brilliant, a more powerful sun
must give its light. It was worth while to become the mother-in-law of
His Highness Prince Waldenberg. Then the obstinate, intolerably
obstinate old husband might die today or to-morrow, and the executors
were welcome to add the revenues from the estates, which now belonged
to her, to the principal. She had laid aside enough, thanks to her wise
economy; and then there was the very respectable sum of Harald's
legacy, which that impudent fellow, Timm, would no longer dare to
trouble her about. And suppose even that the baron should leave Helen
the greater part of his fortune, which seemed very probable, the
gratitude of a princely son-in-law to whom she had given so beautiful a
wife, and of a daughter to whom she had given a princely husband, was
in itself a capital that must bring ample interest.
Strange! from the moment in which this brilliant perspective had opened
for Helen she had no longer felt any resentment against the rebellious
child. Even her pride, of which she had so bitterly complained, now
appeared to her eyes as a merit in the girl. Was not this very
haughtiness, together with the beauty which it served to bring out more
strikingly, that feature which had evidently decided the prince to give
the preference to her daughter over other young ladies like that very
beautiful but blond and sentimental Miss Nadelitz, and even over
pretty, coquettish Emily Cloten, and graceful, intriguing Hortense
Barnewitz? For the past two days the baroness had actually felt some
affection for her daughter--her beautiful, brilliant daughter--who, by
her prudent management had secured the bright dazzling prospect of
becoming Princess Waldenberg-Malikowsky, Countess of Letbus!
The first step towards this lofty goal was of course a full
reconciliation with Helen. The catastrophe at Grenwitz had taught her
to respect an adversary who was able to act with so much firmness in
spite of her youth. Henceforth she would see if she could not succeed
better with love and kindness; and how could she better prove this love
and kindness than by recalling the disobedient and yet cherished child
from her banishment back again (if only Felix would go quickly!) to the
paternal house, to the dear parents who impatiently expected their
beloved daughter! She had immediately begun this great work of
reconciliation; this very day she hoped to finish the preliminaries.
It was a late hour on that day. The windows in Miss Bear's
boarding-school had been darkened for two hours, except one which
looked upon the garden in the rear. He who could have watched this
window from the garden, or from the public park which adjoined the
garden--and there was really a young man leaning against the trunk of a
beech-tree whose eyes were incessantly directed through the dense
darkness towards the lighted window--might have seen that the light
came from a lamp which was standing quite near it on an escritoire, and
that the occupant of the room was sitting at the escritoire writing or
reading; it could not be distinguished.
The occupant of the room was Helen Grenwitz. She was writing eagerly,
with burning cheeks, as young ladies who have no confidant but a friend
hundreds of miles away are apt to write:
"You quiet, prudent girl, with your quiet, prudent blue eyes! Ah, who
could pass through life as you do, ever true to one's self! Who could
have your peace of soul, in which everything is reflected, as in a deep
still lake, in clear colors and sharp outlines! Whatever you think
right to-day, you think so to-morrow; what you like to-day, you will
not dislike to-morrow. The standard by which you measure men is, though
severe, unchangeably the same; he who does not come up to it is, to
your mind, not your equal, and you treat him accordingly, to-morrow as
to-day, and every other day, with that mild kindness for which I have
so often envied you. With me, alas! everything is different--so very
different! My heart is a storm-tossed ocean, and the images of life
tremble in it, changing and restless, and troubling me like so many
spectres. On the surface, to be sure--well, there all is apparently
calm; at least people say so, and I feel so; but down below!--there it
seethes and boils; there are wishes growing up which I dare scarcely
confess to myself; there thoughts are rising that frighten me; there a
longing is forever blooming--a longing of which I have often told you,
and alas! never in words equal to what I really feel, and which you
always sent back into the realm of dreams. Is it possible that you were
right? that the passion which is glowing within me is never to be
cooled? that the voice which often calls from the depth of my soul in
every still night, as just now, full of complaint, of yearning, of
despair--that this voice is never to find an echo? My brow is burning,
my eyes are blinded, my heart beats impatiently! What do you want,
restless, wild heart!--Love? Yes! Power, and honor, and distinction?
Yes! But how, if you cannot have all at once; if you must sacrifice the
one or the other!--how then? Which are you willing to give up? Love?
No! High rank? No! Oh no!... Well then! beat on restless and
unsatisfied, and trouble me without pity, till this hand and this head
shall be tired of counting your feverish pulsations!
"I see you looking at me expectantly, with your soft, blue eyes; I see
your lips trembling with the question: What is the matter, dearest? Oh,
dearest darling, _you_ are to tell me! For some time now, I have not
known myself any longer.
"I wrote you that I saw Mr. S. accidentally from my window, and that I
wished very much to see him alone. My wish was to be fulfilled the same
day. I met him at Miss R's, and as my servant did not come for me, he
accompanied me home. We had a conversation on the way which affected me
deeply, as it turned on Bruno, and I had, at last, an opportunity of
thanking Mr. S., as I had so long desired to do. I was deeply moved
when he took leave of me at the door. The charm which this man has
always had for me, and which I can only shake off when I do not see or
hear anything of him, had become once more all-powerful in his
presence. I felt it; and yet, just on that account--you know me--I did
not avoid seeing him again, although I might easily have done so.
"Two evenings later I met him again, also at Miss R's. This time the
servant was behind us as we went home, but as we spoke French--Mr. S.
speaks it beautifully; he told me he was half French by descent--our
conversation was as free as if we had been alone. What the two days'
absence had set right, two hours' intercourse destroyed again, and I
found out to my great humiliation--and I write it with blushing
cheeks--that the feeling which overcomes me when he is near is stronger
than my pride. Not that he is so imposing by his lofty mind or by his
male strength! Far from it. He does not resemble the ideal which I bear
in my heart of the hero whom I might love; but there is something in
the tone of his voice, in the glance of his large blue eyes, in his
whole manner, which touches me unspeakably. And then--I mean to be
candid with you--I know that he loves me, and, as it cannot be
otherwise under the circumstances, loves me without hope, and that
makes him dear to me, like the dagger with the bright Damascus blade
and the golden handle which I, a girl of twelve, found in the armory at
Grenwitz, and which I then took as a precious treasure to my room, and
never have allowed to pass away again into other hands. I know--Oswald
and the dagger--both belong to me; to me alone. It is so exquisitely
sweet to be able to call something one's own of which nobody else knows
anything, nobody suspects anything, and which is still sure to stand by
us, and to assist us in extremity, when all others shall have abandoned
us. Whenever I see Oswald's eyes fixed upon me I feel as if I were
drawing the dagger half-way from the sheath and saw the blade glitter
in the sunlight.
"But there is danger in this glittering. How often have I drawn out the
weapon entirely, and, placing the sharp point upon my heart, said to
myself: a slight pressure and you are no more! And there is danger in
the presence of this man; a word from him, and he has ceased to live
for me; and if I were weak enough to reply--I dare not think of it; I
dare not think how near I have already been standing to the abyss.
"I have determined not to go any more to Miss R's, and I have carried
out my determination. Day before yesterday, towards evening, when I was
alone in the garden--the others were walking out as usually with Miss
Bear as leader--I heard the roaring of the sea so distinctly that I
felt an invincible desire to see my favorite element once more eye to
eye. Our garden adjoins a public park which extends down to the
sea-shore. It belongs to the city, and is, I am told, a popular
promenade in the summer. In autumn, however, and especially in the
evening, when it is damp and cool, I had never seen anybody in the wide
avenues under the tall trees. I therefore, opened, the gate, which was
not locked, and went into the park. It was darker there than in the
garden; the evening breeze was sighing in the bare branches of the
mighty beech-trees; the sea roared grandly. Beneath my feet the dry
leaves were rustling; overhead two crows were cawing, unable to find
rest on the storm-tossed branches. I wrapped myself closer in my shawl
and went on. The darkness was coming on apace, and the cool, damp
breath of the woods and the sea brought their old charm to bear upon
me, as I had felt it so often in early childhood. I felt no fear;
the happiness to be for once perfectly alone with myself and my
thoughts--alone amid such surroundings, which entirely harmonized with
my state of mind--did not allow such feelings to rise in me. I went on
and on, as in a dream, till I came to the end of the avenue. There a
small open square, almost entirely overshadowed by tall trees, looks in
one direction towards the sea, which breaks almost directly upon the
moderately high but steep shore. An iron railing runs along the edge.
There are benches here for the tired visitor, and for all who wish to
enjoy the coolness of the place and the view over the sea. I was
leaning on the railing and looking out upon the dark waste of waters,
bright in its way amid the darkness, and I saw wave follow wave without
rest and breaking into foam upon the smooth pebbles of the narrow
beach. The thunder, which drowned every other noise, was like a nursery
song for my stormy heart, and lulled me to dream wonderfully of
happiness deep and boundless, like the deep, boundless sea, on whose
fading horizon my eyes were hanging, and--would happiness else have any
charms for me?--of fearful mysteries and unforeseen dangers.
"Suddenly a voice fell upon my ear from quite near by. I rose from my
stooping position, and Mr. S. was standing before me.
"'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'if I interrupt you in pleasant dreams;
but the accident which made me find you here at this hour is too
remarkable to be looked upon as nothing more than a mere accident.'
"I was so surprised and frightened by this sudden meeting--and I
suddenly saw how very improper the step was--that I replied coldly and
sharply:
"'How do you mean, sir? I hope it is really an accident only which
procures me at this moment the pleasure of your company?'
"He stepped back a step.
"'Pardon me, Miss Helen,' he said, 'I did not know you objected to my
presence.'
"He bowed, and went away.
"The tone in which he had uttered these words cut me to the heart. When
he was a few yards off, I could not bear it any longer. I called his
name. The next moment he was again by my side.
"'Mr. S.,' I said, 'I beg your pardon. I was frightened I did not know
what I was saying.'
"'No, no!' he replied. 'You were quite right. It is not an accident
which has made us meet here. At least not on my side. I saw you enter
the park; I followed you; I did not lose sight of you for an instant.'
"'And do you often come here?' I inquired, as we began to walk back the
dark avenue.
"'Yes,' he replied; 'the unhappy find in darkness and solitude their
most suitable companions.'
"I did not have the courage to ask him why he was unhappy; we went on
side by side in deep silence. I hastened my steps, for the old charm
was creeping over me and I was determined to escape. A few minutes
brought us to the iron gate which leads from the garden into the park.
Among the shrubbery and under the tall trees it was quite dark. My
heart beat as if it would burst. I was determined, should it cost me my
life, to reject his love, if he should begin to speak of love; and
still I wished him to speak; I was angry because he did not speak. The
few seconds seemed to be an eternity--an eternity of fear and hope. We
were standing at the gate. Oswald opened it. I thanked him, and wished
him good-night. He only answered by a silent bow. When the gate fell
behind me into the latch I started like a prisoner who hears close
behind him the door of the cell which parts him forever from life. At
first I felt like stretching my hand after him through the grating and
telling him--I know not what; but I checked myself and went, without
looking back, rapidly up to the house; and when I had reached my room I
threw myself on the sofa, and wept bitterly, bitterly--as I had never
wept before in my life--as I did not think Helen Grenwitz would ever be
able to weep!
"But then I rose and swore I would overcome this weakness, which was so
humiliating, at any risk and sacrifice. My pride, I felt it, is my only
property--the bright weapon which makes me, when I hold it in my hand,
the equal of any adversary, even of my mother! I thought with trembling
of the moment when I should feel humiliated before myself after having
humiliated myself before others; when I should no longer be able to
look boldly into her cold, stern eyes. I knew--I knew with absolute
certainty--that that moment would be the last of my life.
"And thus I went to bed; but sleep would not come. I was lying there,
my hands crossed on my bosom, and I repeated to myself over and over
again what I had sworn; and whenever my heart became heavy--ah, so
heavy! from an unspeakable sense of wretchedness--then I put the point
of my dagger upon my disobedient, rebellious heart, and it became quiet
again and humble! It felt, so to say, that it had no hope of victory in
a battle between pride and love. At last I fell asleep and dreamed I
was reconciled to my mother. She covered me with kisses and with
jewels; but the kisses were icy, and the jewels chilled me to the
marrow of my bones. Yet I suffered it to be done, and she took me by
the hand and led me through dark passages into the brilliantly-lighted
interior of a church which was full of people. The eyes of all these
people were fixed upon me. Then it was suddenly no longer my mother who
held my hand, but a tall, strange man in a uniform dazzling with gold
and diamonds. I could not see his face, for he held it always aside.
Thus we approached the altar; a priest was standing on the steps. The
organ sounded, and song filled the high vaults. Above the priest hung a
large wooden crucifix, such as we have hanging in the chapel at
Grenwitz, which always filled me with horror when I was a child. The
same horror overcame me now; for while the priest was speaking, the
image was continually shaking its head; and when I examined it more
accurately it bore Oswald's features, but disfigured and deadly pale,
and in the side of the body my dagger was sticking up to the hilt, and
black drops of blood were trickling down one by one. Then it opened its
lips and cried aloud--a fearful, yelling cry--and the cry scattered the
crowd, the vaults came down with a crash, and the man by my side
changed into a skeleton. I tried in vain to escape from its hold.
It seized me with its bony arms and went down with me into dark
depths--faster, faster, till I awoke with horror! The dismal autumn
morning was looking into my room, but I thought I still heard the
trumpets, and it took me some time before I could make out that they
were the melancholy strains of a military band which escorted a funeral
past our house to the graveyard near by.
"I tried to smile at my ridiculous dream, and I succeeded; because I
_willed_ it; because I was determined not to allow empty fancies of an
excited imagination to influence my decision. Besides, I could now,
when I was calm again, readily explain how the dream had come about.
The night before I had seen Oswald take leave of me, suffering greatly;
on this very day I was to meet my mother once more after a long, long
interval. My father had brought about this interview. He wished me to
be at a party which they proposed to give, and I could not refuse my
good father this request.
"I went there in the morning at the time for visiting. The meeting was
less painful than I had expected, I found fortunately a crowd of
visitors there--the Clotens, Barnewitz, etc.; also an officer--a Prince
Waldenberg--a remarkably stately, proud man, but not handsome. He had,
of course, introduced himself to me, and asked me to give him a waltz
for the next night. Soon afterwards the visitors left, and I also.
Emily Cloten--I have often written to you about her--congratulated me,
as she drove me back to my boarding-school in her carriage, on my
'conquest.' I told her I had no fondness for conquests which were so
easily made. '_Chacun a son goût_,' she answered, laughing. 'I, for my
part, think that what we do not catch on the wing is not worth
catching. My motto is always: _l'amour ou la vie_. It is true I am a
swallow, and live on midges. Royal eagles, like yourself, must have
nobler prey: a prey which at need can defend itself. The princely
quarry is too proud for me, I confess. But for you--_e'est autre
chose_. Like and like, you know.'
"The frivolous words of the talkative woman had roused my curiosity. I
resolved to examine the prince more closely during the party. In the
humor in which I was I liked the idea of measuring my pride against the
pride of another. Had I not sworn never again to admit softer feelings
to my heart? Thus it was a kind of comfort to me that there were other
people in the world who thought about it as I did.
"My mother received me on the evening of the next day with a kindness
which, to say the least, I had not deserved. It was evidently her
intention to show me that she intended a genuine reconciliation. She
kissed my forehead, took me by the hand and led me to the ladies, who
likewise overwhelmed me with civility. It looked as if the whole
festivity was arranged only for my sake, as if I was the centre of the
whole. Wherever I sat or stood I had a circle of gentlemen and ladies
around me, like a queen.
"It was the first time since I had left Grenwitz that I could again
move among my equals in fine, well-lighted rooms. I felt, more clearly
than I had ever felt it before, that this was the only sphere in which
I could move freely, that this was the only air I could breathe with
comfort; in fine, that I was born to rule and not to serve. It seemed
to me all of a sudden not so very difficult after all to keep the vow
which I had burnt in that night into my heart with glowing tears. I
only smiled at the fancies of a girl at boarding-school. And with a
smile I received the homage which was profusely laid at my feet.
"Among those around me was also Prince Waldenberg. I did not need to
inquire after his family and circumstances. Everybody was eager to
furnish me with information. He is a native of Russia, and immensely
rich. His mother's estates--she is Princess Letbus--lie in various
parts of Russia; he is Prince Waldenberg through his mother, who comes
of that family. Since he has succeeded to the estates, he has left the
Russian service for our service. His father is a Count Malikowsky. Both
parents are still alive, and he is their only child. You see, dear
Mary, here appears in my letters for the first time a real grandee, who
is the equal of your dukes and marquises; and while the prince's black
eyes, however far he was from me, were all the time looking at me, I
was thinking of you, whether I would see an encouraging smile in your
eyes if you were here, and you would say, 'He is worthy of you!' I
hoped you would, for the appearance and the manner of the prince is as
lofty as his rank. I noticed with heartfelt shame how sorry our own
young men looked by his side, and how they all tried in vain to copy
his way of walking and his carriage. He spoke several times very
eagerly with me. One of his sayings I remember, because it came from my
own heart. I asked him why he, who has thousands and thousands of
serfs, was serving in the army like our young noblemen, who had nothing
in the world but their swords? 'Because I am too proud,' he replied,
'to wish to rule where I am not fully entitled to rule.' 'How so,
highness?' I am not sovereign; my ancestors were sovereign; I have to
pay for the weakness of my ancestors.' 'Would you not have given up the
sovereignty?' 'Never,' he said, and this was the only time that I saw a
kind of genuine emotion in his cold, proud face; 'never! a thousand
times rather my life. But,' he added after a short pause, 'I know
somebody who also would rather die than be humbled.' 'And who can that
be?' 'You yourself, Miss Helen.'
"The party did not end till late at night. Papa sent me home in our
carriage. Mamma promised to return my visit the next day; that was
to-day. She really came this forenoon. She was again exceedingly kind,
paid me many compliments about my conduct last night, and expressed her
desire to have me back again at the house, just as my father also
wishes it. However, she left it entirely to me, whether I would come
back at all, and when. 'You did not exactly have your free will when
you went away,' she said; 'I want, therefore, at least to be perfectly
sure that your coming back is quite voluntary.'
"'And cousin Felix?' 'He leaves in a few days for Italy. I shall of
course not expect you to stay with him under the same roof.'
"Certainly, even if my mother does not mean it honestly, she has at
least found the right way to my heart. I am half decided to do what she
and papa want me to do."
The young girl had, as it will happen, felt all the changes of her own
heart which she described in her letter, once more in their full
strength. The tormenting conflict between love and ambition, the desire
to read clearly her own heart, had put the pen into her hand, and she
had at last obtained in the process of writing that peace which had
been so far from her when she began her letter.
She was leaning back in her chair with folded arms, and was looking
fixedly before her as in a dream. She listened mechanically to the
modulations of the night-wind in the poplar-trees before the window,
through which she heard occasionally the low thunder of the ocean as it
dashed against the shore. This music recalled to her the earliest
recollections of her childhood, and with them very different sensations
from those of which she had been writing. Suddenly she started and
listened breathlessly towards the window. Through the mournful sounds
of the wind she heard the singing of a soft, deep voice. At first she
fancied it was a trick of her excited imagination, but as she listened
more attentively, she distinguished the words. The voice sang:
"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear,
I saw it in my dreams quite near.
It was so angel-like, so sweet,
And yet with pain and grief replete,
The lips alone, they are still red,
But soon they will be pale and dead."
Then the wind became louder again and silenced the voice; then it began
once more distinctly:
"The lips alone, they are still red,
But soon they will be pale and dead."
Helen trembled in all her limbs. She knew the singer could not look up
into the lighted room; but she felt as if his eyes--his blue dreamy
eyes--were resting on her. She dared not move, she hardly dared to
breathe. Once more, but at a greater distance now, scarcely to be
distinguished, he sang:
"The lips alone, they are still red,
But soon they will be pale and dead."
Helen thought of the image in her dream, the pale crucified one, who
shook his head so sadly when the priest was saying the blessing; and
she thought of the dagger which had been thrust into his side up to the
golden hilt, and of the drops of blood which slowly trickled down, and
shuddering, she pressed, her face in her hands.
CHAPTER V.
From the moment when an accident had thrown into Albert Timm's hand
that famous package of faded letters, bound up with red-silk ribbon,
and long hid in the archives of Grenwitz, the lucky finder had not
rested till he had found out, if not all, at least most of the threads
of the secret web which he had so unexpectedly touched; then he had set
to work making a good stout tissue of it. The work had not been easy.
He had been forced to use all his ingenuity and all his inventive
power, and finally, when the decisive moment occurred in the interview
with Felix and the baroness, all his coolness and boldness. But the
venture had succeeded. The captured quarry was struggling in the
meshes, and the excellent huntsman rejoiced at it. No sportsman could
blame him for his joy. Now farewell to labor and trouble! Welcome,
sweet leisure, which would allow him to rest after his work! Four
hundred dollars a month for a whole year, and then, "after so many
sorrows," a few thousand dollars extra. Albert Timm would not have been
the contented redskin he was, if he had not left it with unbounded
confidence to the Great Spirit to care mercifully hereafter for his red
child.
Nevertheless, Albert Timm was too good a sportsman, in spite of all his
modesty, not to know the old rule, that one must always have "two
string's to the bow." Albert Timm had a second string to his bow, and
the manner in which he had twisted this string according to all the
rules of his art out of innocent sheep-sinews was so odd that the
artist himself could not help laughing heartily whenever he thought of
the story. Or was it perhaps not odd at all, that the man whose the
booty legally was, not only never suspected it, but actually had been
good-natured and stupid enough to become the intimate friend of the
poacher. Not odd at all that Albert Timm, feeling the first four
hundred dollars, hard-earned money, in his pocket, and sitting in the
city cellar of Grunwald to drink his own health and a happy issue of
all his plans, should have used the _lupus in fabula_, Mr. Oswald
Stein, and thus been able to treat him with champagne and oysters, for
which he paid with the very money out of which he had cheated him. He
who did not think this remarkably odd or witty, as Albert Timm called
it, had doubtless no eye for comical combinations, such as accident
from time to time shakes together in the kaleidoscope of life.
Partly to enjoy the comedy and partly for the sake of a "second
string," Albert Timm had met his old acquaintance from Grenwitz with
open arms, and had even carried the fun so far as to offer to become
his intimate friend. He calculated thus: It cannot be a bad speculation
in any case to be the friend of this disinherited knight. If the
Grenwitz keep their word and pay punctually--good; then it is a
beautiful evidence of your good heart, to let part of the abundance
drop into the lap of the knight who has unconsciously procured it for
you. If Anna Maria (he thought he was sure of Felix) wishes to break
the contract, or if an unforeseen accident relieves you of your
promise, still better; then your disinterested friendship for the
knight whose claims you then boldly advocate, gives you the strongest
claim upon his gratitude--in dollars.
Thus or nearly thus, the first sketch of his outline had been formed,
when Albert met Stein that night in the city cellar. Since that time he
had employed his leisure hours (and he had now an abundance) to fill up
the sketch, and he was so much pleased with his new plan, that he was
already considering whether it would not be better, after all, to
overthrow the legitimate ruling dynasty, and to proclaim Oswald as the
pretender. However, to act suddenly is not the manner of Indians, and
to throw away muddy water before you have clear water, is folly. Albert
found upon thoughtful reflection that Oswald was not quite ripe yet for
the part which he meant him to play. Oswald was an enthusiast, and
enthusiasts have all kinds of odd notions in their heads. For instance:
"Property is theft," or "the true beggars are the true kings," and so
forth. Might he not take up one of these odd notions at the very moment
when he ought to have acted promptly? It is true he found Oswald
greatly changed since he had seen him last. He seemed to have laid
aside his dreamy sentimentality, and to be filled with a concealed
restlessness, which broke forth now in extravagant merriment, and now
in savage, ironical bitterness. But who can ever judge rightly of
problematic characters? A remnant of the old ideology was no doubt
still there, and that had first to be driven out thoroughly. Faust,
just escaped from his cell, must find it impossible to return; he must
be taught to relish gay life; and how could he have found a better
teacher in this noble art than in the past grand master of all merry
fellows, the invincible Albert Timm, whose very sight was a laughing
protest against all old fogyism. And then there was a will-o'-the-wisp
with which the knight, wandering helplessly in the labyrinth of his
passions, could be led far into the morass, from where there was no
escape. This will-o'-the-wisp was love; his love for a certain great
and rich lady, for whose sake it was well worth while to leave the
straight road; a love which the knight had in the meantime confessed to
his friend, and which the friend fanned in a way which would have done
honor to the cleverest Marinelli. When the knight was once lured far
enough to make the return impossible, when he had been turned round and
round till he knew no longer where his head was, then the moment had
come when he might go up to him and say: Honored knight, what will you
give your Pylades if he enables you to possess all the glorious things
which heretofore have been mere phantoms seen in voluptuous dreams, in
tangible reality?
Unfortunately Oswald spared him much of the trouble. He was at that
time unhappier and less self-reliant than he had ever been before.
Berger's doctrine of contempt was a bad seed, which had fallen upon soil
only too fertile. And since Oswald thought he had been betrayed by Melitta,
he had, in order to be able the more readily to betray her himself,
irrevocably lost the better part of his self-respect. It did not avail him
that he charged all the blame of the rupture with Melitta upon her, that
he called her a heartless coquette, who had betrayed him disgracefully,
and who now laughed at the poor victim (how many were there in all?) in
the arms of her lover. There was a voice continually whispering to him,
which he could not silence, and which repeated again and again: You lie,
you lie; a woman with such deep, loving eyes is not heartless; a woman
capable of such love is not a coquette; a woman with such noble thoughts
and feelings does not betray the man whose happiness she knows is in herself
alone.
But even his love for Helen was but a faint reflex of that heavenly,
pure flame which had lighted up his heart like the moon in a dark night
during the time of his love for Melitta. There was in this love much of
that weird, consuming fire of an eager devouring passion which knows no
holy reverence for its idol.
To all this must be added, that he felt indescribably unhappy in his
position. His duties at the college were repugnant to him, when he had
hardly begun them. The virtues required by the exceedingly difficult
vocation of a teacher: industry, perseverance, patience, self-denial,
he had practised little in his life. The close air of the class-room,
and the noise of a crowd of merry boys were a torment for his
over-wrought nerves. And then his colleagues! this Rector Clemens,
overflowing with a false humanity; this stiff, wooden Professor
Snellius; this Doctor Kubel, combining easy comfort with so-called wit;
these lions of learning, Winimer and Broadfoot. Gulliver meeting, on
his famous travels, with the man-like, and therefore awfully hideous
Yahoos, could not feel a greater aversion for them than Oswald did for
those people with whom his position brought him in daily contact. And
these Yahoos were exceedingly obliging and familiar; they seemed to
have no suspicion of their ugliness; they overwhelmed the new comer
with all possible kindnesses; they invited him again and again to
evenings at whist, and evenings at tenpins, æsthetic teas, and dramatic
readings! They did not seem to mind at all his reserve, his chilling
coldness; on the contrary, they saw in it the awkwardness of a young
man who has not moved much in good company, and must be encouraged.
Even the ladies seemed to be full of this notion, especially Mrs.
Rector Clemens, who declared openly her intention to take the shy young
man, who was standing so sadly alone in the world, under her wings, and
who had already begun to carry out her threat. "I like you, dear
Stein!" said the energetic lady; "you have conquered my heart, and
gained by your reading of the 'Captain' a place in our dramatic club. I
consider it my duty to polish the younger colleagues. True humanity can
only be acquired in intercourse with refined ladies. For what says the
poet: 'If you wish to know what is becoming, ask noble ladies!' Look at
our colleague, Winimer! You have no idea what a bashful, awkward man he
was two years ago when he first came here, and what a charming young
man I have made of him! Well, with help from above, I shall probably do
as well with you."
Oswald overlooked, of course, the natural bonhommie which prompted this
and similar little speeches, and only saw the ridiculous form, at which
he laughed mercilessly with Timm, whose company he sought regularly
after these inflictions.
But there was in Grunwald, besides the fair manager of the dramatic
club, yet another lady who thought she had an older and better right to
humanize the young scapegrace, and who was the less willing to yield
her part to a rival, as she had elsewhere also been mortally offended
by her in her most sacred feelings.
This lady was the authoress of the "Cornflowers."
Primula still trembled whenever she thought of the terrible evening on
which she had been expected to become the murderer of a great general
and hero, and her only consolation was that so far from reading the
part allotted her she had scarcely commenced it. But, however that
might be, her hatred and her contempt for the people who had treated
her with such indignity remained the same. She declared that an
unexpected meeting with Mrs. Rector Clemens might have the most
disastrous consequences for her health. She carried, even at first, the
precaution so far that she never went out without sending her husband
some twenty or thirty yards ahead, so that he could warn her in time of
the probable approach of the "Gorgon's head;" and although this extreme
nervousness gradually subsided, the mere mention of her adversary's
name continued still to cause her immediately great and painful
emotion.
But Primula's enterprising spirit did not rest long content with such
an apparently passive resistance. Her adversary, and not she alone, but
her whole kin and her whole circle, must not merely be despised in
silence; they must be positively humiliated. She must be cut to the
heart, or, as the poetess called it in Maenadic passionateness, "the
flaming firebrand must be hurled upon her own hearth." This, however,
could be done in no other way than by exploding the dramatic club by
establishing another club in opposition, which should contain, under
Primula's direction, all the intelligence of Grunwald, and eclipse the
club of the schoolmasters as completely as the moon eclipses a fixed
star of first magnitude. To preside over such a club at Grunwald had
long been Primula's favorite dream when she was still wandering in the
evening twilight by the side of the Fragmentist through the fields of
Fashwitz, winding a wreath of blue cyanes for herself in sweet
anticipation of the triumphs which she was to celebrate hereafter. She
had thought this dream near its fulfilment when she crossed the
threshold of the reception rooms in Rector Clemens's house, her
Wallenstein in her hand, and the part of Thekla word by word in her
head. She had expected that evening to be the hour of her triumph. Was
it not to be foreseen--or, more correctly speaking, was it not a matter
of course--that as soon as she, Primula, had read the first lines, an
immense storm of applause would break out; that the men would beat upon
their shields (or books), and men and women would exclaim as with one
accord:
"Hail, thrice hail, to the proud light
That makes our darkness bright!
Oh, poetess of lofty mien,
Be thou hereafter our queen!
Oh, don't deny this prayer of ours,
Great author of 'Cornflowers!'"
For this was the Pæan which the authoress had herself composed for the
occasion.
Now she saw clearly that she had chosen the wrong road. The scales had
fallen from her eyes. What had she, the thoughtful weaver of
cornflower-wreaths, to do with the conflict of tragic passions; she,
the poetess of the famous Ode to the Mole that she found dead by the
wayside, and to the May-bug that lay on its back, in a _dramatic_ club?
A lyric club it ought to be; and to establish such a lyric club in open
and explicit opposition to the dramatic club at Rector Clemens's house
was the thought which, as the poetess sang in her own words, "was
rushing through her soul like a mighty tempest in spring, calling forth
a thousand germs irresistibly, and yet overthrowing everything in its
path." Who could resist such inspiration?
Surely not the author of the Fragments, who was filled with like
ambition, and whose vanity had been most deeply offended by the conduct
of the pedagogues. He became the first pupil of the prophetess.
But a prophetess and one pupil make no congregation; and husband and
wife, however clever they my be, do not make a club when they sit at
the tea-table. The first condition of their success was, therefore,
that prophetess and pupil should go forth as fishers of men; that is to
say, of members of the new club. The task was not so easy. Professor
Jager knew comparatively little of Grunwald society, which he had only
seen at a distance when he was a poor student there. His wife, on the
other hand, a native of the town, the seventh daughter of
Superintendent Doctor Darkling, knew of course the society well; but
the society knew her also as a bugbear of fright and disgust, on
account of her eccentricities, long before Jager, then a candidate for
holy orders, had courted her, and at last upon his appointment to the
curacy of Fashwitz had carried her home under his lowly roof. Although
the prophetess, therefore, stood at the shore and cast out her nets day
after day, and from morning till night, she had as yet caught but few
fish. This would have been extremely painful for a sensitive poetess if
her favorite Oswald had not been among the few captives.
His conduct on that evening had won him Primula's heart, a large slice
of which he possessed already before, and to a certain degree also the
heart of the Fragmentist. Both had urgently requested him not to forget
the "hospitable friends of Argos in the plains of the Scamander," and
Oswald had accepted the invitation in a fit of malicious curiosity. He
had vied during the visit with the professor and the professor's wife
in sarcasm against the pedagogues and their wives, and had at last,
when Primula revealed to him her plan of a club, entered into her views
with the greatest enthusiasm. He had promised to interest the surveyor,
Mr. Albert Timm, whom everybody in Grunwald knew as a very clever man,
for the plan, and the poetess had in reward for such a happy thought
embraced him before the eyes of her husband.
Since that visit not a day had elapsed on which a poetical epistle
written by Primula had not reached Oswald. She inquired anxiously after
the success of his efforts--little notes which Oswald carefully kept,
and then read at night, of course without mentioning names, in the city
cellar before the "Rats' Nest." This was the name of a secret society
which held every evening its sessions in the above-mentioned rooms, and
to which Oswald had the honor to belong as honorary member. His reading
invariably provoked a Homeric laughter on the part of the assembled
rats.
It was the day after the party at the Grenwitz house, when the
professor's servant Lebrecht brought him once more one of these
poetical inquiries, written on pink paper. This time, however, it
seemed to be of special importance, for Lebrecht, a pale young man of
fifteen years, who had been a charity boy a few months before, and
still looked more than half-starved, remained standing near the door
and said, with his hollow, orphan-house voice, "An answer is
requested." Upon the envelope, also, in one of the corners, the
letters A. a. i. r. were written daintily, surrounded by a wreath of
forget-me-nots. The note was of course in verses, and ran thus:
TO A YOUNG EAGLE FLYING THROUGH THE CLOUDS.
The proud young eagle,
Why does he stay so far,
Amid gray crows and rooks,
He my life's only star?
Oh, how I love to see
The dark-brown eagle's hair,
On your dear noble head,
With the blue eyes fair.
Know not what was done!
Oh glorious conquest!
When in thy eyes I looked,
Was lost fore'er my rest.
But to the stars he soars,
He prizes naught below,
That I, poor Primula,
Am naught to him, I know!
Oswald read the verses twice and a third time without understanding
what answer could be expected to such nonsense, until he discovered far
down in the corner a microscopic "_tournez s'il vous plaît_. He turned
the leaf over, and there, on the other side, he read:
"Dear O.: I must needs descend to prose. I was yesterday in most noble
company, about whom I can tell you much if you will listen. This
evening a lady is coming to see me (a member of the same society) who
has very distinctly intimated her desire to meet you at my house, and
who has something to communicate to you which may possibly be decisive
for your future happiness. It is true I should be deeply grieved to
lose you, but my friendship for the young eagle (see page 1) is as pure
as the element which he beats with his mighty wings. Will you call at
seven o'clock on
"Your servant, Primula."
A joyful fear fell upon Oswald. Who else could this be but Helen? It is
true the step was a bold one, but what is it that love does not dare?
He threw with rapid pen a few lines on the paper and gave it to
Lebrecht, with the direction to be sure and not to lose the note, an
admonition which seemed to be but too well justified by the exceedingly
stupid appearance of the orphan boy.
The hours which had to pass till the evening came seemed to him to
creep slowly. Misfortune would have it, besides, that he had to give
two lessons that afternoon, and to an upper class, where the pupils
disliked him particularly on account of his partiality. There was no
lack, therefore, of annoyances and tricks, especially as their young
teacher seemed to be in worse humor than usually, and Oswald allowed
himself to be carried away by his passionate anger--a scene which
restored quiet in the frightened class, but which caused him greater
annoyance than anything else.
Wrath and disgust in his heart, he left the college. Not far from there
he met Franz. No meeting could have been more inconvenient to him just
then. He had cultivated the friendship of this excellent man very
little; he had hardly been two or three times at Doctor Roban's house,
and generally with a hope of not finding Franz there. He knew that such
conduct towards a man to whom he was deeply indebted laid him open to
the charge of gross ingratitude, but he preferred that to the sense of
humiliation which he always felt when the grave eyes of his friend were
resting upon him.
"How are you, Oswald?" said Franz, crossing over from the other side of
the street and cordially shaking hands with him. "You must be
desperately busy that we see so little of you."
"Not exactly," replied Oswald; "but what little I have to do is all the
more disagreeable."
"How so?"
"That school! A single hour in the wretched treadmill spoils my temper
for the other twenty-three hours of the day. Rather a sweeper in the
streets than a teacher."
"I knew beforehand the thing would not suit you." said Franz, with his
kindly, warm smile; "but, Oswald, you know habit is a great thing; and
then, pray, consider, every profession requires self-denial and
sacrifices, even the sweeper's profession. Good-by, Oswald; I have to
call here. Do, pray, come and see us soon: I have something important
to tell you."
Franz entered the house of his patient, and Oswald walked on.
"Self-denial--sacrifices!" he murmured; "that sounds very beautiful
from the lips of one who is happy in his vocation. There is nothing
more intensely disagreeable than to be lectured in such general
phrases, which suit our position about as well as a blow upon the eye.
Timm is right: Franz is a tiresome pedant."
Involuntarily he turned into the street that led to his friend's
lodgings. Albert lived under the shadow of the church of St. Bridget,
in the house of the sexton, Toby Goodheart, a man who stood in the odor
of very special sanctity, so that nobody could comprehend why the very
unholy tenant should have chosen such a landlord, and still less how
the two had been able to get along so well for many years.
Albert was at home. He was lying on a sofa, reading. The fragrance of a
fine Havana cigar filled the room which formed a suitable frame for the
occupant in its reckless disorder.
"Ah, here you are, '_Pompei, meorum prime sodalium_,'" he said,
throwing down his book as Oswald entered, and rising. "I was just
thinking of you, and wondering whether you like Horace as much when you
interpret him from your desk to your boys as I enjoy him here on my
sofa with a good cigar between my teeth. Isn't he a famous fellow? I
always think of him as a small man with a bald head, a promise of a
paunch, bright black eyes and large kissable lips, who lounges, his
hands crossed behind him, through the streets of Rome, casting sheep's
eyes at a pretty girl on his left and flinging a sarcasm at a citizen
on his right, and whose whole moral code is contained in the words:
'Hurrah for Falernian wine and pretty girls! To live without them is
not worth while!' Am I right?"
"I rather think you are."
"Oh heavens! What a sepulchral voice. What is the matter now? Have you
a note to take up?"
"This wretched college!"
"Oh, is that all? Send it to the Evil One, who invented them all!"
"'_Mais il faut vivre_,' as the tailor told M. de Talleyrand."
"'_Je n'en vois pas la necessité_,' as M. de Talleyrand replied; at
least not the necessity to live as you do."
"How shall I live then? I have about three hundred dollars; when they
are at an end--and that may be very soon--I must either work or make an
end of myself too!"
"Don't be such a fool! A man like you, who has a thousand ways to make
his fortune!"
"For instance?"
"For instance, by marrying the little Grenwitz, who seems to me to wish
nothing more eagerly."
"That is easier said than done."
"Perhaps not, if you take the right road."
"And which is that?"
"Force them to give you the girl, whether they will or not."
"What do you mean by your riddle?"
"You are very hard of comprehension to-day."
Albert leaned back in his sofa-corner and blew, as he loved to do, ring
after ring in the air. Oswald was absorbed in thought. He considered
whether he ought to confide to Timm the secret of the rendezvous to
which he had been invited for to-night. At last he said, almost against
his own conviction,
"I received a curious note from Primula to-day; I should like to see if
you can make more of it than I can."
"Let us hear," replied Albert, lost in admiration of a huge blue ring
which he had just accomplished.
Oswald read him the address to the young eagle, and the mysterious
postscript. Albert started up from the sofa.
"Oswald, you are the luckiest dog alive!" he cried. "Why, the thing is
evident. The young lady can be nobody else but the little Grenwitz. The
girl has indeed ten times more sense and pluck than her chaste lover,
who understands so little of the great art of seizing fortune by the
hem of her garment. In good earnest, Oswald, the cards have been dealt
so well for you, it could not be better. Of course, it will not be
quite so easy to take the fortress. The Jager has evidently said more
than she was authorized to say; but never mind that--you have the
outworks, and if you do not get on soon it is your own fault. When are
you to be at Primula's house?"
"At seven."
"It is five now; we have two hours time. Come, let us consider the plan
of operation with the help of a good glass of wine. Charles the Bald
has an excellent hock, and you must drink of that bravely, so that you
may show yourself strong and hearty in your enterprise and permit no
trace of sickly hesitation to be seen. Come!"
CHAPTER VI.
Primula was sitting in her study before a table covered with new books,
magazines, and papers. The door was open towards the reception-room,
which was also lighted up. She had just finished a longer poem, which
had to be sent this very evening to the editor of a literary journal,
in the "correspondence" of which the following notice had appeared
three times already: "P. V. in Gr. Great and gifted friend:--We await
the promised MS. _impatiently_." There it was now, the promised MS.,
written with the heart's blood of the poetess! She had but just placed
the last dot over the last i, and already it was to be sent away into
the wide heartless world, before he who had inspired all these glowing
stanza had ever seen a line of the poem! If he would only come early,
so that she might read him at least a few stanzas before that young
Baroness Cloten came, in whose presence that would of course be
impossible!
There, listen! Was not that a ring at the bell? The door is open below
... A deep male voice ... It is he! it is he! Thanks be to you, oh
gracious gods!
Primula blushed, cast a glance at the mirror that was hanging over her
writing-table and pushed the fair curls from her blushing face, seized
a pen and began although there was no ink in the pen--to scribble with
nervous eagerness on a blank sheet.
"Do I interrupt you?" asked the deep voice, close to her ear.
"Why, great heavens!" exclaimed the poetess, casting away the pen; "is
it you, Oswald? I had not heard you come at all."
"You were kind enough, madame, to tell me in the most charming note
that I have ever read----"
"You flatterer! If you praise thus the simple lines of this morning,
what will you say of these verses which I have written this evening
with glowing brow and beating heart, thinking of no one but yourself? I
must read you at least the beginning. She will not be here so soon;
perhaps not at all."
"But who is it?"
"Pray, take a seat. It has to go to the post-office in half an hour.
Listen! What do you think of this original metre, which seems to be
worthy of our Freiligrath? The title is, 'The lion at the Cape.'"
The Castalian Spring once opened was not to be checked. Oswald had to
submit to his hard fate and allow himself to be flooded by a genuine
deluge of wretched verses. Suddenly the door-bell rang again. The sound
seemed to be but a signal for the poetess to read with double and
treble rapidity, while she laid her hand upon her hearer's arm, as if
to prevent him from escaping. There were only about thirty stanzas yet
to be read, when a silk dress was heard rustling in the adjoining room,
and suddenly the graceful figure of Emily Cloten was standing in the
open door which led to the reception-room.
"I do not interrupt, I hope?" asked the young lady, with a half shy and
half bold glance at Oswald; "I'd rather go away again."
"Oh no, no!" replied Primula, in a melancholy tone, putting down the
MS. and rising; "not at all! I was just reading to my young friend
Stein a few stanzas of a poem. Why, it is nearly half-past seven, and
the papers must be at the post-office by eight! Dear Baroness Cloten,
dear Mr. Stein, excuse me for the hundredth part of an instant. Stay
here in the sitting-room, and I will be back as soon as I have sent off
the parcel!"
The excited poetess pushed her guests unceremoniously into the next
room, whispering at the same time to Oswald: "What a pity! Only a poet
can feel it! The _last_ verses were by far the finest."
She dropped the curtain, partly to be undisturbed and partly not to
disturb her friends, and Oswald and Emily stood gazing at each
other--Oswald speechless from astonishment at this strange and
unexpected solution of the mystery, and Emily also silent and
embarrassed in spite of her boldness and cleverness, but only for an
instant. Immediately afterwards she raised her drooping lashes, smiled
at Oswald from the corners of her large, gray eyes, and said hurriedly
and in a whisper:
"You surely do not think it an accident which has brought us together
here?"
"I hardly know what to believe," replied Oswald, unconsciously assuming
the same hurried and secret tone.
"Then Mrs. Jager has not told you yet?"
"What?"
"I made her believe I had a commission to ask you if you would accept a
place in the house of some friends of mine; of course, there is not a
word of truth in it. I only came----"
A glance from her bright eyes and a quiver of the charming mouth filled
quite eloquently the pause which the young lady made in her speech.
Oswald was still unable to adapt himself at once to the situation. He
had expected Helen, he found Emily--Emily, whose enchanting, coquettish
beauty reminded him so forcibly of some of the most delightful and yet
most painful scenes in the confused drama of his life--Emily, whom he
had intended to meet with a tragic resolve of resignation! And now he
was expected of a sudden to play the part of a lover! He felt a very
decided conviction that he must give the young lady some answer or
other, but the varied sensations which he experienced overcame him so
entirely that he in vain sought for words.
"Why did you not call, as you promised the other day?" continued Emily,
somewhat disheartened by this silence of her knight, in the tone of a
spoilt child who cannot get the toy she desires, and who therefore is
on the point of breaking into tears. "Is it right not to comply with
the request--the harmless request--of a lady, and thus compel her to
take a step which she can hardly excuse to herself, much less to the
judgment of the world?"
Oswald stepped back unconsciously, and replied in a half serious half
ironical tone: "It seems, madame, to be my fate to embarrass you always
by my plebeian want of knightly gallantry."
He had hardly uttered these words when he would have given a world to
take them back. Emily's lovely face, which had until now beamed with
rosy smiles, became deadly pale. Her large eyes grew still larger and
rigid, like the eyes of one who has to suffer an intense physical or
mental pain; her pale lips trembled convulsively, as if she wished to
say something and could not find the strength to do so. Her whole body
trembled, and she grasped the back of a chair. He had not meant to
wound her so deeply. Oswald was ashamed of his cruelty, especially as
he was by no means so much in earnest with the Catonic severity which
he had displayed. He went up to Emily; he seized her hand and held it,
although she made a feeble effort to draw it away; he conjured her in
passionate words to forgive him; he swore he repented of what he had
said; his heart was sick, his head confused, his lips often said what
his head and his heart did not wish to be said; she ought to give him
time to recover and to justify himself before his own heart and before
her.
Emily's pain seemed to be somewhat soothed by these words, and perhaps
still more by the tone of deep feeling in which they were uttered. She
had seated herself in the chair on the back of which her little hand
was still trembling; her tears began to flow abundantly; she permitted
Oswald, who was bending over her, to kiss her hand while he continued
to implore her forgiveness for his insanity--as he called it--in low
words, which became every moment more passionate and more tender. Her
sobs subsided, like the sobbing of a little girl who feels at last that
the doll which she was refused is laid in her arms amid kisses and
caresses. Both Oswald and Emily seemed to have entirely forgotten that
they were in a strange house, where the very next moment might prepare
for them most serious embarrassment, and they were fortunate indeed
that an unexpected and most ludicrous accident recalled them to their
ordinary prudence, which they had completely lost in the intoxicating
joy of the first blending of heart and heart.
Suddenly a cry--a yell--was heard in the adjoining room, and Oswald and
Emily started in horror, both thinking almost instinctively that the
poetess was wrapped in flames, and on the point of death. The first
glance as they drew aside the curtain taught them, however, that the
poetess was not in any danger of her life, and as they approached more
closely they saw what had happened. Primula had given herself up so
completely to the admiration of a successful stanza which had received
at the last moment and by the insertion of an indescribably pathetic
epithet a most marvellous additional charm, that she had committed a
mistake, such as will happen to great minds, and to them most easily of
all. She had intended to take up the sand-box, and she had taken the
inkstand and poured its copious contents to the last drop over her
manuscript, and thence in a black cascade over the whole breadth
of her yellow-silk dress! And there she was standing now--the cruelly
ill-treated sufferer--silent after the first anguish had forced her to
utter that cry raising her sadly inked hands and her watery blue eyes
overflowing with tears to the ceiling, as if she wished to call upon
father Apollo himself to be a witness of the terrible fate that had
befallen one of his most favored children. Oswald and Emily could
hardly restrain their laughter; but all their efforts to preserve their
composure became useless in an instant, when the poetess in tragic
grief pressed both her hands upon her face, and a moment afterwards
stood before them covered with terrible paint, like the wildest warrior
of the wildest tribe of Indians.
"Do not laugh, my friends," said the offended lady, with gentle voice;
"it does not become the friends of persecuted genius to belong to that
sad world which loves to blacken----"
Emily, who was always quite as ready to laugh immoderately as to weep
bitterly, could not resist any longer. She threw herself into an
arm-chair and laughed till her eyes filled with tears.
"Baroness Cloten!" said Primula, with dignity, "I must say that your
manner has something very offensive for delicately-strung minds like
mine;" then turning to Oswald, in the tone of Cæsar dying: "Oswald, I
have not deserved this!" and she turned to leave the room.
"Dearest, best Mrs. Jager," cried Emily, rising and stepping in her
way; "I beg a thousand, thousand pardons; but, pray, see yourself if it
is possible for any one to keep from laughing!"
And she pushed Primula gently towards the pier-glass, before which the
poetess was in the habit of seeking inspiration from her own muse-like
appearance. But now it was the work of a moment to look, to utter a
piercing cry, as if she had beheld a gorgon-head, and then, without
further warning, to fall fainting into Oswald's arms, who was
fortunately standing behind her.
"Pray ring for the maid," said Oswald, carrying the poor lady to the
sofa.
Upon Emily's furious ringing Primula's maid appeared at once, but the
poetess had recovered so far as to be able to open her eyes partly and
to say with feeble voice to Oswald and Emily: "I thank you, my friends!
You had a right to laugh, _du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas_.
But now leave me! Leave an unfortunate being, forced to bear her
terrible fate in silence and solitude. Not a word! Not a word! Leave
me!"
What was to be done? They had to obey a request made in such positive
terms. Five minutes afterwards Emily and Oswald had been shown down the
stairs by sleepy Lebrecht and were standing in the street.
"_Mais, mon Dieu!_" said Emily; "I never thought of it! I have ordered
my carriage an hour later!"
"Then there will be nothing left for you but to accept my arm and to
walk home on foot."
Emily gave her arm to Oswald, and thus they walked for some time in
silence side by side.
It was a very dark, still evening. The autumn winds had bared the trees
completely, and were resting now they had done their work. Winter was
standing at the gate, but was delaying yet a little while before he
knocked with his frozen hand. The streets were exceedingly dark, as the
lamps had not been lighted for astronomical reasons. It was, therefore,
but natural that Emily was hanging more closely on the arm of Oswald,
who seemed to know the way perfectly well.
"Do you know where we live?" she asked.
"In Southtown, I think?" It was the same suburb in which Miss Bear's
boarding-school was situated.
"Yes. It is a long way!"
"All the better!"
A gentle pressure of her round arm rewarded Oswald for the compliment.
They had reached the town gate, walking rapidly but saying little to
each other. As soon as they were outside the town they began to walk
more slowly, as if by concert. Oswald felt that the young beauty who
hung on his arm was in his power--that it depended on him to make her
happy--in her sense of the word, at least. The virtuous impulse which
he had felt just now, and which had been produced partly by the pride
of self-respect, had long since passed away. Emily's coquettish charms,
whose power he had already once felt overwhelming in the window-niche
at Barnewitz, had not failed to have their effect upon his wavering but
extremely susceptible nature; and if he even thought at that moment of
the greater beauty of Helen, and of what he called his true love, for
which he had sacrificed so much--alas! so much!--this served after all
only to make the sweetness of a stolen and half-forbidden passion all
the more intoxicating.
"Are you still angry, Emily?" he said, with the most insinuating tone
of his sweet, deep voice.
"I--and angry?" replied Emily, and she came up closer and closer to her
companion; "can we be angry where we would love, love always, love
inexpressibly, and----"
"And what, sweetest?"
"Perhaps be loved a little in return!"
The words sounded so childlike, good, and true, that Oswald could not
understand how he had ever been able to reject the love of this most
charming creature.
"And yet," he said, "you were once angry with me; and you had cause! I
swear it by that heaven which was then looking down upon us with its
golden stars! How shall I make amends, oh sweet one! for what--oh! I
cannot bear to think of that night at the ball at Grenwitz!"
"Really!" replied Emily, merrily; "oh, then it is all right again. Then
I will not be sorry for anything that has happened since."
"For what has happened since! _What_ has happened?"
"How can you ask? Am I not Baroness Cloten? And why am I that? Only
because you would none of my love! Oh, Oswald, I cannot tell you what a
tumult there was in my heart that night after I had left you. My heart
was breaking; I could have cried aloud; I could have thrown myself down
on the ground; I could have died. And yet I sent Cloten to my aunt to
ask her for my hand. How could I do it? You do not know women, if you
ask that. Cloten, or any one; I did not care who, at that moment I had
only the one thought--to be avenged on you by making myself as wretched
as I possibly could, so that you should have my unhappiness on your
conscience, and I might be able to say to you one of these days: You
would have it so."
"This 'one of these days' has come sooner than you probably expected. I
would cheerfully give many years of my life--I would willingly die on
the spot--if I could by so doing make you free again; as free as you
were when we met for the first time at Barnewitz."
"What could I do with my freedom if I were to lose you?" replied Emily,
tenderly and teasingly. "No, no, Oswald; ten thousand times rather just
as it is now. If you will love me a little----"
"Can you doubt it?"
"Perhaps--but never mind; only a little, and I am satisfied. I can bear
being called Baroness Cloten; I can bear your loving another----"
"Another!"
"Yes, sir, another; who certainly is very beautiful, but as proud as
beautiful; and who, you may rest assured, would not hesitate to
sacrifice her love to her pride, if she can ever love really, which I
doubt. Oh, Oswald, I wish you had seen her last night! I know people
call me coquettish, and I may be so when I have a chance of making a
fool of a man; but then I do it merrily, and not by casting down my
eyes prudishly, as Helen does. I can tell you I was angry with her last
night for your sake. I thought: there is the poor man dying for love
for you; and here are you, the lady of his heart, and you allow
yourself to be courted to your heart's content, and by whom? By the
essence of all foolish conceit that was ever put into a handsome
uniform; by the king of all ball-heroes in varnished boots and
well-fitting kid-gloves; by the fashion-model of our young dandies, who
try in vain to imitate him in the way he holds his head and snarls out
his _Non Ma'am, oui Ma'moiselle!_"
"And who is this hero?" asked Oswald, laughing, in a way which did not
sound quite natural.
"A Prince Waldenberg--Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus."
"Is he not a dark-haired man, as long as his name, with a face like a
melancholy bulldog?"
"That's the man. Handsome, he is not; witty, he is not; good, he is
probably also not exactly; but what does it matter? The prospect of
becoming Princess Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus, and to be the owner of
a few hundred thousand souls--the prince is a Russian--covers the
heartlessness of the future husband with a pleasant veil, and one can
gracefully drop the dark silken lashes and smile."
While Emily was thus acting upon the principle that in war and in love
all means are fair, and invoked the demon of jealousy to come to her
aid, they had come quite near to Miss Bear's house, as their way lay in
that direction. Emily paused and started, for suddenly a gigantic
figure, wrapped in a large cloak, detached itself from the dark shadow
of the poplar-trees at the garden-gate, where it had probably been
standing for some time, and passed them slowly.
"_Quand on parle du loup_," said Emily; "if it had been less dark we
would have had an interesting encounter."
This meeting the prince at this hour and at this place was a
confirmation of Emily's words which could not well be stronger. The
drop of jealousy which had fallen into Oswald's heart set his blood on
fire, and brought him with great suddenness to the same state of
despair in which Emily had been on that night when she was rejected by
Oswald and, with wrath against him and jealousy of Helen in her heart,
went to become Cloten's betrothed. The only difference was, that Emily
had never loved the man in whose arms she threw herself, while Oswald
had been from the first moment deeply impressed with the lovely woman
who was now hanging so temptingly on his arm.
"Here we are!" said Emily, when they had reached a villa which lay on
the same side of the road. Between the villa and the next house a lane,
which Oswald knew perfectly well, led straight down to the park.
"Have you the courage to walk a little further with me into the park?"
whispered Oswald into her ear, as they stopped.
"Why not?" answered Emily, still lower.
But her courage could not be very great, after all for as they went on
between the two houses and then down a very steep hill, which led by
means of a short wooden bridge into the park, her heart beat as if it
would burst; and when they at last found themselves under the tall
trees, and the night-wind blew dull through the leafless branches, she
hesitated, and said:
"It is very dark here."
"Then you are, after all, afraid, darling!" replied Oswald, bending his
face so low that his breath touched her cheek.
"Not by your side, If we were going to face death!"
Emily hung around Oswald's neck; the lips, which did not meet for the
first time to-day, touched each other in one long, burning kiss.
They walked up and down the avenue. They did not mind that they could
not see the trunks of the trees at a few paces distance--that the cold
breath of the sea blew on them; the darker it was, the further they
felt removed from the world, which must not know anything of their
love; and the colder it was, the more frequently would he wrap the warm
shawl around her--the more closely could she press to his bosom, to his
arms. The whole fire of passion which was burning in Emily's heart
flared up in wild flames. She kissed his hands, she kissed his lips,
she laughed, she cried, she was beside herself! "Oh, take me with you,
Oswald! wherever you want--to the end of the world--where no one knows
us, no one blames our love! I do not care for riches and for rank. I
have not learnt to work, but I will learn it with pleasure for your
sake. You laugh; you do not believe me. Oh, try me! Make me your slave;
I do not complain, if I can only be near you! And, Oswald, when you do
not love me any more, then tell me frankly; or no! rather tell me not!
take, without saying a word--take a dagger and thrust it in my heart;
and then, when all is over, allow me, for pity's sake, the unspeakable
bliss of breathing my last in a kiss on your lips!"
Thus spoke the passionate woman amid kisses and caresses--now jubilant,
now melancholy, now in broken stammering words, and now in winged words
of eloquence, like a young little bird that would like to sing forth
all that is in its beating bosom at once, and yet cannot accomplish
more than a soft twittering, and now and then a clear note.
She could not understand why Oswald refused to visit her openly the
next day, and thenceforth to show himself at her house whenever she saw
company. She fancied such intercourse would be perfectly charming.
"Cloten is often absent for half the day. When you are once introduced
at our house we can spend the most lovely hours together undisturbed."
"Never!"
"Why never? You do not want to see me?"
"I should like nothing better; but the question is: Can I do it? But
how can I return into your society, after leaving in the manner in
which I did? It has always been my principle never again to set foot
across the threshold of a house where I have been one insulted,
purposely or accidentally; for what has been done once may be done
again. And if it is not done, confidence and intimacy must needs be
gone, and they are as little apt to return as innocence."
"But why do you mind the others? Those I do not wish to see and to
notice, I never do see or notice."
"You can do that; but don't you see that that is utterly impossible in
my case? Or do you think Baron Barnewitz, young Grieben, or whoever
else belongs to that clique, would leave me unnoticed and unobserved?"
"They shall not come to our house; not one of them shall come. I will
receive nobody; and those whom I receive, I will receive so that they
will not call again!"
"My dear child, those are all pretty bubbles, which would burst at the
very first breath of reality. And if you were really to enter the lists
against your society for my sake--where after all you would be
infallibly worsted--would your husband make the same sacrifice for the
sake of a man whom he certainly does not love, and has good reason not
to love?"
"Arthur does whatever I wish; I can ask Arthur to do anything."
"And if he were such a fool," said Oswald, violently; "I will not play
this blind-man's-buff. If your husband really loves you, so much the
worse for you and me and him. I know that you women possess in such
cases the marvellous power of not letting the right hand know what the
left hand does, but we men are made differently; at least I am. I do
not talk to you of moral scruples, which we manage at needs to overcome
when we thoroughly despise the man whose confidence we abuse; but I
should suffer unspeakable anguish, for which all the delights of love
would be no compensation, if I saw with my own eyes how the man whom I
despise was placing his arm in coarse familiarity around your waist; if
I were to leave you and knew that you--oh, I cannot, I will not speak
of what I do not dare to think."
Emily threw herself, sobbing, into Oswald's arms. "Oh, let me always
stay with you! let me always stay with you! let me never go back to my
house! I will not see him again! he shall never again touch my hand. I
have never loved him, you know! Oh, Oswald, have pity on me! let me not
suffer so terribly for something I did, after all, but from passionate
love for you!"
"Poor, unhappy child," whispered Oswald, pressing her tenderly to his
heart, "poor unhappy child; and unhappy through me! That is the
bitterest part! Emily, sweet one, dear one, don't cry so! Your sobbing
tears my heart. Leave the man who has already made you so unhappy, and
who can do nothing but make you still unhappier. Forget that you ever
saw him! Go back to your husband! You will not be happy with him; but
who is happy in this world? You will get accustomed to him, as man gets
accustomed to everything at last. And thus the stream of life will roll
on quietly, a little stormy perhaps in the beginning, but gradually
more slowly and lazily, until it falls finally into the Dead Sea of
stolid resignation. Oh God! oh God! Come, Emily, it is of no avail to
pity one another. The night is cold; your hair, your clothes, are as
wet from the falling mist as your face from your tears. You must go
home."
He placed his arm around her waist, and led her back the way they had
come. Emily suffered it all. Her suppressed sobbing ceased after a
while; she seemed to comprehend the helplessness of her situation. But
suddenly, when they had reached the bridge which led out of the park,
she stopped, seized both of Oswald's hands, and said with a low firm
voice:
"I have considered it, and it is so. I will not live without you
henceforth, since I know how glorious life is with you. If you cannot
love me, I conjure you by all that is sacred to you, tell me. I will
not say a word in reply--not a word. I will not cry--not complain. You
shall not be troubled by me. I know what I shall do then."
"Emily!"
"No--let me finish. I tell you I will not live without you. If you do
not love me, it must be a matter of indifference to you what becomes of
me. But if you love me, then you must feel that we must be united in
one way or another. How that can be done, I do not see yet; but I shall
reflect upon it and you will reflect upon it, and we will find a way.
Now tell me: Do you love me? or do you not love me?"
"I love you!" said Oswald; and he really believed at that moment what
he was saying.
Emily threw herself into his arms. "And I love you, Oswald, as woman
never loved you before--as woman never will love you again on earth:
And now," she continued in a calmer tone, while they were walking on
slowly, "let us consider our position. For the present, I see, things
must remain as they are; but I must see you from time to time or I
shall become insane. Here in the city, where a thousand eyes are
watching us, that is difficult; but I have another plan. Over there in
Ferrytown [this was a little village on the coast just opposite
Grunwald, where the ferry-boats landed], an old nurse of mine is
living, who is devoted to me. She is a widow, and has an only son of my
own age, who would go through fire and water for me. She is an invalid;
send her every day something, and often call on her; hence nobody
will notice it if I go to see her again. Her son is a hand on the
ferry-boat, which belongs to her, and he will carry us safely and
secretly over and back again. In a few weeks, perhaps in a few days,
the ice will hold, and then the thing will be much simpler. If we do
not before.... What do you say, Oswald?"
"The plan is a good one," said Oswald, "especially because I see
nothing better. When shall we carry it out?"
"To-morrow, if you choose."
"When?"
"At five o'clock in the afternoon. You know we must not cross at the
same time. I will go earlier. You follow me when it is darker. We will
arrange about the return. The house of Mr. Lemberg--do not forget the
name--is the last on the right hand near the shore. Oh, Oswald! Oswald!
Think of the happiness of being with you for hours and hours and no one
to disturb us! But now, my Oswald, go! You must not be seen with me. I
must be alone when I get home. Farewell--farewell till to-morrow."
The slender figure of Emily had reached the gate of the villa without
being seen. Oswald heard the bell; the gate was opened and closed
again; Oswald was alone.
He was alone; alone with a heart in which it was dark like the dark
night which covered the cold, lifeless earth as with a black shroud.
Not a star of hope in the heavens, and none in his soul; dark, all dark
from sunrise to sunset. He could not fix his thoughts upon any point
except the one that he would like to die--that it would be fortunate
for him if his life could come to an end--for him and for others. Did
not misfortune follow his footsteps? Was it not his fate to carry
confusion and sorrow wherever he went? And this last bond, which bound
him irrevocably, if he would not prove himself faithless as--as
what?--as he had always been! Melitta! Helen! Emily!--what had Emily
that the others did not have, except that she happened to be the last?
Thus he wandered about in the park, down to the shore and back again,
and once more to the sea-shore and back again, driven about by the
furies of his own conscience. The damp cold air penetrated through his
clothes, he did not mind it; he hurt himself against the dripping tree,
he scratched his hand against the thorn-bushes, he did not feel it.
Murmuring curses against providence, against mankind, against himself,
he drank in full draughts from the cup of sorrow which a man prepares
for himself in his folly, against the will of the gods and the counsel
of fate.
At last he found himself--he knew not how--before the garden-gate
of Miss Bear's boarding-school. There was light in one of the
windows--Helen's window. It was the first light he had seen for hours,
and he felt as if a star was once more shining down into the night of
his heart. Comfort and hope he knew that star could not bring him, but
it softened his despair into sorrow. He glided into that humor in which
man rises from the chaos of his own passions, looks full of painful
pity at the careworn features of his genius, and feels the sorrows of
the world in his own sorrow. He thought not of himself; he thought of
the Son of Man, as he raised his voice, gathering his strength once
more, and walking on the road towards town, and sang:
"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear,
I saw it in my dreams quite near.
It was so angel-like, so sweet,
And yet with pain and grief replete,
The lips alone, they are still red,
But soon they will be pale and dead."
CHAPTER VII.
A few days later a little company was assembled in the sitting-room of
Privy Councillor Rohan's house. It consisted of the privy councillor
himself, his daughter, Franz, and a young lady who had been brought
there by Mr. Bemperlein: Mademoiselle Marguerite Martin. They had had
supper, after waiting a whole hour for Mr. Bemperlein. Now they were
sitting around the fire-place. Upon a table near Sophie, where usually
the tea-things were placed, stood to-day a small tureen, from which the
young lady filled at rare intervals one or the other's glass. The
conversation was not particularly animated; a veil of melancholy seemed
to hang over them all. No stranger would have guessed that this silent
melancholy company was celebrating what is ordinarily looked upon as a
festive occasion--the eve of the wedding-day.
And yet this was the case. To-morrow in the forenoon the young couple
were to be married in the church of the university by Doctor Black, and
then an hour later they were to leave for the capital, where Franz had
important business.
For at the eleventh hour before the wedding a great change had taken
place in the plans which Franz had formed for the future. The sacrifice
which he had wished to make in all quietness and secret, for the peace
and the happiness of the family, had not been accepted. When he wrote
his friend in the capital that he was compelled to decline the offered
place as assistant physician in the great hospital, he thought the
matter was settled. But his friend was not the man to abandon so easily
a plan to which he had become attached. He wrote again, and--Franz had
not anticipated this--he wrote to his father-in-law also. Thus the
privy councillor learnt what, according to Franz's plans, was to have
remained a secret forever. He fell from the clouds; but his decision
was formed instantly with all his former energy. When Franz called on
him half an hour afterwards he received him with the letter in his
hand. At this decisive moment Roban found himself once more in the
possession of all his original strength of mind and eloquence.
"Do you not see, dearest Franz," he said, "that this enormous
sacrifice, which you make for my sake with a light mind, and, like all
men born of woman, with a heavy heart, overwhelms me by its greatness,
and annihilates me, so to say, morally? You have sacrificed your
fortune for me. I do not underrate that, I am sure; but many a father
has done that cheerfully for his son, why should not for once a son do
that for his father? But when you refuse this place you sacrifice
something which can no longer be counted and valued. You sacrifice your
whole future. You sacrifice the ambition that fills every noble, manly
heart, to reach the highest degree of perfection in the profession to
which it belongs; but more than that, you sacrifice also what you have
no right to dispose of--your duty towards your fellow-men. To whom much
is given, of him much is expected and much demanded. You will find in
the great city a sphere of action such as a Cæsar would envy, if a
Cæsar could ever comprehend in what the true control over men
consists. You will be there, in reality, what the flatterers in
Rome called a Nero and a Heliogabalus: _decus et deliciolae generis
humani_--ornament and a delight of mankind; for you will make the blind
see, the lame walk, and those who are buried under the burden of their
sufferings rise from the death-bed. And pupils, filled with enthusiasm
by your words and your works, will go forth to every land, and thus
your usefulness will extend infinitely, as that of every truly good and
great man is sure to extend. What you can do in Grunwald, others can do
also. What you can do there, few others can do; and it is right and
proper that every soldier in the great army of progress should march in
his own appointed place in the ranks.
"And now, setting aside these inner and moral motives, which bind you
to answer to your friend's summons with an obedient Here! the actual
circumstances also are more in favor of the step than against it. I
know very well what motives you had for your refusal, but--pardon me,
Franz, if I speak candidly--have you not perhaps underrated my
strength, even if you did not overestimate your own? I am what the
world calls a candidate for death; death has marked me already as his
own, in order to hit me all the more certainly the next time, but the
next time need not come so very soon. If you do not object to it
peremptorily, I estimate my probable life yet some four or five years,
perhaps even longer. During that time I shall hold my lectures and
visit my patients as before, and if I cannot do it all by myself I
shall choose an assistant, who will not be so dangerous a rival as my
excellent son-in-law whom they already begin to prefer to myself.
Seriously Franz we are here in each other's way. And when the question
is, after all, how to make money, why then it is better you go to the
east and shear your sheep there, and I do my shearing in the west."
Franz was not quite convinced by these arguments, but he felt that the
privy councillor could not well act differently as a man of honor. So
he went to his betrothed and told her he had received an offer to go to
the capital. What did she say to that?
"Whether you ought to accept the call," replied Sophie, after a short
reflection, "that I must leave of course to you and to papa to decide;
for I do not understand that. But if it must be done, I shall certainly
not say No! When do we leave?"
"I must be there at least at Christmas, but I have to go at once for a
few days, in order to reconnoitre."
"Then I will go with you. You shall see that I am not so unpractical as
you think."
One would have thought Sophie cold and unfeeling, from hearing her
speak so calmly, almost coolly, of a plan which was decisive for her
and Franz's future, and which separated her, if carried out, perhaps
forever from her native town and her paternal home, from her friends
and acquaintances, and from a thousand familiar habits. And yet she
suffered unspeakably from the thought that she should have to leave her
father, whom she loved so dearly and who loved her so devotedly. But
she knew that he would adhere in the hour of decision to the principles
which he had inculcated in his daughter, and that he would expect the
same firmness from her. It was a hard struggle which these two noble
hearts had to endure the night after the evening on which Franz had
decided to leave Grunwald; a struggle such as every son of man has to
go through once or twice--and alas! in many cases again and again--in
his life; a struggle during which the perspiration runs in big drops
from the pain-furrowed brow, and the suffering heart prays: Father, if
it be possible, let this cup pass by me! But when on the next morning
father and daughter embraced each other without saying a word, and held
each other a long, long time, their eyes might gently overflow, but
their brows were clear and their hearts sang heavenly melodies.
From that moment Sophie gave her whole mind to the one great purpose to
arrange everything in the house so that her father might at least not
miss the accustomed comfort when she should leave him. Especially was
she anxious to find a person of her own sex who could fill her place at
table and in the evening, and assume the general direction of domestic
affairs. Her choice was soon made. The very day after that memorable
conversation before the fire-place, Bemperlein had, at Sophie's express
desire, brought Mademoiselle Marguerite to the privy councillor's
house. Sophie had been much pleased with the pretty, black-eyed French
woman, and congratulated Bemperlein sincerely on his selection. Then
already it had occurred to Sophie, that Marguerite might, after her own
marriage, manage her father's household. Now she hastened to carry out
this plan. The father, upon whom the "little Lacerta," as he called the
slim, slight figure, had made a very favorable impression, thought the
plan "not so bad;" Franz "approved," and as for Bemperlein, it was a
matter of course, that he adopted it with enthusiasm. He being the most
suitable person for the purpose, was therefore deputed to sound
Marguerite about her own views; and with such a fine diplomat as
Anastasius Bemperlein, it was not surprising that his most delicate
mission was crowned with the most brilliant success. Marguerite
declared that she was willing to accept the proffered honor _de tout
son coeur_, as soon as she was released from her present engagement.
Nothing, therefore, was now wanting but to obtain the gracious
dismissal of the Demoiselle Marguerite Martin from the position of
subject to Baron Grenwitz. This was more readily accomplished, to
everybody's surprise, than had been expected. The bright, sharp eyes of
the governess had long been a serious inconvenience to the baroness,
especially since many things had happened in her house, and were still
happening, which could not bear very close examination. Besides, she
had always had the principle that it was better to change her servants
at certain intervals, since she thought she had found out by experience
that "new brooms sweep well," and Marguerite had been allowed to remain
long beyond the ordinary term. She therefore gave her, willingly the
desired _congé_, and permitted her even in consideration of the
peculiar circumstances, to go after a few days at once to the privy
councillor's house. It was a matter of course that Marguerite had to
sacrifice a quarter's salary, "in consideration of the serious
inconvenience and evident pecuniary loss which her sudden departure
caused the baroness," for the young "person" who had served the
baroness during five years with indefatigable zeal, had, after all,
done nothing but her bounden duty.
Thus Marguerite had become a member of the privy councillor's family,
and could of course not fail to be present to-night at the great
solemnity in the family circle.
She was, moreover, the only one who could keep up the conversation
to-night without great effort. She tried, to be sure, to adapt herself
as well as she could to the solemn aspect of things, and not to offend
the feelings of the others by her own cheerfulness, but her innate
vivacity did not allow her to be silent for any length of time, and
every moment she broke out into a "_dites moi donc, mademoiselle, savez
vous me dire, monsieur le docteur?_" like a merry little canary bird
who begins to sing loud and joyously again after the first fright has
passed away when it finds its cage buried in darkness.
"But I should really like to know where in all the world Bemperlein can
be to-night," said Sophie, looking at her watch; "he promised to be
here by eight, and now it is half-past ten."
"Perhaps miss Marguerite can explain the matter," said the privy
councillor.
"_Moi pas du tout!_" replied Marguerite, glad to have a chance to say
something. "I have not seen him since last night. I am almost afraid he
is sick; he has looked quite excited and _nerveux_ for some days."
"I was at his lodgings to-day," said Franz.
"Well?" inquired Sophie.
"Well, just think, I did not see the odd fellow at all. He called
through the closed door that he could not see me; he had an important
chemical investigation to carry on, and could not leave it for an
instant."
"I hope nothing has happened?" said Sophie. "Had you not better go to
his house and see, Franz?"
"Very well!" replied Franz, emptying his glass and rising.
At the same moment, however, there was heard suppressed laughing in the
hall, where the servants seemed to be assembled. The door opened and a
strangely accoutred personage entered. Two huge goose-wings fastened to
the shoulders and a bow in the hand, with the requisite quiver and
arrows on the shoulder, together with a wreath on the head, proclaimed
him undoubtedly as Amor, although the spectacles on his nose hardly
agreed with the proverbial blindness of the god of love, nor the black
evening costume with the classic simplicity on which the Son of Venus
generally presents himself.
This strange figure approached the company with graceful steps,
remained standing at a respectful distance, bowed and spoke:
"Most highly honored, happy pair, most worthy father of the bride and
most darling demoiselle:
"I am--to see it is not hard--
The great god Amor.
Where'er my flames burn in a heart,
There I am, rich or poor.
Whoever hears my arrows rattle,
Forsakes the hope of doing battle;
The arrow sent from my good bow,
Strikes great and small and high and low.
And who is wounded by my hand,
Drops conquer'd on the sand.
I now will show you of my art,
A sample, which will make you start."
Here Amor took with great solemnity an arrow from his quiver, saying:
Do not fear, ladies and gentlemen, the string is loose, and the arrows
have, as you will please notice, huge India-rubber balls instead of
points. Thereupon he placed the harmless arrow on the harmless bow and
aimed it at Sophie, who caught it cleverly in her hand and pressed it
with comic pathos to her heart. The same proceeding was repeated with
Franz, except that it hit him on the head. After Amor had thus
demonstrated that he was not idly threatening, he continued,
"Now two have been dispatched,
And all their peace is gone;
It can be clearly seen
That they're forever done.
They know no rest and no repose,
If snow comes down, or blooms the rose,
Until the parson makes them one,
And they are altogether gone.
Then fare thee well, paternal home,
I must through all the world now roam!
Then fare thee well, oh father dear,
We never shall again be here!
Then fare ye well, oh friends of ours,
Who were our joy at all good hours!
Then fare ye well, good people all,
I have to follow another call!
To-morrow, with the evening star,
I shall be gone, oh ever so far!"
The last words Amor uttered with deeply-moved voice. The faces of the
company around the fire-place, which had at first beamed with
merriment, had become graver and graver, and through the half-opened
door, around which the servants were crowding, suppressed sobs were
heard.
"Take a glass of our brewing, Bemperly," said Sophie, offering Amor a
glass.
"Your health, Miss Sophie," replied Amor, emptying the glass at one
gulp. "But now, sit down again; I have not done yet."
Amor stepped back again, rattled his quiver as if to convince himself
that there were some arrows left, and then said:
"So fierce, as you have just now seen,
Are Amor's arrows sharp and keen,
Yet does at times he find it hard,
When SHE keeps anxious watch and ward,
The good young god is full of zeal--"
At these words he glanced adoringly at mademoiselle--
"But she thinks not of woe or weal,
When he of tender love then speaks,
'I do not understand!' she shrieks."
This allusion, quite intelligible to all present, called forth a
universal smile, which changed into loud laughter when Mademoiselle
Marguerite, who had hardly understood a single word of all that Amor
had said, but who clearly saw from the laughter of her friends that
something particularly witty had been uttered, turned round to Sophie
and asked aloud: "I do not understand, _qu'est-ce qu'il dit?_"
Amor was clever enough to fall in with his own hearty laugh; but
immediately he continued with greater gravity than before:
"Then comes the youth in greatest haste
And begs of me, who am Amor chaste,
'With sharpest arrow hit, I pray,
That wicked girl, so that she may--'"
With these words Amor laid his hand upon his heart:
"'Hereafter know how one does feel
When one does love her with true zeal.'
And I replied: 'my dear good boy,
I help you forthwith with this toy,
The sharpest arrow that is here,
I'll shoot it at her from quite near,
Whoever feels this sharp, good dart,
With love will burn deep in his heart.'"
Amor showed the arrow which he had taken from the quiver while reciting
the last words. To the India-rubber ball a slip of paper was fastened
on which something was written, though it could not be read at such a
distance. He aimed at Mademoiselle Marguerite and called out with a
loud voice,
"'If that's not good to awaken love,
Tell me what better is, my dear sweet dove?'"
The arrow flew from the bow into Mademoiselle Marguerite's lap. But
Amor did not wait for the results of his heroic deed; he turned his
back, adorned with the goose wings, and hurried out, followed by the
loud laughter of the company.
"What is on the paper, Marguerite?"
"You must let us see the paper, mademoiselle!"
"Of course!" cried Sophie, Franz, and the privy councillor, who was
highly amused by Bemperlein's unexpected dramatic farce. But Marguerite
had hardly cast a glance at the paper, than her expressive face was
covered with deep blushes. She tore off the paper hurriedly and threw
it into the fire-place. But Sophie, who had anticipated this, pushed
the paper aside before the flames could seize it, snatched it up and
called out, "I have it! I have it!" Marguerite wanted to take the
precious document from her, but Sophie ran away with it. Marguerite
followed her, while Franz and the privy councillor laughed heartily at
the efforts of the little Lacerta to reach up to the raised arm of
Sophie, who was head and shoulders higher. In their haste the young
ladies rushed at the door just as Bemperlein, who had in the meantime
laid aside his Olympian attributes, was coming back, and thus it
happened that Marguerite, unable to check her rapid course, ran right
into his arms.
"Behold the sacred power of the god!" exclaimed Sophie, as she saw
this, exulting. "Here, Marguerite, is your paper. I do not care to see
now what was written on the prescription, since I have seen the
effect."
With these words she made a deep courtesy and handed Marguerite the
paper, who hid it hurriedly in her bosom.
"That was well done, Bemperly," said the young lady in her exuberance
of merriment. "I must embrace you for it."
Hereupon she seized the blushing god of love by the shoulders and gave
him a hearty kiss on the brow.
"I call you to be my witness, privy councillor," said Bemperlein, "that
the ladies are fighting who is to have me, without my making the
slightest advances, and that if Franz challenges me, I am not bound to
give him satisfaction."
Bemperlein had brought new spirit into the company, and henceforth
laughter and merriment were the order of the day. The good humor of the
circle rose in proportion as the level sank in the punch-bowl. Only
Marguerite was more quiet than before; but the joke had been carried
quite far enough, and they did not tease her any more; they pretended
even not to notice her, when she left her seat near the fire-place and
began to walk up and down in the room, evidently buried in thought.
Franz, Sophie, and the privy councillor were soon engaged in weighty
family matters, and did not observe, therefore, that Bemperlein also
had risen quietly, and joining Marguerite, had commenced a conversation
in a low tone with her, which soon became so interesting that they had
to adjourn to the deep bay-window, where the broad folds of a heavy
curtain protected them safely against the glances of the company.
Unfortunately, however, the stuff of which the curtains were made was
not thick enough to break all the sound-waves completely, and thus it
happened that after the lapse of perhaps five minutes those near the
fire were suddenly startled by a noise which came from the window, and
evidently arose from the sudden parting of the lips of two people,
after they had rested upon each other for some time.
The origin of this very remarkable sound was the following:
The happy couple had--quite accidentally--wandered off into the
bay-window; Mademoiselle Marguerite had at once desired to turn back
again, but Bemperlein, bold as a lion, had seized her hand and said
most impressively:
"Have you read what was on the paper?"
Marguerite had read it, of course, but she would not have been a little
Lacerta if she had not answered the direct question by saying: "_Non
monsieur!_"
"May I then tell you what it was?"
The little Lacerta began thereupon to tremble a little, not daring to
say yes or no; Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein, however, interpreting her
silence and her trembling in his favor, placed his arm around the
slender waist of the little Lacerta, and whispered: "_Mademoiselle
Marguerite Martin, je vous aime de tout mon coeur?_"
As she only trembled the more after this loyal declaration, and yet did
not make any effort to escape from the arms of her knight, he said in a
still lower and more impressive voice:
"Marguerite! do answer! Do you love me? Yes, or no?"
As Marguerite had answered this question with a very faint "_Oui!_"
there was nothing left to do, for a man so perfectly at home in love
affairs as Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein was, but to hold the lady more
firmly in his arms and to press a loud sounding kiss upon her
unresisting lips.
And this kiss was the noise which suddenly started the company at the
fire-place. They looked at each other in silence. The privy councillor
smiled; but Franz and Sophie, who had not quite so much self-control,
broke out into loud laughter.
"Oh, _mon Dieu!_" exclaimed the little Lacerta, slipping, full of
terror, out of the arms of her knight.
"Be quiet!" replied the knight. "They must learn it anyhow," said he,
and seized the little lady by the hand, drew back the curtain, stepped,
like the page in Schiller's Diver, "bold and brave" before his friends,
and spoke:
"My friends, I have the inexpressible pleasure of presenting to you my
dear betrothed, Miss Marguerite Martin!"
As Bemperlein had initiated Sophie, under the seal of secrecy, into his
secret, and as the latter had communicated it under the same seal to
Franz, and to her father, nobody could exactly be said to be much
surprised, especially after the scene with Amor and the kiss in the
bay-window. For all that the congratulations were none the less hearty.
The men shook hands cordially, Sophie kissed Marguerite with more
feeling than she usually showed, and it was some time before the
stirred-up waves of deep emotion subsided again and left the surface
once more calm and clear.
"We must authenticate such an event by a corresponding solemnity," said
the privy councillor, who rang the bell, and ordered the servant who
came in to bring up the last of twelve bottles of "Johannisberg
Cabinet," which a sovereign once had presented to him after having been
saved by the skill of the physician. And when the noble wine was
sparkling in the glasses, he said:
"My dear ones! In the hour of joy we can easily speak of past sorrow,
and, therefore, I propose to place the merry, pretty picture before us
in a dark frame, which will make its bright colors appear all the more
beautiful. While I was lying these last days helpless on my sickbed--I,
whose office and duty it is to help wherever I can help--a word has
constantly come back to me, a plaintive, tearful word, which once the
poor Roman plebeians, overwhelmed with hard service, cried out before
the patricians: '_Sine missione nascimur!_'--that means, you girls, 'We
are born to have no leave of absence!' You do not care whether our
strength is used up in the endless wars which you carry on in the name
of our country, but for your own good profit and advantage only; or
whether our lands lie fallow and our wives and children are dying in
misery. To arms! to arms! you call from year's end to year's end; and
we have to serve from year's end to year's end: '_sine missione
nascimur!_'"
The privy councillor drank from his glass and continued, with
deeply-moved voice:
"We also, we--the children of this nineteenth century--are born to have
no leave of absence. The enormous tasks given us in science, in
politics, in every department of human activity, claim from childhood
up all our powers and consume them entirely. To arms! to arms! This is
the unceasing cry which summons us also, whether our arms are the pen
or the brush, the plough or the hammer, the compass or the lancet.
And work--inexorable, imperious work--what does it care for the
workman?--whether his temples are beating with fever, whether his
brain is overwrought to insanity, or his limbs are trembling from
exhaustion--work does not mind it. It rewards him with poverty,
sickness, and suffering, and demands of the ill-treated, the oppressed,
the labors of Hercules. Yes, my friends, we also are plebeians in the
service of work as those Roman plebeians in the service of war, and we
can complain with them and say, '_sine missione nascimur_."
"And yet, I asked myself, how is it possible that we, weaklings and
degenerate offspring as we are, can accomplish deeds by the side of
which those of Hercules and other heroes appear like the play of
pigmies? That our time, so often reproached on account of the
prevailing laxity and indifference, nevertheless is like a parturient
mountain, which produces--not a ridiculous mouse, but snorting
steam-engines, gigantic works of industry and triumphs of inventive
genius of every kind? It is possible only by the complete change which
has taken place in the relative position of men. Then, work and
conflict were in the hands of a few heroes, while the masses were
following in idleness and laziness with loud cries. Now the individual,
however great he may be, counts for little; the whole strength of our
day lies in the masses, which are pressing forward in close columns,
slowly but irresistibly, in the path of progress. This is not yet
clearly seen by many. Rulers, princes, and princes' servants, who have
a dim apprehension of the matter, would like to bring back the olden
times for the sake of their brutal selfishness and their frivolous
vanity--the times when the individual was everything and the masses
nothing; but it is all in vain. The army of progress, endowed with the
death-defying instinct of the migratory lemur, marches on in long,
unnumbered lines, shoulder to shoulder, each man stepping in the
footsteps of the man before him, and when here and there a vacant space
occurs the lines are closed up again in an instant.
"And this thought, my friends, which I tried to see clearly before my
mind's eye, had something marvellously soothing for me. I thought, what
does it matter whether you break down to-day or to-morrow? Behind you
follows a younger and stronger soldier who will at once step over you,
fill your place, and accomplish with the very arms which fall from your
releasing grasp greater things than you could ever have done."
As he said these words, the privy councillor pressed his son-in-law's
hand; but Sophie, who had long struggled with her tears, threw herself
sobbing in her father's arms.
"No, no, my child," said her father, stroking her soft hair lovingly.
"You must not cry; I wanted to prove to you, and to you all, that we
must not weep and wail, but rejoice at it, that we are invincible and
immortal in others and through others. Yes, it is a beautiful and a
true saying, which I read to-day in Freiligrath's Confession of Faith:
'On the tree of mankind blossom blooms by blossom.' I see all around me
budding and blooming; a whole spring of mankind in miniature. How long
will it be before these buds and blossoms will change into glorious
flowers, and ripen to luscious fruit? Will I live to see it? I wish to
do so, I hope so; but even if it should not be so--if I should not be
permitted to see your children at my knee--well, then, you dear ones,
sorrow must follow joy as joy follows sorrow; where blossom is to crowd
upon blossom, there the dry wood must be cut out and thrown into the
oven; and if we must part, we had better part, if not cheerfully, at
least bravely."
While the privy councillor had been speaking, a dull sound of steps and
the confused noise of suppressed voices had been heard before the
windows in the street. Then all had been silent again; and as the privy
councillor said his last words there arose suddenly, in the magnificent
tones of an immense chorus of men's voices, gentle as the spring
breezes, and yet mighty as a thunderstorm, the song:
"It is decreed in God's own council
That thou must part
From all that's dearest to the heart;
Altho' in all this world the hardest is
To human heart
From those we love for e'er to part!"
Those in the room were startled as if a voice from on high were
speaking to them. Sophie leaned sobbing on her father's breast; the
eyes of the men were brimful of tears; Marguerite even, although she
did not understand a word, was yet so excited that she pressed her
handkerchief to her face and wept aloud.
Then all rose and went to the bay-window. Below, in the very wide
street, and forming a large semicircle marked out by bright lamps,
stood the singers--members of the Mechanics' Club, which the privy
councillor had founded years ago, and whose president Franz had been
during the last weeks. Further out an immense multitude, head to
head--men and women, citizens, students, poor people--all pell-mell,
silent, motionless, as in a church.
And higher rose the mighty sounds:
"But you must understand me right,
When men do part, they say with might,
Till we meet again!
Till we meet again!"
The music passed away; the lamps were extinguished. Quietly as they had
come the crowds went away. It was dark again in the street; but in the
hearts of those who were standing up-stairs in the bay-window, holding
each; other in close embrace, it was bright, like a sunny morning in
May.
CHAPTER VIII.
The great woods of Berkow are leafless. Where formerly birds were
singing in the green twilight, and beetles and midges humming drowsily
there the cold autumnal winds are now whistling through the bare
branches; and where dry leaves are yet hanging on old oak-trees, they
no longer whisper to each other lovingly as in the beautiful summer
time, but rustle weird and woefully. Only the evergreens look as if the
season could do them no harm; but their fine foliage also is darker,
and they look now, when all around is bare, blacker and more dismal
than ever.
Rough autumn has blown through the thick yew-hedge and into the garden
behind the castle, has swept the flowers from the whole parterre, and
filled the trim walks with withered wet leaves. On the terrace, under
the broad branching pine-tree, the favorite place of the mistress of
the house, the little round table with the marble slab is still
standing, because it is deeply rooted in the ground, but the green
benches and chairs have been carried into the garden-house.
The open place before the house, which is divided off by a railing from
the farm-buildings, looks melancholy. The shutters on this side of the
house are almost always closed, and are only now and then opened by a
wrinkled old hand, whereupon often, as just now for instance, the
wrinkled old face that belongs to the hand, with its icy gray
moustache, looks out for a few minutes to watch a wagon heavily laden
with wood, which four powerful horses can hardly drag through the deep
mud at the side entrance to the yard between two barns, where even in
summer the passage is often quite dangerous. The old man contracts his
brows angrily as he sees the servant whip the horses furiously, amid
calls and cries and curses. He grumbles something about 'infamous
fellow' in his gray beard; but he no longer raises his voice to give
vent to a powerful oath or so, as he used to do; for after all it is
not the servant's fault, but the tenant's, who has not been prevailed
upon these five years to mend the road. This tenant is every way a
vessel of wrath for the old man. He keeps his cattle in bad order; he
is cruel to his hands; in the third place he knows, according to the
old man's notions, nothing of farming; and, finally, he has a red nose,
and is always hoarse, two peculiarities attributed to brandy, and
equally disgusting to the old man's eyes and ears. And, above all, the
terrible prospect of never losing sight of this man for the whole of
his life (for his term has twenty years more to run, and the old man is
not going to live so long); to have to drag him along, so to say, till
his blessed end, like the abominable ball which the old man received in
his leg on the battle-field of Waterloo, and which is still there to
this hour--no, worse than this ball, for that only hurts in spring and
in fall, and whenever the weather is not as it ought to be. But this
rascal of a tenant--and the old man abandoned his thoughts to this
unprofitable and inexhaustible subject, fixing his eyes all the while
upon the bleaching bones of a buzzard which, he had shot many years
ago, and which (as a solemn warning to all evil-doers in the air and on
the ground) had been nailed to the barn-door, until the voice of a boy,
who has just come from the garden and is looking around the yard, comes
up to his ear:
"Hallo! Baumann!"
At the sound of this voice the face of the old man clears up, as when a
ray of sunlight passes over a rough Alpine landscape. It is the same
voice, at least the same tone of voice, which has warmed the old man's
heart now for a quarter of a century and longer. He rests both his
elbows on the window-sill and looks down upon the handsome uplifted
face of the boy with the light-brown, hearty eyes.
"What is the matter, young gentleman?"
"Wont you take a ride with me, Baumann?"
The old man casts a glance of inquiry at the sky, where dark, heavy
clouds are hanging low, looks down again, and says:
"It looks threatening, sir. I think we shall have rain, and perhaps
snow, in half an hour; that is more than _vraisemblable_."
"Why, Baumann, you always have something to say," says the handsome
boy, grumbling; "the pony is getting stiff from standing so long, and I
should like so much to take a ride."
"Well, well," says the old man; "we were only yesterday all the way to
Cona."
"That is a great thing! Three miles! And the doctor says I ought to
ride every day."
"Oh, if the doctor says so, I presume we must do it," replied Baumann,
who has only been waiting for a good pretext to give way without
dishonor. "I will just open the windows in the parlor here, and then
I'll come down. In the meantime go ask the baroness, and say good-by to
her."
"Yes; but make haste."
"Well, well," says the old man, and his gray head disappears from the
window.
The boy hurries back into the house, but his mother is not to be found
in the "garden-room," where she commonly sits; nor in the "red-room"
adjoining, to which she retires when she wishes to be alone. The boy
hurries from the garden-room--leaving the door, of course, wide
open--into the garden, and down the long walk between the clipped yews
of the terrace. As he does not find his mother here, and yet is in such
a very great hurry, he considers whether he has not done all that could
be done. He hesitates for a moment, and is just about to turn back,
when it occurs to him that Baumann is sure to ask him, sometime during
their ride: Young gentleman, did you say good-by to the baroness? and
that he would be ashamed to have to say, No! He jumps with one leap
down the steps which lead to the terrace and runs deeper into the
garden, calling out from time to time: "Mamma! Mamma!"
"Here!" replies suddenly a female voice quite near; and as he turns
quickly round a bush, which has been so well sheltered by old
linden-trees that it has almost all its leaves yet, he nearly rushes
into his mother's arms:
"What is the matter, wild one?" says Melitta, placing her hands upon
the boy's shoulders.
"We are going to ride out," says the boy, who is in such a hurry that
he can hardly speak.
"But the sky looks very threatening."
"Oh, Baumann says--no, Baumann says the same. But I am _so_ anxious to
ride! Please, dear mamma, please!"
"If it were not so late," said Melitta, looking at her watch, "I should
like to go with you."
"Oh pray, mamma, do that another time. You would have to change your
dress, and then it may really commence snowing, and then we can't go at
all."
"You may be right," replied Melitta, unconsciously smiling at the boy's
naïve egotism. "Then make haste and get away. But put on an overcoat."
She kisses the boy on his red lips, and the boy runs away delighted.
Five minutes later old Baumann has himself saddled the boy's pony--he
never allows the grooms to saddle either the pony or Melitta's
horse--and the two gallop out of the main gate into the bare fields.
When the boy had left her, Melitta resumed her walk in the avenues
between the cunningly-trimmed hedges of beech-trees and the
yew-pyramids. They were the same avenues through which she had walked
arm in arm with Oswald on a beautiful summer afternoon when the sun
was sending down red rays through the green foliage above upon the
flower-beds in all their splendor. How the scene had changed since
then? Where are the red rays of the sun now? where the green leaves?
and where the bright flowers? Is this the same earth that exhaled a
soft, balsamic breath, like the kiss of a loved one? the same earth
which shone in its wedding garment? which embraced the high sky like a
bride in the light of countless stars? And she, herself--she had
changed almost as much; but in her, summer has not changed into winter.
She has altered, but surely not for the worse.
As she now turns round, having reached the end of the long walk, and is
coming up again in the pale light of the autumnal evening, she can be
better seen than before. How graceful and light her step is! How
delicately slender her figure appears as she now draws the silk shawl
closer around her sloping shoulders and wraps it around her arms! How
prettily the black fichu which she has tied over her head, fastening it
under the chin, frames the lovely oval of her fair face! And how much
more clearly the expression of goodness of heart, which always made the
handsome face so attractive, strikes the observer now! And yet the soft
brown eyes look so much graver! the charming mouth, whose red lips
formerly looked as if they were made only to kiss and to laugh, is now
firm and resolute. It looks as if the beautiful and noble psyche of the
woman had freed itself of all that formerly held it in chains, and was
now free from the mists of passionate thoughts, lighting up the sweet,
kindly face in all its nobility and beauty as the chaste light of the
moon lights up a soft, warm summer night.
What is she thinking of as she now comes slowly down the walk, her eyes
fixed upon the ground? First of all, probably, of her son, who is
recovering his full rosy cheeks, and growing up so strong and so
hearty, just as Doctor Birkenhain has predicted. She has written to
Doctor Birkenhain to-day to congratulate him and herself on the
fulfilment of his prophecy. Then as she passes a little niche in the
hedge where a low bench is still leaning against a small table--it must
have escaped the eyes of old Baumann--she stops for a moment. On this
bench she sat on that eventful summer afternoon with Oswald, when they
had watched two white butterflies who were hovering on their delicate
wings over the flower forests of the parterre and caught each other and
chased each other and then rose into the blue ether, embracing each
other, then parting again to flutter hither and thither into the green
wilderness. "Will those butterflies ever meet again in life?" she had
asked Oswald; and he had answered: "That may happen, but whether they
meet with the same delight, that is another question." She had not seen
Oswald again since the first night when she left for Fichtenau. If she
should meet him again! She started at the idea, for she felt that she
wished it. Had she not loved him very, very much? Had she not been
unspeakably happy with him? But no! Prudence and pride commanded her to
forget the faithless man who knew only how to conquer but not how to
preserve his conquests.
She crossed her hands more firmly across her bosom, and her face looked
almost dark, as she went on; but soon it brightened up again, and now
she laughs to herself. What is it? She cannot help it. She must think
of the expression in Oldenburg's face as she said the other night, when
the weather was so terrible and he was just rising to say good-by and
to ride home, "Had you not better stay over night, Adalbert?" and he
had cast one sharp glance at her, and then refused the invitation with
a certain haste and embarrassment. Oldenburg, whose morality was
constantly decried so bitterly; who had the reputation of having had
countless _liaisons dangereuses_ in his life; so carefully anxious, so
tenderly concerned, for the good repute of a widow! Why did he treat
her so differently from all other women, of whom he got tired so soon?
Will he come to-night? The hour has passed at which the hoof of his
Almansor is commonly heard on the pavement of the yard. The young widow
looks anxiously up to the dark clouds, which are threatening more and
more, and from which now a few scattered snow-flakes begin to drop
silently, the first of the season, but melting in a few moments on the
black ground. If Julius only would not ride too far! But old Baumann is
with him, and that ought to be enough for the most anxious heart.
Perhaps they have gone over to Cona and will return with Oldenburg, who
has forgotten the hour over his books. They will be half-frozen when
they come; it would be better to get tea ready for them.
Melitta hastened back to the house and ordered supper, and sent for the
lamp, for it is quite dark now, and she would like to look a little at
Oldenburg's diary. He had read to her not long ago some of his notes
about his travels in Egypt, and as he could not finish them that night
he had left the book and asked her to read it for herself; and as she
laughingly reminded him of the danger of letting a lady read his diary,
he had replied: "In that book, as in my heart, there in nothing that
you may not know." On the contrary, he had desired she should read it
all; he did not wish to appear better or different from what he was.
That was speaking boldly; and, Melitta soon became convinced, acting
boldly. For there were strange things recorded in these sketches,
thrown off with a daring hand. Here the traveller's glance had rested
on the voluptuous charms of dancing Ghawazees. There half-naked Indian
women are standing by the shore turning the creaking wheel of the
Sakyee in the burning heat of the sun. There, on the market-place of
Asyut, black slaves are crouching, who had but yesterday come down from
Darfoor on the large Nile boats. But amid all these sketches not one
single trait of frivolous sensuality! He describes the dancing of these
children of the Sun with the calm words of a professional critic. When
he sees the poor woman at the waterworks, he curses the tyrannical
government which forces even helpless women to work for cruel taxes,
and in the slave market at Asyut his heart is heavy with grief that man
should permit the image of God to sink to the level of a brute, or even
below! "Sorrow! sorrow!" he cries; "such as man cannot imagine--and the
most sorrowful is that when we see such degradation we begin to despair
of man himself, for we cannot help acknowledging to ourselves that
beneath the civilized sentiments that shine on the surface, deep down
in the darkness of our heart the same fearful passions are slumbering,
which here crop out in all their shameless nakedness, merely because
they may do so with impunity under this burning sun." And thus he shows
everywhere the deep, serious mind with which the traveller observes the
manners of men abroad. The same deep love with which he ever makes the
cause of humanity his own, so that it seems altogether incomprehensible
how this man could ever be looked upon as an eccentric oddity and a
frivolous _roué_. There is no lack even of statistical tables,
reflections on political economy, and other evidences of a mind not
only bold and deep, but also learned and most industrious. And between
these are verses, especially on the first pages of the diary, which are
evidently of a much earlier date than the sketches from Egypt; at least
this is clear to those who, like the fair reader that night, are
sufficiently familiar with the author's life to recollect the different
events which have occasioned one or the other poem.
Thus she recalls perfectly well how the baron, then a youth of perhaps
nineteen, once walked with a young lady who was then perhaps fifteen,
in the woods, after they had just eaten a philippine at table. He was
to lose who first forgot to say _j'y pense_ when he took anything from
the hand of the other. She had cunningly made a most beautiful bouquet,
and when the young man admired the flowers, she had said with a bashful
smile, "Would you like to have it, Adalbert?" And when he, blushing at
the unexpected favor, had taken the bouquet without saying a word, she
had clapped her hands and cried out, "_J'y pense! j'y pense!_ I thought
you would lose it!" That was a long time ago, and the ink with which
the poem was written had faded considerably. The poem ran thus:
J'Y PENSE.
I know a little maid--
J'Y PENSE!
With eyes deep brown and staid--
J'Y PENSE!
Her hair in brown curls fell,
Her laugh was like a silver bell--
J'Y PENSE!
It was a summer's day--
J'Y PENSE!
The wood in shadows lay--
J'Y PENSE!
I took the flowers from your hand,
You laughed at me, the dreamer, and,
J'Y PENSE! J'Y PENSE!
Oh, I forgot the word,
J'Y PENSE!
Now sung by every chord,
J'Y PENSE!
It takes my happiness and rest,
Oh, maiden say and be ye blessed,
J'Y PENSE!
Not all the poems are as naïve and full of hope as this, but they are
all addressed to the same person.
Later, the poems become rarer and make way for philosophical and
political reflections. Only on one of the last pages there was written
in a very bold hand, as if the soul of the writer had burnt with hope
and love while he was writing the lines:
Yes, thou art mine! I have aroused to life
Thy fair but cold and pallid face divine.
I gave thee life, and thus thou art now mine!
And I am thine! For all my mournful strife
Would but be wandering in a wilderness
Without thee, therefore I am thine!
The lady leaned back in her chair, let her hands fall into her lap, and
looked for a time fixedly before her, absorbed in deep thought. Are
these last verses true? "I gave thee life, and thus thou art now mine!"
I owe him more than I can tell; he sowed the golden seed of varied
knowledge in my young mind; and if I can look higher than most of my
sex, if I have an interest in art and science, if I have a heart for
the sick and the suffering--it is all his work. And who has ever
faithfully stood by me in the strife of life, when no one else troubled
himself about me? He, and always he! And yet, if I thus live through
him only, do I therefore really belong to him? Melitta rested her head
on her hands in order to be able the better to puzzle out this enigma,
which, after all, the heart only can solve, and not the head. She does
not succeed, therefore, any better now than before, and this only is
clear to her, that Oldenburg has never been so near to her heart, and
has never been so dear to her as now. But now for the reverse of the
medal. "Therefore I am thine!" To be sure he has told me so a thousand
times by words and by acts, but--but--is this love, which dates back to
the first years of his boyhood, which, he says, he has carried within
him through all the changes of his eventful life? is it more than an
illusion, such as is not uncommon in fanciful men--one of those fixed
ideas in which very obstinate minds take delight? Is it not, perhaps,
the love of a Don Quixote, who seeks refuge in it when he is offended
by the fearful prose of everyday life, so repugnant to a great and
noble heart? Is it not but too probable that this mirage may look
charming at a distance, but when seen near by, would quickly dissolve
into ethereal vapor?
What can I be to him? Has he not nobler ends to live for than to make a
woman happy? Can so restless a mind ever restrict itself to the narrow
limits of a family circle? May not what he now aims at as his highest
happiness, soon become to him an intolerable chain?
Melitta sighs as she comes to this hard knot in her tissue. She has
mechanically opened the book once more, and as she turns over the
leaves she comes to a place which she has not noticed before:
"They say love is a mere luxury for men, but a necessity for women; a
_passer le temps_ for the former, a life's end for the latter. But
often it is just the reverse! How often do idle, unoccupied women (I
speak only of the wealthier classes) look upon love as a mere article
of luxury with so many others, while to the active industrious husband
it is a pure refreshing element, which gives him ever new courage and
ever new strength! To the laborer (and after all every man is
a laborer, from the president of a cabinet to the president's
bootmaker)--to the laborer, night is the reward of day, as Virgil says
beautifully. And to this must be added: A woman, especially a beautiful
woman, is overwhelmed with attentions from childhood up; wherever she
goes, a hundred hands are ready to serve her. She is always surrounded
by a whole court of flatterers and admirers. Is it not very natural
that like all the great of the earth, she is likely to have her head
turned? that the worship of a single one cannot count for much with
her? that love loses its value because of the abundance of the supply!
But man! if he is not exceptionally a prince, they do not make much
ceremony with him in life. At school, at the university, he may, if
luck favors him, have so-called friends who help him to bear existence;
but he has no sooner entered upon actual life, than the host of friends
is gone and forever, and he stands alone; he must bear alone his
sorrows, his necessities, and what is almost as bad, his joys. Society
opens for him; but when?--after he has succeeded; and until then?--till
then he has to journey along a weary, dusty road, without shade and
without resting-place, which robs him of the best part of his life's
strength, and his life's joy. But if he succeeds, he is chastised with
scorpions, though he was before chastised only with whips. Even his
friends become now his rivals; and he finds himself reduced to lean on
his own strength, his own courage, facing a world in arms, a world
without pity, delighting in his failures, and at best indifferent. And
oh! what bliss, if now, in this fearful crowd, a soft warm hand seizes
his own, and a dear voice says to him, 'Be strong! persevere! if all
abandon you, I will not abandon you; if others are envious of your
triumphs, they will make me unspeakably happy; and if you fail in your
work and they scoff and scorn you, or if you succeed and they pass you
with cold indifference, then you shall rest your weary head on this
bosom, then I will cool your feverish brow with my kisses, I will pour
the precious balm of good, compassionate, comforting words into your
poor, torn heart.' Oh, thrice happy man; now let the world do its
worst, you tremble not, you fear not! In your wife's love you have the
point of Archimedes, from which you can move a world.
"And thus I have found more than one man in my life who was attached to
his wife with a love which was simply unbounded, which burnt with the
steady light of the north star, unchangeable, through the night of his
life. And certainly, when we find in history an Arnold Winkelried, who
defied death and made an opening for freedom with his body--did he do
it for freedom's sake? Yes! For his country's sake? Yes! But above all,
he did it for the sake of wife and children, who were to him more than
freedom and country and life itself."
Melitta let the book drop into her lap and looked thoughtfully down;
then she puts it again on the table, rises and takes an album from a
bureau, with which she sits down once more at the table. In the album
there are pencil sketches, and sketches in charcoal and sepia, of
landscapes and portraits, etc. She has not had the album in her hands
since last summer, and she has not taken it out now to draw or to
paint. She searches till she comes to a loose leaf, upon which the
profile of a man is lightly sketched in bold outlines. In the corner
are the letters A. V. O., and the date, July, 1844. The leaf has not
come loose of itself; it has evidently been torn out. What unnecessary
trouble we give ourselves by indulging in a moment's caprice! now the
detached leaf has to be carefully glued upon another! Well! it looks
quite well again; but alas! there the name and the date have been cut
off. What is to be done? name and date must be upon every sketch. The
young widow takes a pencil and writes: Adalbert von Oldenburg; the 22
November, 1847; then she closes the album, puts it back in the bureau,
and goes to the window.
It has become nearly dark, and instead of single flakes as before, the
snow is falling pretty thick; nor does it melt now on the ground, but
has already spread a thin, white cover over the lawn. Melitta begins to
be troubled about the long absence of Julius. Perhaps he has had after
all an accident; or perhaps it was the old man. She reproaches herself
for having allowed the boy to ride out so late; she is angry at
Baumann, that he at least has not been more prudent. And Oldenburg,
too, is not coming. If he were here she would ask him to ride out and
meet the two. How cheerfully he would do it!
She goes, seriously troubled, to the dining-room, to the right of the
garden-room, from the windows of which she can see for a short distance
the road which leads through the wood past Grenwitz to Cona. The snow
is now falling so fast that she can hardly recognize any more the edge
of the spruce forest, although it is only a few hundred yards off. She
opens the window and leans far out, unmindful of the flakes which fall
on her dark hair and melt on her brow. Was not that a horse's hoof?
There they are coming out of the forest, one, two, three dark figures:
Oldenburg, the old man, and between them Julius; Almansor and
Brownlocks in full trot, the pony between them at full gallop so as to
keep up. Melitta waves her handkerchief and calls out, and Julius
answers with a hearty Holloa! and whips the pony across the neck,
whereupon the pony shakes his shaggy head indignantly and begins to
race so furiously that he finally beats his long-legged rivals, after
all, by the length of his own nose.
The horsemen leap from their saddles. Julius runs up to the window and
calls: "I was the first, after all, mamma!"
"Yes," says mamma, "only make haste and come in, and tell Uncle
Oldenburg not to busy himself so long with Almansor's saddle."
CHAPTER IX.
It was after tea. Julius had gone to bed. Old Baumann had removed the
tea-things, and then gone out, casting a benevolent glance at his
mistress and her visitor. Melitta and Oldenburg were alone in the
"red-room."
"Now tell me candidly, Adalbert, why you are so out of humor to-day,"
said Melitta, who sat on the sofa, while the baron was slowly walking
up and down the room, as was his habit. "I am not out of humor."
"Well then, troubled?"
"That perhaps. I had a letter this afternoon from Birkenhain."
"That is strange. I have just been writing to him this afternoon."
"Have you heard from him lately?" said Oldenburg, pausing in his walk
and looking kindly at Melitta.
"No; why?"
"Hem!"
"Is that an answer?"
"Certainly, and a very significative. 'Hem!' means a good deal."
"In this case, for instance?"
"Do you know that we were in all probability at the same time in
Fichtenau when Czika and Xenobia as well as Oswald were all there, and
we never knew it?"
Melitta blushed deeply, and did not at once know what answer to give.
Oldenburg, however, did not give her time to reply, but drew
Birkenhain's letter from his pocket, sat down by the table, opposite
Melitta, and said:
"You see, Birkenhain writes, after having advised me, at my request,
regarding Julius's health--'Julius must be spared all studying till New
Year'--as follows:
"'You have so often and so kindly inquired in your letters after
Professor Berger, dear baron, that it will interest you to hear again
of this extraordinary man, especially after having made his personal
acquaintance here at my house last summer. You may recollect from what
he told you in your conversations with him, that his insanity belongs
to the class of philosophical aberrations, and that he defended his
fixed idea of the absolute non-existence of all things--or rather the
great original Naught as he called it--with all the erudition and all
the ingenuity which he possesses in so large a degree. My hope to be
able to restore this distinguished man in a short time, was
unfortunately ill-founded, and I confess that the method which I
pursued in his case was, perhaps, not the correct one. I intended to
arouse in him, by seclusion, withdrawal of books, etc., a sensation of
weariness and loneliness, and through these a desire to see company, to
exchange thoughts; in one word, a fondness for life. But I had
immensely underrated the fund of inner life which was at the disposal
of my patient. He could have lived for years on the treasures of his
mind, and the only effect of my efforts was, that he gave himself up
more fully than ever to his bottomless, original Naught. Nevertheless,
I still hoped for some improvement, a reaction which I thought could
not fail to arise in so vigorous a mind as Berger's. About that time--I
think it was the very day on which you and Frau von Berkow were here,
and I forgot to tell you in the hurry in which you were, anything about
these matters which interested me deeply--a visitor, who had announced
to me his desire to see Professor Berger, came very _apropos_. This was
a young man called Doctor Stein'"--Oldenburg did not look up as he came
to the name--"'of whom a colleague in Grunwald, with whom he was
travelling, had told me that he had been Berger's favorite and most
intimate friend. I hoped the very best results from this visit--a hope
which I must confess was considerably weakened when I made the
acquaintance of this Doctor Stein. I found him a remarkably handsome,
distinguished-looking man, who, however, in spite of evidently rare
talents and thorough cultivation, seemed to be completely at odds with
the world and himself, as we find this to be the case, unfortunately,
but too frequently, more or less, in our most gifted men, thanks to the
inactive, thoughtless times in which we live. I ought to have been able
to tell myself, if I had maturely reflected, that Berger would not have
attached himself so heartily to this man just before the breaking out
of his insanity, if he had not also been a hypochondriac. But here he
was, and the thing could not be helped now; besides, I had given Doctor
Stein very precise instructions before I allowed him to see Berger, and
awaited with great interest the result of this interview, at which I
was purposely not present. The result was strange indeed.
"'When I returned from my interview with you and Fran von Berkow, I
went at once to my patient, who had in the meantime taken a walk at my
request. He had been to the woods in company with his visitor.
"'At the first glance I felt convinced that something extraordinary had
happened to him. He was walking up and down in great excitement. As
soon as he saw me he paused and said: "What do you think of a theory,
doctor, which has never been tried practically?" "Not much!" I replied;
"but why do you ask?" "Oh, a thought occurred to me to-night, which
lies so near, so near, that I cannot understand why it never occurred
to me before." I asked him to explain. "I cannot do that now," he said,
"but I will certainly do it as soon as I am able." I had to be content
with his promise, for it was useless for me to press him further. I
hoped to learn more about it from Doctor Stein. He had left the same
night, "on account of pressing business," as he wrote me the next day
in a little note from one of the nearest stations. What had happened
between him and Berger remained a secret for me; I only learnt from
others that they had been seen that night in a waggoner's inn, where
they had been eating and drinking with rope-dancers, who happened to be
in the place, and who had created quite a sensation there, less by
their tricks than'"--Oldenburg's voice began to tremble a little--"'by
a beautiful gypsy woman with a still more beautiful child. Berger was
very quiet and taciturn the whole of the next day. I left him quite to
himself, for I did not wish in any way to interfere with the crisis
which was evidently taking place. He had from the beginning been free
to go and come as he chose. It did not strike the waiters, therefore,
nor the gate-keeper, as strange, when he went out of the asylum at
seven o'clock in the morning of the seventh day--it was the day on
which Frau von B. left. But this time he did not return during the day
nor at night, as he usually did, nor on the following day. He had
disappeared.
"'You can easily imagine what I felt when this occurred. Although the
search which I immediately ordered, and which was carried out with
great energy and circumspection, had no result, I was firmly convinced
that Berger had not attempted his life. He had too often spoken most
impressively against this way "of tying the Gordian knot still more
firmly," as he called it. A letter written by him, which I received
shortly afterwards, and which bore the post-mark of a small northern
town, proved to my great joy that I had not been mistaken. In this
letter the strange man asked my pardon if he should have caused me a
few disagreeable days by his stealthy departure from Fichtenau; he had
not known, he said, how else he could have carried out the idea which
he had mentioned to me. He had joined, for the moment, a party
consisting of "good people, but bad musicians," for the very purpose
of carrying out that idea, and the idea itself was this: that he
could not put his asceticism, the practical side of his theory of the
non-existence of life, to a satisfactory test within the four walls of
his room, or in solitude generally, but only in the wide world, and
especially amid the lower classes of society, to which he had now
descended for the purpose. He begged me, if I felt any interest in him,
not to interrupt him in his experiment, and promised to inform me at
the proper time of the result of his expedition, which promised to be
very favorable.'"
Oldenburg folded up Birkenhain's letter, after having read so far, and
looked at Melitta.
"How is it, Melitta?" he said; "you were several days in Fichtenau, I
know; did you also hear people talk of this beautiful gypsy woman and
her child, who must have been Xenobia and Czika, if I am not altogether
mistaken?"
"More than that," replied Melitta; "it was Xenobia and Czika, and I saw
them and spoke to them."
Oldenburg rested his head on his hand. "You did!" he murmured; "and
you--why did you not tell me?"
"Because I feared to renew your sorrow about the lost one;
because--listen to me, Adalbert, I will tell you. I would have told you
long ago if I had had the courage." And she told Oldenburg of her
meeting with the Brown Countess in the Fichtenau forest, how she had
tried to persuade the gypsy to come with her, and how she had been
grieved when she found all her persuasions and her prayers unavailing;
and, finally, how she had received from Xenobia the promise to bring
her the child if she should ever change her mind, and how she, Melitta,
was firmly convinced that this would happen sooner or later.
As the young widow told him all this, the tears were running down her
cheeks, and her voice trembled with deep emotion.
Oldenburg rose and silently kissed her hand, then he strode eagerly up
and down the room, while Melitta continued to tell him how she had,
shortly before her encounter with the gypsy, overtaken the wagon of the
rope-dancer, and that she now recollected having seen among them a man
in a blue blouse whom she had then taken for a peasant, but who she now
knew must have been Professor Berger. "There is no doubt," she said,
"that 'the good people and bad musicians,' of whom Berger speaks in his
letter to Birkenhain, were none else but those very rope-dancers, whom
he had joined, and with whom he has wandered to Northern Germany, as
the letter says. Perhaps he is even now in our neighborhood. If
Birkenhain had mentioned the name of the place, I would suggest to you
to go there at once and to do what you can to bring Xenobia and Czika
back with you; as it is, however, it would only be a wild-goose chase,
from which you would return disappointed in your hopes, out of humor
and out of health. I advise you, therefore, to write to Birkenhain and
to await his answer before you undertake anything. I ought to add,
candidly, that I consider it best, all in all, to leave the unravelling
of this strange complication confidingly to the future. Xenobia has a
thousand ways and means to escape from you if she chooses; her
resolution to return to us and to surrender Czika to us must be the
work of her own free will."
"If you think that waiting is the best I can do in this case, why do
you advise me then to do just the opposite?"
"Because I fear you will find it impossible to sit still after you have
once more found a trace of the lost one; because I know that you yearn
to see your child; because I know that the resignation to which you
have now condemned yourself is unnatural; and, finally----"
"Finally?"
"Because, if I advise you to do nothing for the recovery of Czika it
might look as if I did not wish you such happiness, and for all the
world I would not have you suspect me for a moment of such
heartlessness."
"The human heart is a strange thing," said Oldenburg, after having
continued his promenade through the room for a little while. "Can you
believe it, Melitta, that I could now almost wish you would show less
readiness to restore to me my child, and the woman to whom I owe her?"
"Impossible, Adalbert!"
"And yet it is so. I have made up my mind to be always unreservedly
candid towards you, as you are towards me; at least to try to be so;
and therefore I can keep nothing from you. Formerly, when you seemed to
be beyond my reach as far as the stars in heaven, I often longed for
other human hearts to warm me, and to let me feel by their pulsations
that everything around me was not as dead as I felt; or I threw myself
into wild excesses and neck-breaking adventures, in order to feel at
least that I was still living. But now all that has suddenly changed.
Since there has come to me the faintest ray of hope that you may yet
some time consent to be mine, the world has recovered all its youthful
beauty in my eyes; but now I should also like to see the fountain from
which I have drunk this water of youth, free of all admixture and
undimmed. As you are all in all to me, so I should like to be all to
you; to see you have no other desire than to be loved--loved more and
more--as I have no other desire than to love you, more and more. What
is the rest of the world to us? I have forgotten it; it does not exist
for me any more!"
Melitta had let this storm of passion rush over her with bowed head.
When Oldenburg paused she took the diary, which lay open before her on
the table, turned over a few leaves, and said:
"Man strives according to his nature after the general and infinite; in
woman, who stands in every respect nearer to nature, the characteristic
feature of every being, self-love, is much more distinctly marked. Man
represents the centrifugal power of the moral world; woman the
centripetal power. If the former had the government, the world would
soon be in the clouds altogether; if woman ruled, we should never rise
above the top of the wheat-blades that nod over the lark's nest in the
furrow. The way to reconcile the two tendencies is love. When he loves
a beautiful woman, man learns that he is not merely a denizen of the
spiritual world; and when a woman loves a noble man, she learns that
there are higher interests than those of the domestic hearth. They must
complement each other; she must remind him that mankind is made up of
men; he must teach even the most gifted among us first to spell and
then to read fluently the great words of our day: 'Liberty and
Fraternity.'"
She closed the book and glanced up at Oldenburg, who stood at a little
distance from her, his arms crossed on his bosom.
"You were right not to let me become faithless to my own convictions,"
he said; "and I should like to know but this one thing--whether your
zeal to convert me is quite pure, or whether the priestess is not
anxious to direct the eyes of the sinner to the idol itself, because
their longing glances directed at her begin to be a burden to her?"
"Oldenburg!"
"Yes, Melitta, I must say it or it will crush my heart. You know how
dearly, how unspeakably, I love you. The wish to possess you is
all-powerful in me. I have nourished it so long that it fills my whole
being, and all my life is concentrated in it. Without you I am nothing.
With you I defy a world in arms. I know very well that we ought to do
right for the sake of the right, and that he who asks for reward has
already his reward. But I am not a saint. I am a man, with all the
weaknesses and passions of a man, which rise over him and threaten to
drown him like a raging sea, if the dear, the beloved hand is not
stretched out to save him. Melitta, say that you will be mine, and my
deeds shall not fall below my words."
Oldenburg had remained standing at the same place, in the same
position. As in his carriage, so in the tone of his voice there was
rather a tone of command than of prayer. That man would not have knelt
down before a dozen rifles, nor have suffered his eyes to be bandaged.
Melitta felt this; but his pride did not offend her this time as it had
often done before. She answered in an almost humble tone:
"Do not let us act rashly, Adalbert! You know how dear you are to me,
and that must for the present content you. See, Adalbert, this letter
comes just in time to remind us of our duty. You must recover your
child. I should not enjoy a single hour of my life if I were to fear
that your love for myself had extinguished in your heart its most
sacred sentiment. And, Adalbert, think also of this; I am willing to
believe it: You do not love any longer the woman who once inflamed the
passion of the inexperienced youth; but she is the mother of your
child! What will you say to your Czika, if she asks you why another
person than the poor woman whom she calls mother is the wife of her
father?"
"Where did you meet Oswald Stein the last time since you saw him in
Fichtenau?"
Oldenburg said these few words slowly and with withering scorn.
Melitta turned scarlet. A spark of the evil passion of offended pride
which raged in Oldenburg's heart set her own on fire, and kindled the
spirit of opposition which had already been so often fatal to both.
"Who tells you that I saw him at all in Fichtenau?
"I only thought so. Perhaps you kept this encounter from me as you did
the others."
"And if I had seen him in Fichtenau?"
"That would be what I had expected."
"And if I had seen him since quite frequently?"
"That would only prove to me that my coming here is as improper for
myself as it must be inconvenient to you."
Oldenburg went across the room and took his riding-whip and gloves from
the console under the mirror. As he came back again to Melitta he
stopped, and said: "Good-night, Melitta!" "Good-night!" replied the
proud woman, without raising her eyes. He waited for a moment, and for
another moment, hoping that she would look at him or say a word--but in
vain. Not a word, not a sigh, rose from his crushed heart; he went to
the door, opened it gently, and closed it as noiselessly again.
Melitta started. She hastened to the door; but instead of opening it
she only leaned with uplifted arms against it and wept passionately. "I
knew it would come thus," she murmured. "Poor, poor Adalbert!"
Suddenly she heard a horse's foot-fall close by the window. She ran
from the door to the window and opened it, she leaned far out and cried
"Adalbert! Adalbert!" but the storm that drove the icy snow-flakes in
her face swept away her voice, and the black shadow of horse and rider,
which was but just now gliding noiselessly over the white plain and
through the gray night, was at the next moment no longer to be
distinguished.
CHAPTER X.
Winter has come during the night to the island, and still the
snow-storm rages; and the countless flakes, swept down by its swift
wings from northern lands, fall thick upon roofs and trees, upon
meadows and fields; and one who looked for a time into the darkling
air, from which the white stars are dropping forever, felt as if he
were rising upward with moderate rapidity--up and up, into the gray
boundless space.
Oldenburg seemed to-day to enjoy the melancholy sight to his heart's
content. He is standing by the window in his study at the Solitude, and
looks fixedly at the sea, or rather at the snow-filled air, for of the
sea little or nothing can be seen to-day. He has been standing there
many hours to-day, and scarcely noticed Herrman, who comes and goes
with mournful mien, and packs several large trunks which stand open
about the room, filling them with clothes and linen and books. The good
servant's good wife Thusnelda, the comfortable fat housekeeper, has
repeatedly bustled into the room under some pretext or other, and once
actually dared to ask her master if he would not come to dinner. But he
had only replied,
"Very well, my good woman."
Since then several hours have elapsed. The baron had intended to leave
directly after dinner, but he had not ordered the horses yet. He can
hardly hope that the weather will clear up, for the store-houses of
snow seem to be inexhaustible; and besides, it would be the first time
that he allows the bad weather to keep him from carrying out his
purpose. Moreover, if he had intended to reach the ferry before night,
noon would have been the very latest hour at which to start. He is
probably not very much pressed to go. Perhaps he is rather pleased to
see the snow-storm, as it gives him an excuse from without; or it may
be he expects some important news, for he has repeatedly asked during
the day. "Has nobody been here?" And every time when his old Herrmann
has been compelled to answer, according to the truth, "No, sir!" he has
turned again to the window and continued to drum upon the panes with
his fingers.
It does not look very probable now that anybody will come. The
muddy-red streak far down on the horizon shows that the sun, which has
been invisible all day long, is sinking into the sea. A fierce blow,
shaking the windows and racing with a howl and a groan around the house
and through the high tops of the pine-trees, tears the snow-filled air
asunder, and the infinite waste of gray waters, with their foam-crested
waves, spreads out in fearful solemnity before the glance of the
solitary man. He opens the door and steps out on the balcony; he leans
upon the railing through whose iron bars the wind is whistling in
shrill notes. He does not cast a look at the tall chalk-cliffs which
stretch far out to the right and the left, and which now, with the
stern forests they bear on their rugged brow, shine in the setting sun
for a moment in blood-red colors. He looks fixedly down, where, a
hundred feet below him, the wild ocean lashes the huge blocks of rock
on the shore with grim thunder. The white spray rises at times in
eddies, driven up by the fierce wind between sharp edges of the steep
walls, till it reaches him and fills his hair and beard with icy-cold
drops. But he does not mind it. In his soul there rages a wilder and
stormier tempest than without. He feels as if he were utterly alone in
this desert of a world--as if upon this desert an eternal night were
gradually sinking down, and as if he were condemned to live on in this
eternal darkness.
It serves you right! he murmured. Why did you let yourself be led by
the nose once more, when you ought to have known perfectly well how it
would end? And yet! She was so sweet, so kind all these days; she has
never been so before. Could I close my ear to the siren-song that never
sounded nearer or dearer to me? Siren-song--that it is! What do women
know of the true love which men feel in their hearts? All is caprice
with them--idle play and vanity. A pair of blue eyes, a smooth tongue,
and courteous ways, and you have the doll that pleases good little
children. They do not ask whether the little doll has a heart in her
bosom, or brains in her head. On the contrary, that might be
inconvenient, tedious; that would not suit the nursery.
Well, let it be, then! Let me lay aside the fool's cap forever and for
aye! As the evening twilight darkens yonder on the rocks, I will wipe
off this rosy illusion from my soul and grow rough like the wintry sea;
and as nobody loves me, I will love nobody in return. I will go through
life lonely, as that snowbird is winging his way through the pathless
air, and not even ask whether he has prepared for himself a sheltering
nest under some overhanging cliff on the coast.
"That you will not do! You are a man; and a man is a great deal more
than the birds under the heavens."
Oldenburg turned round in amazement, to see who it was that could have
spoken these words in such a calm, firm tone. Close behind him stood
old Baumann.
"I come," said the old man, answering Oldenburg's anxiously inquiring
looks, "by order of Frau von Berkow."
"What is it?" said Oldenburg, his blood rushing madly to his heart;
"speak out! Frau von Berkow is ill, is she?"
"Not Frau von Berkow," replied Baumann; "another woman, who came about
an hour ago to our house, with a child, and who wishes to see the baron
once more before her death, which seems not to be very far off."
"A woman--with a child!" It seemed as if a veil had fallen from the
baron's eyes.
"Come!" he said.
Melitta's sleigh, with two powerful bays, was standing before the door
of the Solitude. The men got in; Oldenburg took the reins and the whip
from the hands of the servant, who sat behind, and off they went at
full gallop through the dark pine-woods; out of the woods into the
level land, which gradually falls off towards Fashwitz, and into
the wide snow plain, with its distant gray horizon, and a few
scarcely-perceptible trees and cottages here and there, thickly covered
with snow. The road also was nearly hid, and even the track made by the
sleigh in coming had long been effaced by the storm. It required all of
Oldenburg's familiarity with the country, and all of his skill in
driving, to be able to race as he did through this wilderness, up hill
and down hill, between bottomless morasses on both sides. Not a word
was spoken on the way, and half an hour later the sleigh with the
steaming horses was standing before the door of the great house at
Berkow. They went into the house.
"Will you please, sir, step into the garden-room?" said old Baumann.
He went in first. A lamp was lighted on the table, and in the grate a
fire on the point of going out. The old man screwed up the lamp,
kindled the fire afresh, and then disappeared through the door which
led into the red-room.
Oldenburg was standing before the fire-place, warming his cold hands. A
thousand confused thoughts filled, his mind at once; he walked up and
down the room a few times, and then stood again before the fire.
"Melitta was right," he said to himself. "Before this wrong is atoned
for, I cannot expect any happiness. And how can I make atonement? Is it
not the curse of an evil deed that it brings forth more and more evil
deeds? It was the shadow of to-day which fell upon our souls yesterday
in anticipation. How stupid I was, how blinded by passion, that I did
not understand the warning! Yes, she has an older, a holier right; and
woe is me if I were to disregard this right! It would rise ever and
again and testify against me! But it is terrible that the Furies should
follow us even into the temple where we desire to purify ourselves of
our guilt--even into the sacred shrine which holds our whole
happiness!"
The rustling of a lady's dress behind him made him start. He turned
round, and there stood Melitta, pale and serious, her sweet, fair eyes
shining with the traces of recent tears.
"Melitta," said Oldenburg, offering her both hands, "can you forgive
me?"
"I have nothing to forgive, Adalbert," she replied, placing her hands
in his; "let us bear in patience what must be borne."
They looked silently into each other's eyes for a moment.
"There is still much between us," said Oldenburg, sadly. "I cannot see
to the bottom of your heart."
"That is why we must bear in patience," said Melitta.
Oldenburg let go her hands.
"How is she?"
"She is very feeble: in a state between sleeping and waking, but she
knows me; and she has asked for you several times."
"Is Czika with her?"
"Yes."
"May I see her?"
"Let me first go in alone. I shall be back directly."
After a few minutes, during which Oldenburg had walked up and down in
the room, his arms crossed on his breast and his eyes fixed on the
ground, Melitta reappeared in the door.
"Come!"
Oldenburg followed her through the red-room into a half-dark
room--Melitta's chamber. It was the first time in his life that he saw
it; and, as she led him by the hand to the door, the thought passed
through his head, what a strange circumstance it was that admitted him
to this room. At the door on the opposite side Melitta stopped, and
whispered: "She is in there."
They went in. It was a large, very magnificent apartment, filled with
rococo furniture, which belonged to the guest-chambers of the great
house. Heavy curtains of yellow silk darkened the windows, the sofa and
the chairs were covered with the same material, and the light of the
fire that was burning in the grate was reflected here and there by the
highly-polished floor of inlaid wood. The mantel-piece was supported by
two little Amors, and on it stood an ormolu clock, representing the
entrance to a grotto, guarded by genii and butterflies, from which a
man with a scythe came forth whenever the hour struck. Paintings in the
taste of the rococo period, full of sheep, shepherds, and
shepherdesses, adorned the room, in heavy gilt frames. A massive lustre
with glass crystals hung from the ceiling, and played in the fitful
light which filled the room in all the colors of the rainbow. And in
the midst of all this splendor, in an immense tent-bed, the silk
curtains of which were drawn back, lay upon snowy pillows a poor woman,
sick unto death, who had first seen the light of the stars in distant
Hungary behind a hedge, and who had spent her nights through all her
life in barns and stables, and still more frequently under the open
sky, on the heath, or in the woods, beneath the lofty vaults of ancient
beech-trees. Her large eyes, shining with feverishness, wandered
restlessly over all the costly objects that surrounded her, and ever
and anon remained fixed for a while on her child, as if this were the
only point where her troubled spirit could rest in peace. Czika was
standing by her bed, dressed in the fantastic gay costume which she
commonly wore, even outside of the stage, in the interest of art. Her
beautiful face looked more serious and careworn than usual. She did not
take her eyes from her mother. She showed evidently that she knew
perfectly well what all this meant; that she saw death in the yellow
hue of her mother's brown cheeks, in the pallor of her red lips,
and in the cold drops of perspiration which were bedewing her
painfully-corrugated brow.
Near a small table, close by the bed, stood old Baumann. He was very
busy preparing a cooling drink, and he hardly looked up from his
occupation when Melitta and Oldenburg very quietly entered the room.
But the sharp ear of the sick woman had heard them. A faint smile of
satisfaction passed over her wrinkled face. She beckoned them to her.
As they approached the bed, Czika came to stand between them. This
seemed to please Xenobia. Her smile became brighter, then it vanished,
and she said, in broken German:
"Put your hands on Czika's head."
Oldenburg and Melitta did so. Oldenburg's hand trembled as it touched
the soft hair on the fair young head.
"And give me the other hand!"
Xenobia took their hands, and when she saw the chain formed in this
manner, she murmured something which the others did not understand, and
which might have been a curse or a blessing, or both, for the
expression of her face changed at every word.
Then she said:
"Swear that you will not abandon the Czika!"
"We swear!" said Oldenburg; while Melitta, unable to utter a word, only
moved her lips.
Xenobia let go their hands, in order to cross her own hands on her
bosom.
"Now leave Xenobia alone," she said, in a very low tone of voice; "only
Czika is to stay, and the old man."
Oldenburg and Melitta looked at each other, and then at the old man,
who came up with the cooling drink. He nodded his venerable gray head,
as if he meant to say: "Do what she asks."
Oldenburg did not dare refuse. He took Melitta's hand and led her out
of the room. The clock on the mantel-piece began to strike. The man
with the scythe was slowly coming out of his cave.
They went back into the garden-room. Neither said a word. Oldenburg
threw himself into an arm-chair near the fire, and glared with troubled
looks at the coals. Suddenly he felt Melitta's hand on his shoulder.
"Adalbert!"
He looked up at her with a questioning look.
"You will not leave, I am sure?"
"If you wish it--no!"
"And you will wait in patience till--you can see the bottom of my
heart?"
"Yes!"
"Give me your hand on it."
Oldenburg pressed her hand to his face; she felt his tears flowing. She
bent down and kissed his brow. Then she sat down on the other side of
the fire and fell into deep thought.
The bells of a sleigh interrupted the silence. It was Doctor Balthasar.
While the old gentleman was warming his hands by the fire, Oldenburg
told him what was the matter.
"Hem! hem!" said Doctor Balthasar. "Know all: tubercles in the
lungs--travelling in this weather--can't recover. Hem! hem! Where is
she?--let us have a look at her."
As the three were turning round to leave the room, the door opened, and
old Baumann, with Czika by his side, entered.
"You are too late!" he said to Doctor Balthasar.
Melitta, sobbing aloud, drew Czika to her heart.
"Hem! hem!" said Doctor Balthasar; "the old story--always call me when
all is over--hem! hem! Let us have a look at her."
CHAPTER XI.
Two men from the village have, under old Baumann's superintendence,
removed the snow in the park of Berkow at a place close to the edge of
the beech forest, and where in summer a beautiful view may be had over
the meadow, which slopes gradually down to the garden and the castle.
They have dug a grave there in the black earth, and in the deep grave
the gypsy woman sleeps now the deep, eternal sleep, weary from her
restless wandering through this checkered, restless life, which has
brought her so little happiness.
When the weather cleared up, a few days later, and the store-houses
filled with snow seemed to have been emptied for a time, and when it
had been possible to clear the walks through the garden and the park
down to the forest itself, Melitta might often be seen, with Julius and
Czika by her side, walking down to the grave of the gypsy, which is now
marked by a large lock of granite, bearing simply the name of _Xenobia_
on its one smoothly-polished side. Melitta is almost always holding the
brown child by the hand, and speaks more frequently to her than to her
son, who in his turn waits on the child with almost chivalrous
tenderness. "When the roads are a little better I will drive you in my
sleigh, Czika. Oh, I have a beautiful sleigh; I'll show it to you when
we get back. And we will go out quite alone. The pony knows me better
than any one else; I have only to clack my tongue, and off he goes like
lightning; and when I say: Brr, Pony! he stands as quiet as a lamb.
Don't you think, mamma, I can go out quite alone with Czika?"
"If Czika is willing to go with you, why not?"
Czika's dark face had brightened up a little while Julius was speaking,
but now a cloud was passing over it once more.
"Czika would like to have Hamet back again," she said, looking with her
gazelle eyes into the far distance.
"Who is Hamet, Czika?" inquired Julius.
"Hamet? Hamet is Czika's donkey!"
"Pshaw; a donkey!" cries the boy, curving his upper lip contemptuously;
but a glance from his mother's eye makes a sudden blush of shame to
rise on his cheek.
"Where is your donkey, Czika?" he asks, with kindly sympathy.
"Hamet is dead, Mother and I buried him in the forest."
"Why, that's a pity. Well, never mind, Czika; I will buy you another
one. You know, mamma, Mr. Griebenow, the gamekeeper at Fashwitz, has a
big donkey, with such immense ears. Oh, Czika! the pony always shies
when we meet him. But that does not matter. He must get accustomed to
it, or else"--and Julius threatened him with his switch--"I'll soon
teach him better. Wont you, mamma, wont you let me go over with Baumann
and buy the donkey? Griebenow has offered him to me several times. Wont
you, dear mamma?"
"Certainly," said Melitta; "and his name shall be Hamet."
"Oh that is beautiful," cried Julius; "and then we can ride out, all
three of us. You on Bella, I on the pony, and Czika on Hamet; and
then--but no, I am afraid Hamet wont be able to keep up with us!" he
interrupts himself, and looks very grave and sober.
"Then we will go slowly."
"Well, to be sure, we can do that. We will ride very slowly, Czika; I
should not like you to have a fall for anything in the world."
Thus the boy prattles on; and Melitta is delighted to see that his
prattling and his cheerful ways have some effect upon Czika. She thinks
of the time when the Brown Countess first came to Berkow, and how she
had wished even then, long before she had any suspicion that the girl
could be Oldenburg's child, to keep her, and to bring her up with her
Julius; and how strangely her wish had now come to be fulfilled. And
then her thoughts are wandering into the future, and of the possible
time when she may call these children "our children." And when they get
to the granite block, and she has placed a wreath of immortelles on it,
she takes the two children in her arms and kisses them, and says: "My
children, my dear dear children!"
Melitta was all day busy with Czika; and if Julius had not been himself
so devoted to the pretty little girl he might well have become jealous.
Czika even sleeps with his mother, and mamma puts her to bed herself
every evening--or, rather, puts her on her couch, for Czika's bed
consists as yet only of a few blankets spread on the floor, for she has
declared, in her own grave and solemn way: "Czika will die if you put
her into a bed." The little one retires very early--generally as soon
as it is dark out-doors; so that Oldenburg, who comes over at that time
from Cona, does not find her any more in the sitting-room. He has
occasionally gone with Melitta and stood by her couch, but he does not
do it any more, as the child sleeps very lightly, and the slightest
noise wakes her up. He is content now to hear from Melitta that "their
daughter" is doing well, that she has been out walking or riding with
"their children," and that "their Czika" has called her "mother"
to-day, for the first time.
"I fear I shall never hear her call me father," says Oldenburg, sadly.
"We must be patient, Adalbert," replies Melitta.
Hermann has taken more pleasure in unpacking his master's trunks than
in packing them on that melancholy day. Oldenburg thinks no longer of
leaving, since Melitta has asked him to stay, and the house at Berkow
holds everything that is dear to his heart. Every day towards dark his
sleigh jingles its bells in the courtyard of Berkow, and the young
widow often appears on the threshold to welcome her daily visitor.
Since the evening on which his child had been restored to him,
Oldenburg has become more cheerful than he has ever been. He seems to
have taken to heart Melitta's words--that it would be best to bear in
patience what must be borne. He knows perfectly well what the beloved
one had meant; he knows why she cannot yet look straight into his eyes
with her own dear, sweet eyes. He is sorry it should be so; but he, who
knows Melitta's noble soul better than anybody else, would have
wondered most if it had been otherwise. Melitta no longer loves the man
who had conquered her heart in an unguarded hour and in a storm of
passion, but the wound which the joy and the sorrow of this love has
inflicted on her heart is still bleeding, and here also time must do
what reasoning cannot accomplish. The peculiar situation in which
Oldenburg stands to Melitta is no doubt of great influence, for the
time, on his whole manner of thinking and of feeling. He has laid aside
the plans for the improvement of the world, which he formerly
cherished, as impracticable, since he has found that he will have need
of all his patience, prudence, and caution to steer the vessel that
bears his own fortune, safely into port. He is all the more interested
now in the management of his estates, and follows the politics of the
day with unwearied interest. He regrets, when the representatives of
his province hold their annual meeting, that he has dreamt away on the
banks of the Nile the time which he owed to his country. Now it seems
to him more important to discover new sources of public prosperity than
those of the Nile. He perceives in his solitude the first traces of
that revolution which is not only threatening in France, but which will
unchain at the first outbreak the fearful thunderstorm that is now
hanging gloomily over his own country.
Melitta takes a lively interest in all his hopes and fears, his wishes
and plans, even in his impatience for the speedy coming of the hour
which he feels must come. She understands it perfectly well that he
wants to go to Paris in order to exchange his new views with his old
friends there. He knows that this time she does not wish him away, but
only thinks of himself, and on this account he decides to go.
Shortly before he leaves, Czika, who has become somewhat more
communicative, tells him a remarkable circumstance. After Paris has
been several times mentioned in her presence, the child suddenly begins
to speak of an old man who had accompanied them for a long time, and
who had at last brought them to this very place. Not far from the gates
of Berkow, she says, he turned back. That man also had intended to go
to Paris. They press the child, and at last there remains no doubt that
the old man of whom she speaks was Berger. Who can tell why he left
those whom he had so tenderly befriended almost at the threshold of the
house? Who can tell what the strange man wants in Paris? Perhaps he is
anxious to put his shoulder to the wheel and help them when help is
needed; or, it may be, he will only convince himself that the restless
mountain of revolution is once more to give birth to--nought!
Still, Oldenburg is startled by the news. He has made Berger's
acquaintance in Fichtenau, when he was there on a visit to Melitta. He
had then had many a philosophical and political conversation with the
shrewd, enthusiastic man, in which the word Revolution was mentioned
quite frequently.
"The musty odor of casemates, and the foul air of a state where the
police is supreme, which I have been compelled to breathe all my life,
have made me what people call crazy," the professor had once said; "I
feel as if nothing but a breathful of free air in my own country would
ever lift the burden that lies here," and with these words he had
repeatedly pointed to his breast.
"A breathful of free air in his country!" repeated Oldenburg, as he
packed his trunks; "yes, indeed! that would ease us all, every one of
us, wonderfully!"
CHAPTER XII.
The baroness had with her own tenacity held on to her plan to make her
daughter Princess Waldenberg. She had spared no trouble, nay--what was
much more in her case--no expense, and had spent an immense amount of
hypocritical friendship and love, many smooth words, and still smoother
compliments, in order to fulfil the duty of an affectionate mother
towards her daughter.
She had conquered the ground foot by foot. In the first place, Felix,
who had once enjoyed all her favor, and who was now fallen so low, had
been compelled to leave the field, and to take his trip to Nice,
according to the directions of the physicians. Felix had gone quite
willingly. He had nothing more to gain in Grunwald, and nothing to lose
but the last faint hope of recovery. His existence in Italy had been
secured for several years by his generous aunt, who knew perfectly well
that he had only a few months more to live. He had arranged all his
affairs, and spoken candidly to his aunt about everything except that
one unpleasant story about Timm. He left Anna Maria under the pleasant
impression that the impertinent young man had been intimidated by him,
and that he had been satisfied with a few hundred dollars. Felix, of
course, did not desire to spoil his aunt's good humor by touching this
sore point, and thus to ruin his own prospects. He thought he could
arrange such matters much better in writing, and "when she sees that
the thing cannot be helped, she will submit to it." Thus he left the
house, followed by the sincere good wishes of his uncle, and bedewed
with the tears of his aunt.
"Heaven be thanked, he is gone!" thought the baroness, as she returned
to her room through the assembled servants, pressing her handkerchief
upon her eyes; "now for Helen to come back, and--the rest will follow."
On the same day she paid a visit to the boarding school, and had first
a long conversation with Miss Bear. The baroness was very tender
to-day. She had just said farewell to a beloved relative whose fate
oppressed her heart, and who went probably for a long time, perhaps
forever--here the handkerchief performed its duty once more. Her heart
was consequently deeply distressed. "Ah, believe me, my dear Miss
Bear," she said; "it is hard to have to part in such a way with a young
man whom I have loved as my own son; to have to see his youthful vigor
cruelly broken, and with it all the fond hopes which had been cherished
for his future. And poor Helen, also, will feel the blow sadly; for, if
I am not altogether mistaken, a tender attachment had begun to bud
between the two relatives, whom Heaven itself seemed to have formed for
each other. An attachment which was at first concealed, as happens
often enough, by an apparent aversion, and that so successfully that I
myself was deceived for a time, and--quite _entre nous_, dear Miss
Bear--felt quite angry against the poor child. Now"--and the
handkerchief goes once more to the eyes--"now, I know better. But all
the greater is my desire to have my dear child back again. Would you
take it amiss, my dear Miss Bear, if I were to carry off the precious
jewel so soon again, after having entrusted it to your kind and prudent
hands?"
The She Bear had too much sense not to perceive the contradiction in
the former and the present manner of the baroness. She received,
therefore, the confidence of the great lady with great reserve, and
only asked whether Helen was to return to the paternal home at once, or
only at a later time.
"I think we had better leave that to the dear child," replied Anna
Maria, still afraid of a possible refusal on Helen's part. "I know she
likes to be here; and, besides, I should not like to interfere in any
way with her studies, her plans, and even her fancies. Helen knows my
wishes. For the present, therefore, I would only ask you, dear Miss
Bear, to use your influence over my child in my favor--in favor of a
poor woman who is sorely afflicted by a grievous loss."
Anna Maria had scarcely left the institute when Miss Bear went up to
Helen to communicate to her the conversation she had just had. She had
taken off her gold spectacles for that purpose; she had smoothed down
the official wrinkles on her brow, and carried up with her as much
kindly feeling as a sober, pedantic She Bear can possibly feel for a
fair young girl who, in her opinion, has been badly treated by her
mother.
"Let us be candid with each other, dear Helen," said Miss Bear, taking
the slender white hand of the young lady familiarly into her own bony
hands. "My dear Sophie, who has just written to me, and who sends you
much love, informed me at the beginning of our acquaintance of certain
facts which helped me to understand what would otherwise be
inexplicable in the conduct of your mother. You need not blush, my dear
child; not a word has been said that could injure you in my eyes; on
the contrary, Sophie and myself have only pitied you heartily, that you
should have so much to suffer while you are still so young. We looked
upon your removal from your father's house as upon a kind of
banishment, and we thought at the same time you might find a desirable
asylum here. If this is so, and if you still look upon it in that
light, pray say so. It is not my way to create discord, especially
between mother and daughter, but as matters are, I do not think it can
be wrong in me to choose the side I like best."
The She Bear paused. Helen seemed to be more affected than she
generally showed, but her self-control did not fail her even now.
Almost cheerfully she said,
"You are very kind. Miss Bear; kinder indeed than I deserve; but your
friendly interest in me has probably made my mother's conduct appear in
too unfavorable a light to you. We have, for a time, stood in somewhat
decided opposition to each other; but I hope mamma has forgotten it all
as completely as I have. You know how fond I am of your house, and how
much I like to be here; but if my mother really wishes me to return, as
it seems she does, I should consider it my duty to obey her wishes,
without asking whether it agrees with my own wishes or not."
The She Bear was by no means particularly pleased with this answer. She
had opened her heart to the young girl; she had, to a certain extent,
committed herself in order to win Helen's confidence; and now, instead
of confidence, instead of frankness, she met nothing but reserve and
diplomatic prudence! The good old lady felt deeply hurt, and left the
room with pain at her heart, after having skilfully led the
conversation into another channel.
The baroness had shown by her conduct to-day that she knew the heart of
her daughter, at least in one direction. It flattered Helen's pride
that her mother should not even venture to come with her request
directly to her, but prefer hiding behind Miss Bear. She had decided,
on the evening on which she wrote to Mary Burton, that she would return
to her father's house. While she was describing the triumphs she had
enjoyed in the salons of her mother, and the homage that had been
offered her on all sides, she had felt a delight which, to call it by
its proper name, was nothing else but the sweet sense of gratified
vanity after deep humiliation. Helen's friendship for Mary Burton by no
means excluded envy--for such are the friendships of girls; and Miss
Burton had, it must be confessed, done all she could do to fan the fire
of this evil passion in her friend's heart. The young English girl had
no sooner returned to her country from the boarding-school in Hamburg
than she had made a great match, marrying one of the most eligible men
in all England. Helen recollected very well how the romance which had
come so suddenly to a happy end had first commenced. She and Mary, then
girls of fourteen, had made a trip to Heligoland in company with the
principal of the school and half a dozen other girls from Hamburg, and
on this occasion they had gone on board a British man-of-war, lying at
anchor there. The officers had, of course, received their charming
visitors with the greatest courtesy and after refreshments had been
offered, they had wound up with an exceedingly pleasant little ball on
the main deck. The captain of the frigate, a handsome young man, with a
dark sunburnt complexion, had especially attracted the attention of the
young ladies, and would have been still more popular with them all if
he had not so signally distinguished his countrywoman, Mary Burton. The
consequence was that Miss Mary Burton was henceforth incessantly teased
about the handsome captain, until at last the trip to Heligoland and
all that belonged to it was forgotten amid new and more stirring
events. But two persons had never forgotten it, and these two were the
captain and Miss Mary Burton. When the young lady returned to England,
three years later, one of the first persons she met at the house of a
relative, a great lady in town, was Captain Crawley, who now, since his
father and elder brother had died, was Lord Crawley and the owner of a
magnificent property. A week later the fashionable world was surprised
by the marriage of his lordship with Miss Mary Burton, a young lady
utterly unknown before. But no one was more painfully struck by this
news than Helen Grenwitz. She had been Mary's most intimate friend; she
had always been seen with her, spoken of with her; but, and this was
the bitter thing, she had always been considered the prettier by far
and the more striking, and nobody had acquiesced more readily in this
decision than Mary in her modesty. Mary worshipped her brilliant
friend; Helen Grenwitz was in her eyes an inapproachable beau ideal;
she invariably submitted to her better judgment; and when the two girls
built their castles in the air for the future, Mary built magnificent
palaces for Helen, and contented herself with a thatched cottage by the
side of a purling brook. Helen had accepted this worship as a princess
accepts the attentions of her ladies in waiting. Mary had told her so
often that she was the more beautiful, the more charming of the
two--Helen would have been a marvel of nature if, with her pride and
self-sufficiency, she had been able to resist the effects of this
affectionate worship.
And now it was this humble friend who made such a brilliant match,
which raised her at once to the very highest rank in society, and
actually brought her in connection with more than one sovereign family,
while she--Helen dared not think it out. But now, when an opportunity
offered to escape from this humiliating position; now, when even her
proud mother condescended to proffer a request which she did not dare
present in person; now there could be no doubt any longer as to what
she ought to do; and Miss Bear, who offered her with troublesome
kindness an asylum at her institute, simply did not know how matters
stood at that moment.
When Miss Bear had left her, Helen walked up and down in her room with
folded arms. At last she stepped to the window and gazed into the
autumnal evening. On the sky, heavy dark clouds were drifting slowly;
below them light-gray little clouds passed with the swiftness of
arrows. The almost bare branches of the slender poplar-trees rocked to
and fro in the sharp wind which hissed and whistled through the few
leaves, while a crow came flapping her wings, sat for a few moments on
the topmost branch of one of the trees, rocking restlessly to and fro,
cawed as if the inhospitable treatment was too provoking, and flew away
again. Helen opened the window. The cool, damp breath of evening
brought her the sharp odor of mouldering leaves. The poplars in the
garden rustled louder, and the tall beeches in the park waved ghastly,
and every now and then the low roar of the waves of the sea came in
monotonous intervals far inland.
She looked out; she did not mind the damp air which in an instant
covered her black hair with a dewy veil; she only stared more
perseveringly into the evening as it grew darker every moment. Strange
visions passed through her mind. Proud palaces rose by the side of blue
lakes, in which dark forests were reflected; and from the palace came a
merry hunting train with horn and bugle; and at the head of the long
procession rode a lady on a small horse by the side of a man who
negligently curbed his fiery black horse and never turned his dark face
from the young lady by his side; and all, as far as the eye could
reach--castle and lake and forests and fields, which spread down, down
along the lake, and far, far into the country--all belonged to the
young lady and her husband, the knight on the proud horse And then
castle and forests and fields sank into the lake, and the lake grew
into a sea which beat high up against the white chalk-cliffs with their
crown of lofty beech forests; and up there on the high bank, in the
glow of the setting sun, stood the same young lady who had been riding
on the small graceful horse by the side of a man who was not the
cavalier on the black horse, and they looked both out upon the glorious
sight as the sun sank in the swelling masses of waves; and as they
stood and looked, they folded their hands like praying children, and
looked at each other with eyes full of love and overflowing with tears.
The wind rushed wildly through the poplars, and the young girl started
up from her reveries. She cast a glance at the dim twilight that was
hovering over the park. Two figures--a man and a woman--were passing
the open space between the bosquets, walking arm in arm. It was only an
instant, but the sharp eye of the young girl had recognized them both;
at least she thought she had recognized them. A feeling such as she had
never yet experienced overcame her. She must be sure that she had seen
correctly--that Oswald Stein had really met Emily Cloten at this hour
here in this place. The next moment she had wrapped herself up in a
shawl, put on a hat with a close veil, and had hurried down the stairs
which led into the garden, and was now standing at the gate that led
from the garden into the park. All of a sudden her courage left her.
She was ashamed of an impulse that had misled her, and made her take so
unwomanly a step, of which she heartily repented. She was just about to
turn back again, when the two figures once more came up the avenue
which led past the garden gate. She hid behind one of the pillars of
the gate, so as not to be seen; but a single glance at the two had
convinced her that she had not been mistaken before. There was no
doubt: it was Oswald and Emily who were passing her, lost in secret,
anxious conversation. Helen's heart beat as if it would burst. She
understood now why Emily asked her the other day if she had any news of
Oswald Stein; she understood now Emily's anxiety at the ball at
Grenwitz, when Cloten and the other young noblemen were loudly
threatening Oswald ... Fooled then! and fooled by whom? By a man who
could not resist Emily Cloten. Helen crept back to her room, threw
aside hat and shawl, and now it was settled that she would return to
her parents.
CHAPTER XIII.
Prince Waldenberg had not been able to find anything to interest him in
Grunwald until he had become acquainted with Helen Grenwitz. He could
not exactly say that he was tired of it, or that the town and the
people had been particularly unpleasant to him, for he scarcely knew
such a state of mind; at least he never showed any symptoms of
weariness or disgust. His stern, rigid face never betrayed pleasure or
annoyance; it looked as if his features had been frozen, for all time
to come, in the northern climate in which the prince was born, and as
if they could not thaw in the glow of love or of hatred. And it was
really so, to a certain extent. The ordinary sensations of common
mortals were not capable of that sublime self-consciousness which was
given to him. He could not laugh at the wittiest anecdote, nor could he
look disgusted at a stupidity. His servants never heard a bad word from
him; he never showed childish wrath before his soldiers. Nevertheless
the men trembled before him, and even the general did not inspire half
as much respect as First-Lieutenant Prince Waldenberg; for the servants
knew that their master never scolded, but dismissed them upon the
slightest neglect, and the men had terrible stories to tell about him
in the guardhouse and in the barracks. The rumor was that the prince
had the unpleasant habit, if a soldier showed the faintest sign of
insubordination of killing him on the spot--a habit which he had quite
recently indulged in at the capital, and which had led to his being
detached from the Guards and sent to a line regiment in garrison at
Grunwald. The story was probably a myth, like so many others; the
prince had been sent to Grunwald in order to study fortification and
coast and harbor defence, and other useful branches, in preparation for
the high position to which he was entitled, if not by his military
genius, at all events by his high rank; but the myth proved how the
common people, who have a very keen eye for the virtues and the faults
of the higher classes, thought about First-Lieutenant Prince
Waldenberg. The officers, however, seemed also to treat him on their
part with some misgivings, and certainly with great circumspection. No
one presumed to speak to him at the mess-table, or at night at the
club, or wherever else they happened to meet, in that cordial tone
which is generally used between comrades. On the contrary, they rather
avoided him, and, when that was not possible, they confined their words
to what was indispensable; especially the captain of the company to
which the prince was attached--a gentleman like a ball, who barely
reached up to the shoulder of his lieutenant, and who felt probably all
the smaller by his side as he was not even noble. It was most amusing
to hear Captain Miller at drill exclaim, in almost piteous tones,
"First-Lieutenant Prince Waldenberg will have the kindness to step
forward--a mere thought!" and even the old, gray-headed sergeant could
hardly keep from smiling.
The prince was thus very much left to his own company, even at the
evening parties, which he occasionally frequented. He met here again
his comrades, who had already avoided him at parade, and a lot
of old and young country gentlemen, whose talk about tillage and
cattle-raising could not exactly interest him much who had more estates
than they had acres of land, and more shepherds than they had sheep. As
for the ladies--why there were some very pleasant ones among them, like
the beautiful Misses Frederika, Nathalie and Gabriella Nadelitz,
Hortense Barnewitz, a trifle _passée_ but all the more clever and
interesting, Emily Cloten as piquante as she was coquettish--but they
were either not to the taste of his highness, or the prince was
altogether inaccessible to the charms of the fair sex. For a time, at
least, it seemed as if he were not disposed to pay special attention to
any one of these ladies.
But no sooner had the prince seen the beautiful Helen Grenwitz in the
salons of her mother than the rumor began to spread--nobody knew
how--that his highness was very much pleased with beautiful Helen
Grenwitz, and that an engagement was not very far off. The report
continued to live, and was even confirmed by numerous details,
the discovery of which did great honor to the ingenuity of the
before-mentioned lovers of gossip and watchers of features. The
Countess Grieben knew positively that the prince was spending every
evening at the Grenwitz mansion; others had it that he passed the
institute of Miss Bear daily after dress-parade, on his superb
Tcherkessian stallion; and still others, that he was frequently seen at
night walking up and down for hours before the house, concealed in a
large cloak. Hortense Barnewitz whispered into Countess Stilow's ear:
"Now I know why poor Felix had so suddenly to go to Italy;" and the
Countess Stilow whispered in reply: "You'll see, dear Hortense; it will
not be a week before Helen, who seemed to be banished forever, will be
back again."
A smile of satisfaction lighted up all faces when the prophecy of the
toothless Countess Stilow was actually fulfilled, and Helen Grenwitz
exchanged her modest little room in Miss Bear's boarding-school for the
stately rooms of the Grenwitz mansion.
It was strange, however, that the old baron, who had so urgently
desired this step before, should now seem to be least pleased with it
of all. The old gentleman had of late become exceedingly capricious,
obstinate, and violent, so that one hardly recognized in him the kind
good-natured man of former days, and everybody pitied and admired poor
Anna Maria, who bore her cross with truly Christian patience and
forbearance.
"Ah, you may believe me, dear Helen," the excellent old lady said to
her daughter on the first evening after her return, as they were
sitting on the sofa in the reception-room, and after the baron had left
the room to retire; "it is very difficult now to get along with your
father, and I need your kind support more than ever. Malte is too
young, and I fear too heartless, to admit of putting any confidence in
him. I have been so long accustomed to bear all alone that I can hardly
realize the happiness of having a friend and a confidante." And the
good lady shed tears while she was gathering up her work in order to
follow her husband.
The relations between mother and daughter seemed indeed to promise a
better understanding for the future. It was not in the nature of either
of them to be particularly affectionate. They treated each other as
adversaries who have mutually tried their strength and found out that
they had better be friends again.
After Anna Maria had thus taken the second step toward the attainment
of her end she pursued her plan with greater security. She had every
reason to be pleased with the results. Prince Waldenberg came almost
every evening; and as he did not play cards, and it could not well be
presumed that he found many charms in the conversation with Count and
Countess Grieben, who were near neighbors, and also came very
frequently to play a game with the baron and the baroness, the magnet
could be none other than Helen, with whom, indeed, he spent the whole
of his time.
Anna Maria took care that the prince and Helen should not be disturbed
more than was unavoidable; and as in these circles the older people had
no other way of spending time than in playing cards, and young people
were but rarely invited, the task was not very difficult. The prince
and Helen spent long hours alone in the little boudoir by the side of
the large room with three windows, where the card-tables were placed,
at least until supper was announced, and even then they were generally
again left very nearly to themselves, as the others had to discuss the
different games that had been played.
It was most creditable to the conversational powers of the prince that
the young lady, with her pretensions, was never tired of these
interviews. And yet, what he said could not be called interesting,
exactly; at all events the manner in which he said it was not so. He
was never heard to speak in that animated and quick manner which is
peculiar to young people (and the prince was very young yet, perhaps
twenty-four), especially when they speak of favorite topics, or are
excited by opposition. It was always the same monotonous utterance, as
if the words were men and the sentences sections, and they were all
marching about, carefully keeping pace. It was significant, too, that
the prince preferred speaking French, a language which has naturally
such a logical rhythm, although he spoke German as well and as
fluently. It was perhaps due to this fact--that the conversation was
almost exclusively carried on in a foreign idiom--that Helen felt the
strange character of his mind so much less. For the prince was, after
all, in his appearance, and not less so in his manner of thinking and
feeling, more of a Russian than of a German. All the memories of his
childhood and youth, with the only exception of the short time which he
had spent in France, and more recently in Germany, were Russian. He had
been page at the court of the Emperor Nicholas, and the daily sight of
this magnificent monarch, with whom he was even said to share certain
peculiarities of figure and carriage, had probably not been without
influence on the character of the young prince. He had received a
purely military education among the cadets of the Michailow palace, the
same palace whose vast apartments witnessed in that fearful night the
murder of an emperor, when the wife of Paul I., frightened by the low
sound of a number of voices and clanking of arms, snatched the young
Princes Nicholas and Michael from their beds and hastened with them
through the long suit of rooms to the emperor's apartments, when icy
Count Pahlen met her, carried her almost forcibly back to her rooms,
and locking the door carefully, said: "_Restez tranquille, madame; il
n'y a pas de danger pour vous._" The prince had quite a number of
similar stories, and they did not fail to have their effect upon the
mind of the fanciful girl. It was a new version of the adventures with
which the warlike Moor filled the heart of the daughter of the Venetian
patrician. Desdemona also shuddered at the blood flowing in streams,
through his accounts, but the hero appeared only the more marvellous;
and although Helen often felt an icy breath rising from these palace
souvenirs of the Russian page, she was none the less captivated and
ensnared by the secrecy and the horrors that surrounded them with an
irresistible charm. She dreamt of a life in comparison with which the
life she was now leading appeared very pitiful and mean. She saw
herself a lady in waiting at a court where beauty and cleverness are
all-powerful; she fancied herself the soul of grand enterprises, as the
confidante of generals and statesmen; and then she started from her
reveries and looked at the calm, dark face of the giant who had rocked
her to sleep with his strange stories, and she asked herself whether
she would ever venture to enter, on his hand, those lofty regions
towards which she was drawn by the ardent wishes of her proud,
ambitious heart.
The prince must have been particularly interested in winning the young
girl's confidence, for he laid aside the cool reserve with which he
treated all others, when he was alone with her. He even spoke of his
family with the greatest frankness. He told her that, as for his
parents, he only knew his mother really, because he saw his father but
very rarely. His mother was living in St. Petersburg, where her
influence at court was still very great, although an incurable
affection had sadly disfigured the once surpassingly beautiful woman,
and made her a melancholy enthusiast. His father, Count Malikowsky,
he said, was spending most of his time in travelling and at
watering-places, as he was still passionately fond of the pleasures of
life in spite of his age and his delicate health, and thus could
combine at these Spas pleasure and profit. He, the prince, had,
properly speaking, nothing to do with his father. They exchanged short
letters with each other once or twice a year, on special occasions; he
had seen his father the last time at the capital, when he was swearing
his oath of allegiance to the king, and he had been shocked by the sad
appearance of the old gentleman, which the latter had tried in vain to
conceal by the subtlest arts of the toilette. The count and the
princess harmonized very little, as their characters were so utterly
different. The count went once a year to St. Petersburg, appeared at
court, showed himself once or twice at the Letbus House, and
disappeared again, in order to send friendly greetings for another year
from Homburg, Baden-Baden, Pyrmont, etc.
Nor did the prince conceal his views on other subjects. He had
evidently thought much about matters which are usually of no interest
to young men of his rank; but as he was far from being brilliant, and
as he looked upon everything from the unchangeable standpoint of the
officer and the aristocrat, his views and thoughts were all more or
less stiff and wooden, as if they had been so many well-drilled
recruits.
Of his profession he thought very highly.
"I consider the soldier's profession," he said, "not only the noblest,
but also the most useful; the noblest, because here alone every faculty
of man is roused and developed; the most useful, because it is the only
security for all the other professions, which cannot exist without it.
If the peasant wishes to raise his cabbages, if the mechanic wants to
sit quietly in his work-shop, the artist in his atelier, and the
scholar in his study they must all thank the soldier, who for their
sake stands guard at the town-gate, patrols the streets at night,
disperses noisy revellers, and fights the enemy when he threatens the
country. Compared with this profession, all others are low and vulgar.
And that it is beyond doubt the highest and noblest, is proved by the
fact that the rulers of the earth adopt its costume for their daily
wear, or at least for all solemn occasions. Therefore I think that
nobles alone ought to be officers. And I think it a deplorable mistake
that, of late, others also have been admitted to our ranks, for which
the penalty will have to be paid sooner or later."
"But do you really think that all who are not nobles are unfit for this
profession?" asked Helen.
"Certainly," replied the prince, with energy. "Sport and war ought to
be reserved for the nobility, not because those who are not noble
cannot also fire a gun or wield a sword, but because they cannot do it
in the right spirit. Nor is this mere theory; the question has its
practical side also. The spirit of innovation, of insolent disobedience
to the order of things as ordained by God, is everywhere stirring. In
our state they have most unfortunately attempted to keep it down by
gentle means and by concessions. I believe that sternness and severity
alone can check this spirit. We are sure of the men who have been for
three years under, our control and influence; but we are not sure of
the officer who is not noble. Send a platoon under a Lieutenant Smith,
or Jones, against a rebellious mob, and ten to one he will see among
the mob a brother Smith, or a cousin Jones, and therefore hesitate to
give the command Fire! at the right moment. Take your officers from the
nobility, and only from the nobility, and such a thing cannot happen;
and you can quell the rising of a whole town like Grunwald with a
single battalion."
The prince spoke with great energy and strong condemnation of the
concessions which the king had made that spring to the liberal party,
and to the spirit of the times generally, by convoking a legislative
assembly of the whole people.
"I do not see," he said, "where this is to end. If the king does not
wish--and I believe he really does not wish--that a sheet of paper,
which they call a constitution, should rise between him and the people,
according to which he is forced to govern, whether he will or not, then
he ought not to have conjured up even the shadow of a constitution. The
shadow is soon followed by the substance. I confess that I am disgusted
by the patience of the king, while these fellows cry so loud; and that
I have long doubted whether I could honorably serve a monarch who thus
misjudges the duty of a king 'by the grace of God.'"
When the prince was thus judging things by the standard of his Russian
ideas of absolute government, it sometimes happened that there arose in
Helen's naturally good and affectionate heart a repugnance, not unmixed
with terror, towards one who could utter such inhuman thoughts in cold
blood. At other times she would have shrunk from the fearful
consequences of such principles, but now she was too deeply irritated
by the wound which Oswald's treachery had inflicted on her proud heart,
and, as is the case with violent dispositions, she had hastened from
one extreme to the other. Helen hated Oswald. She wept tears of
indignation and of shame when she thought how dear this man had been to
her, and how near she had been to the danger of showing him her love
for him. The treachery itself was no longer doubtful to her mind.
Emily's manner had changed so strikingly of late that even outsiders
had noticed it. The young lady who had formerly found happiness only in
the wildest turmoil of pleasure, now avoided society as much as she had
formerly sought it; and when she could not escape from invitations to
her former circles, she seemed to have only scoffing and scorn for all
she had admired in other days. She declared that the officers were
stupid, dancing a childish amusement, and a masked ball the height of
absurdity. She treated the ladies with undisguised irony, and the men
with open contempt, especially her husband, who did not know what to
make of the strange change, and only discovered gradually the one fact,
that of all the many foolish things which Albert Cloten had done in his
time, the making of an accomplished coquette, like the "divine Emily
Breesen," his wife, was beyond all doubt the most foolish. Most people
laughed, and said: "It is a whim of the little woman's; she will soon
come right again." Others, who were less harmless, said: "There is
something behind that! When a young woman treats the whole world, not
excluding her husband, _en canaille_, she does so only for the sake of
a man who is himself her whole world." But they racked their brains in
vain to find out who the lucky man could be. Some guessed it was young
Count Grieben, who had formerly courted her; others, Baron Sylow; still
others, even Prince Waldenberg; and only Helen Grenwitz knew that they
were all mistaken, and that the object of Emily's love was not to be
met with in the aristocratic circles of the Faubourg St. Germain of
Grunwald.
If Anna Maria had known what an admirable ally she had at that moment
for the execution of her plan in Oswald Stein, she would probably have
been less displeased with this excessively objectionable and dangerous
young man. At all events, it seemed as if the relations between Helen
and the prince were gradually assuming the desired shape. She
considered it at least a good sign that Helen expressed no desire to
improve the conversation in the boudoir next to the card-room by
inviting other young men to take part in it, and that she did not frown
contemptuously when she (Anna Maria) recently ventured to say: "That
would be a son-in-law to my heart," but quietly let the dark lashes
droop upon the gently-blushing cheeks.
CHAPTER XIV.
Any one who had seen Oswald Stein and Albert Timm sitting every night
behind their bottle, in the city cellar of Grunwald, both full of jokes
and jests and merry tales, would have been convinced that both of them
lived fully up to the motto of the illustrious club of "the Rats," to
which they had the honor to belong. They evidently enjoyed life; and
yet this was true only of Albert Timm, who had seriously adopted the
first and sole article of faith of the secret society: "Live as thou
wilt desire to have feasted when thou diest," and made it the principle
of his existence. For Oswald, on the contrary, this wild life was but a
means to stifle within him the incessant, painful longing after a
nobler model of life. The memory of all "that had once been his"
mingled like the notes of an Æolian harp with the wild allegro of his
present life. His enthusiastic youth, when rosy clouds edged the
horizon, and behind them lay a mysterious, wonderful future; his days
of supreme happiness at Grenwitz, where the old legend of the paradise
seemed to be repeated for him; his friendly intimacy with great and at
least good men;--whither had all this flown? His youth was gone
forever, with all the sweet rosy dreams of youth. Of the paradise,
nothing was left but the bitter taste of the fruit from the tree of
knowledge: that fickleness of heart and true love can never go hand in
hand .... And his friends? With Berger he had parted, and probably
forever, at the gate of the insane asylum; in Oldenburg he now hated a
rival, and the rich aristocrat, the favorite of fortune, who easily
overcame all impediments that exhausted the full strength of others.
Franz, who had stood by him like a brother in the most embarrassing
moments of his life, he had treated with black ingratitude; and in
vain did he try to excuse himself on the ground that he could not
possibly have continued to be the friend of a character which, in its
self-poised calmness and dispassionate seriousness, was so entirely
different from his own. From Bemperlein, the good, harmless, honorable
man, who had met him with the offer of his enthusiastic friendship, he
was separated by the consciousness that he had mortally offended him
through her whom he worshipped, so that when he met him in the street
he was apt to look to the other side in his painful embarrassment.
And what had he gained in return for so much lost happiness? The few
rare moments which Oswald gave to serious thoughts on his present
situation were unsatisfactory enough. His position in the college was
almost untenable, and yet he had occupied it scarcely three months. The
whole "humanity" of the rector, Clemens, was not sufficient to cover
with the cloak of charity the great and the small vices which Oswald
had committed in his official capacity; and Mrs. Clemens declared
before the assembled dramatic club, with regard to the same unfortunate
young man, that "she had cherished a serpent in her bosom." And the
worthy lady had good reason to complain. She had met Oswald with a
three-fold friendship: as the mother of two marriageable daughters, as
the wife of his superior, and as the president of the dramatic club,
and she had been deeply offended in all these capacities. Oswald had
not only failed to return the bashful attachment which had begun to
germinate in the hearts of Thusnelda and Fredegunda, but he had called
these victims of his caprice before a numerous company "little
goslings, who wanted nothing but the plumage to be perfect." Ah, it had
all been duly and faithfully reported! He had compared the fair
president, the wife of his presiding officer, with an old turkey hen,
who was so proud of the goslings she had hatched that her empty head
was utterly turned; and, finally, he had not only ceased to frequent
the dramatic club, after reading there three times amid general
applause, but he had passed over, with flags flying, so to say, into
the hostile camp, and had become an active member of the lyric club
which had rapidly risen under Mrs. Jager's direction to a splendor
unheard of in the annals of the dramatic club. Certainly, if Oswald had
felt no other misdeed but this on his conscience, the cloud of dark
discontent which was continually hanging on his brow would have seemed
natural enough.
But Oswald had to answer for more than this faithlessness. His
connection with Emily Cloten, which he had so suddenly begun, partly
from caprice and partly from real attachment, now weighed upon his soul
like a heavy burden, especially since the reckless, passionate temper
of the young lady threatened to betray their secret at every moment.
Emily no sooner felt sure of Oswald's affections than she thought she
could throw down the gauntlet to the whole world. "To love you, and to
be loved by you, is my sole wish and will--everything else is utterly
indifferent to me," she said; and she acted accordingly. Was she to
bridle her inordinate desires, now that her heart for the first time
clearly felt its own capacities? And she loved Oswald with the whole
passion of a naturally most tender, affectionate heart, and with the
whole recklessness of a woman who had all her life looked upon the
world only as a football of her sovereign pleasure. It was in vain that
Oswald reminded her of the duties of his position--of the difficulties
arising from his narrow circumstances. "I cannot conceive how you can
hesitate between the weariness you feel in teaching your boys and the
delight we feel in each other's company. Why don't you give up the
stupid college, and live only for me?" "But, my dear child, I am
already living almost alone for you; and if matters continue so much
longer. Rector Clemens will not only consent to my leaving the college,
but desire that I should only live for you." "Oh, wouldn't that be
splendid!" cried Emily, clasping her hands; "then we could carry out my
pet wish, and go to Paris, where there are no stupid people watching
every step we take." Oswald shrugged his shoulders. "And what are we to
live on in Paris?" Emily made a long face; but the next moment she was
laughing again, and said: "Oh, that will take care of itself if we are
once there."
The desire to get away from Grunwald, where indeed her position was
every moment liable to be exposed, had of late become a fixed idea with
Emily, and she returned constantly to the danger they were running. She
wanted to enjoy Oswald's love without interruption, and not to pay for
every half-hour spent stealthily in his company with long days of care
and anxiety. So far they had met either in Primula's boudoir, or in
Ferrytown at the house of Emily's old nurse, Mrs. Lemberg, which they
could easily reach as long as the ice held that covered the bay between
the island and the continent. Primula had been initiated into the
secret after Emily's recklessness had once led to a most ridiculous
scene of discovery, and it was characteristic that the author of the
"Cornflowers" had soon overcome her first feeling of jealousy, and
henceforth looked upon this "union of loving souls" as extremely
romantic, and found that the lovers in their helplessness, threatened
by an unloving world, were highly pitiable, and she herself, as the
protector of such an "heroic passion," worthy of all admiration! She
dreamt herself more and more into the part she was playing, and the
subscribers to the "Daffodils," for whose "album" Primula Veris was now
writing her poems, were forced to read long pages about "the twisted
thread of love; the silent, secret doings of secret love, shunning the
light of day;" and especially of the "chaste guardian of the faithful
love." She even warned her readers not to imagine that the latter was
"the moon--the pale virgin," but hinted very explicitly at the meaning.
Primula also favored Emily's plan. "Flee, my children," she said, "from
this rude Cimmerian sky to milder skies, away from these wild cyclopses
and soulless ichthyophagi! Amid snow and ice even the blue cyane cannot
thrive, much less the red rose of wild love."
Oswald was not so blinded that he could not have seen the insanity of
the project, but he was pleased with the adventurous nature of the
plan, and he was dazzled by the hope of thus ridding himself at one
blow of all the troubles that beset him, no matter what the blow might
cost. Finally, his attachment for Emily had grown from a mere whim into
a full passion, which did not exactly warm his heart but influenced his
imagination, and which he did not care to combat very earnestly because
it afforded him a kind of excuse for his fickleness. He began to
reflect seriously on the plan for an elopement, especially as the
little remnant of his fortune was rapidly disappearing, owing to the
life he was now leading, and he saw, therefore, that he would have to
do quickly whatever was to be done.
Oswald would have liked to consult his friend Albert on this
embarrassing subject, but he no longer ventured to speak to him about
Emily. At first he had now and then dropped a word about his last
romance, and Albert was one of those clever men who need be told only
half a word to be at home in the most complicated affair. He had never
troubled Oswald with curious questions, and yet knew how to draw from
him very quickly nearly all he desired to hear. He knew that Oswald had
secret meetings at Mrs. Jager's house, and across in Ferrytown; he knew
who the young, thoughtless woman was, and he was yet by no means misled
when Oswald suddenly ceased speaking of Emily. He only concluded that
matters had entered that stage where silence becomes a duty.
Timm had not exactly desired that matters should go quite so far. Timm
did not object to Oswald's reviving his taste for an aristocratic mode
of life by an affair with a great lady, and to his becoming thus more
and more anxious for larger means; but he did not desire that this
should turn into a serious attachment, which might lead no one could
tell where, and which, above all, threatened to become fatal to
Oswald's romantic passion for Helen. For it was upon this love that
Timm had based his whole plan. If Oswald could not be induced by any
other means to enter into a lawsuit with the Grenwitz family for the
legacy, then the hope of winning Helen should be his motive. Thus it
was why Helen must not be lost for Oswald, nor Oswald for Helen. And
even this might now happen. Albert, whose eyes were everywhere, had not
failed to learn that Prince Waldenberg was daily at the Grenwitz
mansion; he had discovered, besides, other suspicious evidences of the
favorable progress of the new relations between Helen and the prince;
as, for instance, magnificent bouquets ordered at the first florist's
establishment by the prince, which were "to be sent that night to
Grenwitz House." Since the snow was firm, and the _jeunesse dorée_ was
devising sleighing parties in all possible directions of the compass,
he had, moreover, repeatedly seen Helen by the side of the prince in a
magnificent sleigh, whose costly coverings, with the three horses
harnessed abreast after Russian fashion, pointed it out as the property
of his highness. He had as frequently warned Oswald against so
dangerous a rival, but the latter had only given evasive answers. This
state of things displeased Albert altogether, and he considered how he
might, to use his own words, "get the cart into a new track."
He had not reappeared for some time at Grenwitz House. Felix had sent
him, before leaving, four hundred dollars in advance for the month of
November, taking it from his travelling money, and requesting him at
the same time to address himself hereafter, "in all business matters,"
directly to his aunt, the baroness. Albert had as yet not availed
himself of this permission, as it was difficult even for him to spend
four hundred dollars a month in the modest town of Grunwald; and he
had, besides, been specially successful at faro of late. Nevertheless,
he proposed to pay his visit very soon, and to avail himself of the
opportunity for a better examination of the whole situation.
It happened in these same days that Albert received one evening, just
as he was going out, a letter by the town mail, which put him into such
bad humor that he gave up his original intention to attend an
extraordinary meeting of "the Rats" in the city cellar, and instead,
paid a visit to his landlord--the sexton, Toby Goodheart--the man who
had filled all the little crooked streets and lanes around St.
Bridget's with the odor of his sanctity.
Mr. Toby Goodheart was a bachelor, because he was too ugly to obtain a
wife, as he said himself: because his heaven-aspiring mind did not
condescend to such worldly thoughts, as his admirers insisted upon
believing. But neither the one nor the other could be the true reason,
for Mr. Toby was not ugly, but a very good-looking man of some forty
years, whose high forehead, bald at the temples, gave him a most
god-fearing expression. Nor was Mr. Toby really so very god-fearing,
unless his piety consisted in the solemn manner with which he stepped,
Sunday after Sunday and year after year, dressed in his shiny-black
dress-coat, black trousers, and a long flowing black gown fastened to
the collar, through the church, pushing his velvet bag by means of a
long pole under the noses of the "devout listeners." That Mr. Toby was
in reality a son of Belial was known to but very few men in Grunwald,
where the excellent man had now been living for twenty years--perhaps
only to one single man, and that was the occupant of the two best rooms
in the sexton's official dwelling: Mr. Albert Timm, surveyor.
Mr. Toby had dropped his mask in an evil hour, when the spirit of his
much-beloved grog was stronger in him than the spirit of lies, and
shown his true face to Mr. Timm, the "famous fellow." Mr. Toby
Goodheart and Mr. Albert Timm had since that hour formed the closest
intimacy, a friendship which was cemented and secured in its firmness
and duration by a remarkable community of fondness for women, wine, and
dice, and the common possession of delicate secrets.
Albert Timm entered the little room behind the parlor, where his
landlord used to sit, with his hat on his head, and found the excellent
man engaged in the pleasant occupation of preparing a glass of his
favorite beverage.
"You may make one for me too," said Albert, throwing his hat upon a
chair and himself into the corner of the well-padded sofa.
"As heretofore, Albert mine?" asked the obliging landlord, taking
another tumbler and spoon from the cupboard and placing it on the table
by the side of the smoking tea-kettle.
"Rather a little more than less," was the mysterious reply.
While Mr. Toby was brewing the hot drink according to this
prescription, Albert was gazing at the tips of his boots.
"You are not in good humor to-night, Albert mine!" said Toby, looking
up from his occupation.
"It would be a lie to say the contrary!"
"What's the matter? Has little Louisa caught you?"
"Little Louisa be d----d."
"Or have they sent you a little note, which you had conveniently
forgotten?"
"Something of the kind!"
"Well, what is it?" asked Toby, placing the grog he had mixed for
Albert upon the table and stirring it busily. "There, take a mouthful,
and then speak out!"
Albert took the tumbler, tasted, to see if it was neither too hot nor
too cold, neither too sweet nor too bitter, neither too strong nor too
weak, and when he had gained the conviction that it came fully up to
his standard, he more than half emptied it at one draught.
"It goes down easily to-night," said Toby, good naturedly. "Try it
again."
"You recollect that I commenced last summer at Grenwitz a foolish sort
of a thing with a little black-eyed witch of a French girl?" continued
Timm.
"I know," said Toby, smiling cunningly; "I know what's the matter now."
"No, you don't. The little thing was as shy as a wild-duck. In other
respects, to be sure, she was as stupid, too, for you know she lent me,
poor as I was, three hundred dollars, which she had put into the
savings bank."
"That was noble in her."
"But now she wants them back."
"Did you give her a note?"
"No!"
"Why, then, you have only to say that you know nothing about it, and
it's all right. Selah!"
"That is not so easy. She has great friends, with whom I should not
like to have trouble."
"Why not?"
"Did I not tell you that Marguerite is no longer with the Grenwitz
people?"
"Not a word. Where is she?"
"At Privy Councillor Rohan's."
"How did she get there?"
"I believe through Bemperlein, the candidate for the university,
forsooth; the hypocrite who, I am told, is now the privy councillor's
right hand, and as others say engaged to my pet of other days."
"Much good may it do him!" said Toby. "But who has dunned you?"
"The old privy councillor himself; look!"--and here Albert drew from
his pocket the letter he had received half an hour ago. "The old sinner
writes, 'Dear sir! As Miss Marguerite, who now does me the honor,'
etc., etc., 'tells me,' etc. 'As the relations which formerly may have
existed between yourself and the young lady are now entirely and
forever broken off--you know best why--you will understand that you
cannot, as a man of honor, keep a moment longer a sum of money which
was placed at your disposal under very different circumstances.
Finally, I beg leave to say that the young lady feels a very natural
inclination to leave the matter untouched, but that I learnt
accidentally from members of the Grenwitz family that Miss Martin had
been enabled to save a little capital while staying with that family,
and that this led me to question the young lady on the subject, and to
insist upon being told,' etc. 'Of course, I must consider it my duty,'
etc., etc. Well, what do you say of that?" asked Albert, crushing the
letter and stuffing it angrily into his pocket.
"That is a bad thing," replied the honorable Toby, scratching his
grizzly head. "The privy councillor is a man of high standing in the
town, especially since he has paid his debts--heaven knows how; so that
you cannot enter the lists against him. I am afraid you will have to
pay."
"So am I," replied Albert. "That cursed gossip, the baroness! It is
malice in her; but she shall pay for it. I'll put the thumbscrews on
her, till----"
Albert paused, and poured the rest of the drink down his throat.
"Look here, Albert mine," said Toby; "how are you standing with the
baroness? I hope, Albert mine, my boy, you have got all the lots of
money which you have made such an unusual show of, of late, in an
honest way?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the baroness is not so bad yet, and----"
"Nonsense. That old vixen! I am not so low yet."
"Then tell me; how did you get the money?"
"First tell me what you mean by your mysterious allusions to the power
you have over the Grenwitz family, and let me hear it all."
"Will you then tell me where the money comes from?"
"Yes."
"Well! But let us first brew another tumbler, and then we can begin our
stories. But look here; honor bright, Albert mine; honor bright, and no
prattling!"
"One crow does not peck at another!" said Albert.
Mr. Toby smilingly nodded his venerable head, mixed the grog with
artistic care, unbuttoned his black satin waistcoat, leaned back in his
chair, and said,
"I have not always lived in Grunwald; and I have not always been sexton
at St. Bridget's."
"I know! The capital has the undisputed honor to call you her own; and
whose sexton you were before you became St. Bridget's own sexton, the
gentleman in black will probably know best."
Toby Goodheart seemed to take this as a high compliment. He smiled
contentedly, and sipped his grog with evident delight.
"Don't be coarse, Albert mine, or I cannot go on," he said. "My father
was a servant; and I was, from tender infancy, intended for the same
profession. You may judge what remarkable talents I had for my
vocation, when I tell you that I had had twenty masters before I was
twenty years old. About this time it occurred to me how much more
pleasant it would be to be my own master; and as I had laid by a
considerable little sum during the time of my service,"--here the
honorable Toby smiled with his left eye and the left corner of his
mouth--"I had capital enough to open a house of entertainment."
"Nice entertainment, I dare say, you gave," said Albert.
"Yes, indeed!" replied Toby, adding another lump of sugar to his grog;
"at least the fair sex was abundantly represented in my nice little
business. I made it a principle to have only female waiters, and so the
'Cafe Goodheart' was well frequented. I had at least six or eight young
ladies to do the honors of my house."
Albert Timm seemed to listen to these statistics with much delight. He
leaned back in the corner of the sofa and broke out into a loud laugh,
while the honorable Toby again only smiled--but this time, for the sake
of change, with the right eye and the right corner of the mouth.
"Hush, hush, Albert mine!" he said; "the people might hear us in the
street. How can a prudent youth like yourself ever laugh aloud? I have
never in all my life done more than smile, and I have succeeded pretty
well. But never mind that. The young ladies were, of course, always
very pretty; and I can say that, of all my colleagues, I managed to get
the prettiest. But I must also confess that this was not so much due to
my own good taste as to the discrimination and cleverness of a lady
with whom I had once upon a time stood in tender relations, when we
were both in service, and who was still a friend and a partner in
business. This lady, called Rose Pape, was in her way a very remarkable
woman, with a marvellous talent for business."
"I can imagine what kind of business that was," said Albert.
"You can imagine no such thing, young man," replied Toby. "Mrs. Rose
Pape was an excellent lady, whose society was not only sought after by
the most respectable ladies, but also paid for with large sums of
money, and whose night-bell was well known in the whole thickly-settled
neighborhood in which she lived. But Mrs. Rose Pape took not only a
warm interest in young wives, but very consistently, also, in those who
might become such; and thus she had as extensive an acquaintance among
the pretty chambermaids and seamstresses as among the wives of high
officials and rich merchants.
"One fine day, now, Mrs. Rose came to see me, and told me that an
immensely rich baron of her acquaintance had fallen desperately in love
with a pretty girl, and had charged her, Rose, to help him, without
regard to expense. She had already formed a plan, but she was in need
of a valet of special abilities in order to carry out her superb
conception. She added that there was a lot of money to be made in the
business, and asked me to join her.
"It so happened that just at that time the police had found occasion to
interfere with the management of my café, and I was afraid of
unpleasant consequences; I seized, therefore, with eagerness the
opportunity of leaving the capital for a time in such good company.
Twenty-four hours later I was on my way, accompanying the young lady in
question, and riding in the comfortable carriage of my new master, who
was going to--well, guess, Albert mine, where he was going?"
"How can I know? But you were surely not going to give me the complete
history of your life? I thought you were going to tell me how you got
to Grenwitz," said Albert, who had been busy with his own affairs, and
had not listened very attentively.
"Why, you hear, we are on the way to Grenwitz," said Toby, glancing at
Albert from the corner of his left eye across the rim of his tumbler;
"for my new master was Baron Grenwitz, and the end of our journey was
Castle Grenwitz, where you were last summer."
An Indian, who on his pursuit has discovered his enemy's track in the
grass of the prairie, cannot exert himself more powerfully, with all
his senses, than Albert did as soon as he heard the last words. He had
instantly recognized in Toby Goodheart the valet who had played so
ambiguous a part in the story of Mother Claus; but he did not betray by
a word or gesture the importance of this discovery, but asked, with
well-feigned indifference,
"The old baron? Upon my word! I should not have expected such things
from the old boy!"
"Not the present baron, but his cousin, of the older line--Baron
Harald; or Wild Harald, as he is still called by those who have
known him. I tell you, Albert mine, it was a merry life we were
leading at Castle Grenwitz in the year of the Lord eighteen hundred and
twenty-two. Wine and women in abundance! and with all that we played
comedy--well, it was equal to the best thing I have ever seen on the
stage. Just imagine: my good friend. Rose----"
"She was there, too?"
"Certainly! Did I not tell you the baron had engaged her to play his
great-aunt?"
"His what?"
Toby smiled--this time with both eyes and both corners of the mouth.
"She played the great-aunt of the baron, with wig and crutch: because
that foolish thing, Marie--Marie Montbert was the name of the little
monkey; and as pretty a girl she was as I have ever seen with these
eyes of mine--I have never seen the like of her. What was I going to
say? Yes! Marie had made a _conditio sine qua non_, as we scholars say,
that an old lady of the baron's family should be at the castle, if she
was to come there. Well, now we had an elderly lady, a famous elderly
lady, eh! Albert mine, eh?" and the honorable Toby tittered, and poked
Albert most cordially in the side.
"Well, and how did the matter end?" asked Albert, who did not want to
hear the part of the story which he knew.
"Why, I did not see it end; for we, Rose and I, ran away sometime
before. To tell the truth, we were afraid the whole story might upset;
for Marie had many friends in the city, who might make a great noise
about it, and get us all, especially Rose and myself, into serious
trouble. So we slipped off one fine morning, or rather one fine night,
without taking leave, but requesting various things which happened to
fall into our hands to keep us company in going away with us. Here in
Grunwald we parted, or rather we were separated. For I was taken so
sick--probably in consequence of the high living we had enjoyed at
Grenwitz--that I could not go on, and had to be carried to the
hospital. What I then thought was a great misfortune, turned out
afterwards to be the most fortunate thing; for the late Dean Darkling,
the father of Mrs. Professor Jager, who was then chaplain to the
hospital, fell in love with my modest smiles, and insisted, as soon as
I was well again, upon my entering his service. Well! from the servant
of a minister to the sexton of his church, it is but a step!" and Mr.
Toby sipped comfortably the remainder of his grog.
"And did you ever hear anything more of your friend Mrs. Rose?"
"She is living at the capital, and carries on her business with double
entry, and more profitably than ever. If you ever go up to town, Albert
mine, you must not forget to call on her. She lives at the corner of
Gertrude and Rose streets, third story."
"I am going to take that down at once," said Albert, entering the
address in his note-book. "But what has become of Marie, or whatever
the stupid thing's name was?"
"Well, that is a curious story. Shortly after we had left, there really
did come one of her friends, a Mr. d'Estein, and stole her away from
the baron, who was so furious at the whole story that he died soon
after from sheer anger. But the most curious part of the whole is this:
Just imagine! Rose has hardly taken up her business again, when the
bell wakes her one fine night, and who do you think wants her? The same
Mr. d'Estein! and for whom? for the same Marie, who is in need of a
midwife!"
"Impossible!" cried Albert, forgetting for a moment his assumed
indifference.
"As I tell you. Rose wrote to me at once, and I could have killed
myself laughing at the fun of the thing. First, she is great aunt; and
then--ha! ha! ha!" Toby was so very much amused at the thing that he
could not help laughing aloud, contrary to all his principles.
"Ha, ha, ha!" chimed in Albert. "Very good! Ha, ha, ha! Perhaps Mrs.
Rose knows also what became of the child?"
"Maybe," replied Toby; "but I rather think she does not want to know
anything about it. Otherwise she would no doubt have presented herself
at the time when Baron Harald offered in all the newspapers a very
liberal reward for any information concerning Marie's present
residence, etc. I think she was afraid of the consequences, and has
done as I have done--kept her counsel for twenty odd years, till the
grass has grown over the whole affair. Well, but now, Albert mine, it
is your turn to tell me how you have managed to be such a rich man of
late?"
"Upon my word! I just remember I must attend the meeting of the Rats
to-night!" cried Albert, starting up. "Why, this is foundation-day!
Good-by, Toby; another time. I cannot stay, upon my word!"
And Albert put on his hat and hurried off, paying no attention to the
grumbling of his friend and hospitable landlord, the honorable Toby
Goodheart, who at once went to work drowning his anger in his favorite
beverage--a plan in which he succeeded so well that the watchman, who
was sent about midnight to fetch the key of the vestry, had to knock
half an hour before Mr. Toby could disentangle himself from between the
legs of the table, under which he had fallen after his sixth tumbler.
Book Third.
CHAPTER I.
"The season" had not been as brilliant in Grunwald for many a year as
it was this winter. It seemed as if the people were already feeling the
first breath of coming spring, and as if they could not make enough of
the little time that was still remaining. Party followed party, and
Heaven alone could tell how the old gentlemen and ladies could stand
the incessant whist and the young people the incessant dancing; and how
all of them could find pleasure in meeting night after night precisely
the same company, for the circle which was thus kept in constant
commotion was quite limited, and consisted of perhaps twenty or
twenty-five families, including the highest military and civil
officials, the family of the commandant of the fortress, Grunwald, his
excellency von Bostelmann, and that of the president of the province,
von Fitzewitz, etc. It may have been that the smallness of the circle
favored to a certain extent the stupid delight with which these select
fashionables were continually turning around themselves, although
everybody knew everything about everybody else, or thought at least he
knew or wanted to know it, so that there was never a lack of topics for
gossip.
Each week had a special topic of its own, however, which was discussed
with much animation. During the last but one, the strange conduct of
Emily Cloten had furnished the favorite subject. There had, of course,
been two parties--one in favor of the young lady, and another in favor
of her husband. The former claimed that Emily had become crazy because
of Arthur's faithlessness; the latter insisted upon it that, on the
contrary, Arthur had been made crazy by his wife's faithlessness and
was, in this state of mind, seeking consolation in the arms of his
former favorite, Hortense Barnewitz. Emily's friends seemed to be sure
of success, for the young lady--was it from caprice, or from better
reasons?--reappeared suddenly in society, and began to play her former
part as a reckless coquette more zealously than ever, utterly ignoring
all that had occurred in the meantime.
Thus the spies, cheated out of this scandal, as it seemed, were
compelled to turn their sharp eyes during the present week upon the
relations between Prince Waldenberg and Helen Grenwitz, which had been
already canvassed by everybody, and which yet, far from being
exhausted, had only become more and more interesting, for it was
believed that during the last few days these relations had assumed a
definite form.
The spies had seen correctly. Since yesterday Helen was engaged to His
Highness, Prince Raimund Waldenberg. Count of Malikowsky, hereditary
Lord of Letbus.
For the present only in secret, since much time was required before all
the preliminaries of an alliance between the princely family of
Waldenberg and the most noble family of Grenwitz could be
satisfactorily settled. Besides, the public announcement of the
engagement was to take place in the capital, to which the prince was to
return soon after New Year in order to join his regiment again, and
where the prince's parents had promised to meet him, the mother from
St. Petersburg, the father from Paris.
The baroness had, then, attained the goal of her wishes, and her
exulting joy at her success amply compensated her for all the
humiliations and disappointments, for all the sleepless nights, full of
care and anxiety, of the past months. She carried her head as high as
ever. Did she not owe all the successes she had ever had in life to
herself alone, and so also this last one? Did she not owe it solely to
her own prudence, moderation, and discretion that she, the simple
nobleman's daughter, who had no fortune whatever, had become Baroness
Grenwitz and mother-in-law of Prince Waldenberg? Had she not had to
struggle through all her life, not only with circumstances, but also
with those who stood nearest to her; with her weak husband, who had no
energy and no sense for great comprehensive plans, and with her
haughty, self-willed daughter? Had she not been forced to think and
care for them all; to compel them almost to accept their good fortune?
Truly, if these people were not grateful for their happiness, which
they owed to her alone--well, it was not her fault!
Were they grateful? Any one but the baroness would have doubted it. The
happy ones showed little of joy and elation in their features; on the
contrary, since the decisive word had been spoken, a veil of
embarrassment, if not of annoyance, seemed to have fallen upon their
faces. The prince's dark countenance looked a shade darker, and his
black eyes rested often with a strange, inexplicable meaning upon the
fair, haughty features of his betrothed, who walked about in startling
silence, very pale, and looking much more like a marble bride than like
a happy girl. Still, those who chose need not have looked far for an
explanation. The deep melancholy seemed to be justified by anxiety for
the father, who had long been an invalid, and who had suddenly been
taken seriously ill.
In the night which followed the day of the betrothal the old gentleman
had had an attack of his old complaint, the gout, and the physicians
who were called in declared at once that, this time, they could not
answer for the result. From that moment Helen had been chained to her
father's sick-bed, especially as the latter would allow no one else to
be near him, to hand him his medicine and to smooth his pillow.
The early winter evening had come already. The streets were covered
with deep snow and perfectly silent; only now and then the jingling of
bells interrupted the stillness. No one happened to be near the patient
but Helen. She was sitting near the bed, holding her father's withered
hand trembling with feverish excitement, in her own soft hands, and
trying, as well as she could, to soothe the increasing restlessness of
the patient.
"Where is mother?" he asked, suddenly.
"She has gone to her room."
"And your--and the prince?"
"I asked him to take a walk."
"Raise my head a little!--that's it! Now give me both your hands!"
The patient paused a few moments, and then he spoke with great
clearness and decision, so that it was evident he had long contemplated
what he was about to say and turned it over in his enfeebled mind.
"My dear child! It is a good thing to be rich, when he who is rich has
also a good heart; but I believe it is very rare to find the two
together, or to see them stay together. And to be clever is also a good
thing, but without a good heart it is worth little.
"Look here, dear child! Your mother and I--we have lived together
eighteen years, and, next to God, I have loved and honored your mother
more than all things. I think she has taken pains to love me back
again, and I do not blame her if she has not succeeded. No, not her,
only myself. I ought to have taken a wife who was more suitable to my
age and to my ways; but I was vain and proud, and I wanted a handsome,
stately, and clever wife, such as the world admires, and your mother
was handsome, stately, and clever; far too pretty and too clever for
me, an insignificant, simple man, who never was made for the great
world. I felt it, therefore, all the time in my heart that I was not
the man to make your mother happy; but she never let me know it
distinctly until quite recently."
The old man bowed his gray head sadly, and repeated:
"Quite recently--when she wanted you to marry your cousin Felix, and I
could not say Yes! and amen! to it--then I saw very clearly that we
thought and felt in the most important and most sacred things so very
differently; and whether I was right or she, that does not matter now;
but, my dear child, it is a bad thing when those who ought to love each
other cannot do it--a bad thing, my dear child, which may easily break
a heart!"
And as the old man spoke these words the tears were rolling down his
pale, wrinkled cheeks.
Helen sat there, silent and pale. Her hands trembled. Her father's
words had apparently touched her to the heart.
"Therefore," continued the baron, after a short pause, "it has always
been my principle, that parents ought not to interfere with the
affections of their children, but only to pray to God that He would
lead their hearts to choose well. Thus I have left you your choice,
then and now. Then you could not decide; now you have decided. I cannot
conceal it from you that I cannot understand the prince, and that I
wish your future husband were less grand and less rich; but, as it is,
I hope God will turn it to the best. You are a good, clever girl, and I
think you cannot have chosen thoughtlessly, or from mere ambition; no!
no! not thoughtlessly, nor from ambition, for you are my good, clever
girl!" repeated the old man, as Helen, unable to control her emotion
any longer, hid her beautiful head on his bosom, and gave way to a
passionate fit of weeping.
"What is the matter, girl?" he said, frightened by this sudden
vehemence; and then, as if a flash of lightning had lighted up for an
instant the dark places in his daughter's heart, "For God's sake,
child, you have not let your eyes be dazzled by Mammon! You do not love
the prince? You have not followed the voice of your heart, which warned
you against the stern dark man, but the counsels of your mother? Oh, my
child! my unfortunate child! My fears, then, were not groundless! But
it is time yet to turn back. I will speak myself with the prince; I
will speak with him at once; he will have pity on a poor old man, who
is sick unto death."
And he raised himself with spasmodic efforts in his bed.
It was a terrible struggle which was raging in Helen's heart while the
baron said these words. Was there really a way yet out of this horrible
labyrinth, in which she had lost herself? Could the step, the fatal
step, be retraced? At what price? At the price of seeing her pride
humbled! Her proud betrothed was to have pity! Pity with her poor old
father! Pity with herself! Never ... Never!
"No, no, no!" she cried, seizing both of her father's hands. "You are
mistaken, father! I am not unhappy! I have not been dazzled and
tempted! I--I love the prince--I shall love him--I will try to love
him--I will----"
She could not continue; her throat was closed by a spasm; her pale lips
moved, but were unable to shape the words with which she uttered her
own sentence of death.
"Oh, great God!" prayed the old man, "enlighten my child's heart!
Child! child! Do not let your father leave this world with such a
terrible doubt on his mind! Oh, if I could but tell you all as I feel
it. Ah, this pain! My God ... My ..."
The sufferer fell back on his pillow.
Helen held him in her arms.
"Papa! dear papa! I will do all you ask; for I will tell the
prince--great God! what is that?"
The hands of the old man began to tremble; cold perspiration bedewed
his brow.
It was Death! Helen saw it with horror, and no help at hand--no help!
She rushed to the bell and pulled, but the bell-rope remained in her
hand. Then she rushed back to the bed, but the cold hands trembled no
longer: the rolling eyes were fixed. Whatever help might come now, it
came too late; and Helen threw herself, sobbing aloud, upon the body of
the kind old man, whose brave and true heart had beaten to the last
moment so warmly for her, and now stood still forever.
CHAPTER II.
While death was settling, up-stairs, life's account by a single dash,
the question of credit and debit had been most actively discussed
down-stairs in the apartments of the baroness.
The baroness's whole life was given up to this great question, and she
had naturally a sharp eye for all that was going on upon the market.
Her husband's death, which she was expecting as a certainty, was likely
to change her position entirely, but on the whole she was not
displeased with the prospect. It is true, her savings from the revenues
of the entailed estates, which had so far benefitted herself and Helen,
and which, after the baron's death, had to be carried to the principal
till Malte came of age, would be lost; but the sum total of these
savings amounted already to nearly a hundred thousand dollars, all
invested in first-class securities--a sum small enough, in comparison
with the whole estate, but quite sufficient if the two farms belonging
to Harald's bequest were added.
She had apparently arranged everything to her satisfaction, and if
Grenwitz should really die now, why ...
At that moment a letter was brought in. "From Felix!" she said, in a
low voice, and casting a glance at the direction; and then she stepped
to the window to read the letter.
It was a short note, evidently written with pain by the trembling hand
of a sick man, and ran thus:
"Dear Aunt: I have been in such a wretched state for some days, that
when this letter reaches you I may possibly have ceased to exist, if
this way of living, amid pain and misery, which is fast coming to an
end, can be called an existence. But whatever may come, it is high time
for me to enlighten you on the subject of the * * * affair. * * * has
not been satisfied, as I told you. He has a right to demand four
hundred dollars a month till the claim to Uncle Harald's legacy expires
by prescription, and besides six hundred dollars, if he keeps silent
until then. You will do better to pay the fellow, if you do not wish
him to get you into no end of trouble. I sent him his four hundred for
the month of November before I left Greenwood. I am exhausted.
"Yours faithfully, Felix.
"P.S.--If you love me, I pray you will let my rascally creditors wait a
little longer. Moses Hirsch has a note of mine for one thousand
dollars. Offer him two hundred for it; he will still make fifty per
cent."
The baroness came back from the window, went to the fire-place, laid
the note carefully on the burning coal and waited till the flames had
seized and consumed it. Then she walked slowly up and down in the room,
which began to grow dark. This twilight was most favorable for a face
which was downright disfigured by anger. She murmured curses against
Felix, against Albert, against Oswald, through her teeth. "Not a
farthing the scamp shall have! Not a red cent! I'll send for him and
tell him so to his face; and, besides, I'll warn him not to say a
word ... What is it?" she interrupted her monologue, as the servant
once more entered the room.
"Mr. Timm desires to wait upon you on business."
Anna Maria started. This unexpected call of the young man looked like a
threat. All of a sudden she lost all desire to tell Mr. Timm to his
face that he need not expect a red cent from her.
"Tell Mr. Timm I regret not to be able to see him; the baron has been
taken ill very suddenly."
"I have told him so; but he said he must see you on very important
business, and would detain you but for a moment."
"Well, show him in; but--you had better bring lights; and--John, stay
in the next room, in case I should want you."
"Yes, ma'am."
The servant immediately ushered in Albert Timm, and then went out,
closing the door behind him.
"Good-day; or rather, good-evening," said the young man, approaching
the baroness apparently with an air of perfect unconcern; "I beg ten
thousand pardons if I interrupt you. The old gentleman is sick, they
tell me! I hope it is not much. I should have gone away again, but I
have to inform you of an important discovery I have made in the
affair--you know--which admits of no delay. Shall we sit down in the
meantime? Allow me!"
And Mr. Albert Timm pushed an arm-chair toward the baroness, and the
next moment was comfortably seated himself.
Anna Maria had not quite decided yet in her mind how she should treat
the young man. But she felt very clearly that it would not be very easy
to get the better of him. She sat down, therefore, in the seat he
offered her, and said, in her most solemn tones:
"You will excuse me if I beg you to be as brief as possible; the sad
state of things here, which the servant has mentioned to you----"
"Pray, pray!" said Albert; "exactly my purpose. Only two words and I
have done. The thing is this: I have learnt quite accidentally--for it
is wonderful what a great part accident plays in the whole matter--I
have learnt that two persons who were in Baron Grenwitz's service at
the time when Miss Marie Montbert was at Grenwitz, are still alive.
They were honored by Baron Grenwitz with his special confidence; and,
for instance, initiated into the whole story of the elopement. Now they
are quite ready, I dare say, to appear as witnesses in a suit which
might possibly arise out of the question of the legacy. The evidence of
these two persons would be all the more weighty as they are both
persons of excellent standing in society, and enjoy the confidence of a
large circle of friends and acquaintances. One of them is sexton here
in town--a man who is universally respected; the other--a woman lives
in the capital, and is, in spite of her advanced age, still actively
engaged in her profession, which, by the way, is that of a superior
nurse. If I had ever had any doubt that the young man in question is
really that is, legally--the son of the late Baron Harald, my doubts
would have been completely removed by this last discovery; and I am
sure, baroness, you will agree with me."
If anything else besides Felix's letter had been needed to kindle in
Anna Maria's heart the flame of wrath, it was the manner in which
Albert Timm was presenting to her the topic which she so bitterly
hated. Nevertheless she answered with a calmness which she observed
strictly in all matters of business.
"May I beg to know, Mr. Timm, why you honor me with this
communication?"
"Certainly, baroness; certainly. That is what I came for. You know that
a bird in hand is worth a great deal more than a bird on a tree, and
that a man who sells his property for less than its value is entitled
to the name of a fool. Now you know under what conditions I have
promised Baron Felix to keep my counsel with regard to that legacy----"
"Pardon me if I interrupt you, Mr. Timm. I know nothing of such
conditions. I directed my nephew to pay you a certain sum, solely for
the purpose of getting rid of you; and my nephew assured me, shortly
before he left us, that the matter was finally settled. I must
therefore beg you will please not return to matters fully settled; and
excuse me if I cannot see you any longer."
The baroness was on the point of rising, when Albert said, in a most
decided and incisive manner: "Pray, keep your seat for a moment longer,
baroness!" She obeyed his request, half wondering and half frightened.
"I am tired of being played with in this manner," continued Albert, in
the same tone. "If Baron Felix has not told you the arrangement on
which we agreed, he was afraid of you, or he had a purpose of his own.
After all, it does not matter much whether you know the former
agreement; for I have come for the very purpose of telling you that,
after what I have recently discovered, I am no longer disposed to let
you off so cheap. I now demand nothing less than thirty thousand
dollars, payable within the next fortnight, and request that you will
with like candor tell me whether you are ready to pay or not?"
"This impudence exceeds all bounds," said Anna Maria, rising from her
seat and seizing the bell, which was standing by her on the table.
"Let that thing alone," said Albert, coolly; "that bell might cost you
pretty dear. Consider well what you are about to do! If we cease to be
good friends we become mortal enemies, and you may rest assured Albert
Timm gives no quarter. Once more: Are you willing to pay or not?"
At that moment the door opened. The servant entered with two lighted
candelabra, and close behind him came the prince. The servant placed
the lights on the table and went out; the prince had come up half-way
before he became aware that the baroness was not alone!
"Ah! pardon, madame," he said. "I thought the servant said you were
alone. Do you wish me to leave you alone?"
"By no means, prince," replied Anna Maria. "I have nothing more to say
to this young man." And she made a motion with her hand, as if she
wished to intimate to Albert that he was dismissed.
Mr. Albert Timm wagged his hat, which he held in both hands behind his
back, and said with imperturbable indifference, putting one foot a
little forward:
"It seems, baroness, you wish me to repeat my last question in the
presence of this gentleman!"
"Who is the young man?" asked the prince, somewhat astonished at
Albert's manner and the excited state of the baroness.
"A man," replied the latter, "who has annoyed us for some time with
impudent demands for money, under the pretext of possessing certain
pretended family secrets. I am afraid I shall have to invoke the
assistance of the police to get rid of him."
The prince looked at Albert from the height of his lofty figure, went
slowly towards the table, took the little silver bell, and touched it.
The servant entered immediately.
"Show this man out!" said the prince.
The servant was so amazed by this order that he did not trust his own
ears. He looked, with a face full of embarrassment, first at the prince
and then at Mr. Albert Timm, who was still standing quietly there,
wagging his hat after the manner of a dog's tail, and again from Mr.
Albert Timm to the prince.
"Did you hear me?" said the latter, contracting his brows in a
threatening manner.
The servant came a step nearer to Timm.
"My good friend, I will spare you the alternative either to have your
nose knocked into your face or to be dismissed from the army," said
Albert, good-naturedly, "and prefer, on that account, to go myself. As
for you, baroness, we shall see each other again shortly, but upon a
different footing; and as for you, _young man_, I should like to advise
you hereafter not to meddle with matters which do not concern you in
the least, in spite of the great airs you are giving yourself."
The prince made a motion towards his left side. Fortunately he had left
his sword in the hall. Albert did not wait for any further measures on
the part of the lion he had roused, but made an ironical bow and left
the room.
The prince, who had never in his life been treated in this way, looked
aghast; the baroness cast down her eyes.
"That could not have happened at home, in Russia," said the prince.
"I regret," said the baroness, "that accident should have made you
witness so unpleasant an occurrence."
At the same moment the servant re-entered the room, deadly pale, and
cried, breathlessly:
"Oh, ma'am! come quickly! The baron is dying!"
"_Oh, mon Dieu!_" exclaimed the baroness, and seemed on the point of
fainting.
"Compose yourself madame! compose yourself!" said the prince. "Bear
what has to be borne. Will you take my arm? Ho, there! show us the
way!"
CHAPTER III.
About the same hour--perhaps a little earlier two gentlemen displayed
at the billiard-table, in the restaurant near the main guard-house on
the square, that industry which is so becoming to busy idlers. The two
gentlemen who met at this favorite lounging place of the _jeunesse
dorée_ of Grunwald, were Cloten and Barnewitz. The former, who excelled
in all the arts which required a sure eye and a steady hand, and no
head work, had beaten his adversary in every game, and hence the young
man was in excellent humor, while the other was nearly angry.
"Another game, Barnewitz?" asked Cloten, triumphantly, after having
finished the twelfth with a brilliant carom.
"Thank you; no!" said Barnewitz, throwing his cue on the
billiard-table; "am not in the right humor for it to-day. I cannot play
well anyhow in this miserable twilight!"
"We can have the lamps lit."
"No, thank you! Another day! We can play quits to-morrow."
Cloten now laid down his cue also, stepped before the looking-glass and
twisted his blonde moustache, while Barnewitz threw himself upon the
sofa and yawned.
"It is wretchedly tedious here," he said; "don't know how on earth to
kill the whole afternoon!"
"Let us take a walk."
"It is too abominably cold."
"A game at piquet?"
"Too tiresome."
"A bottle of claret?"
"Well, that's better."
"Waiter! a bottle of Pichon and a light."
The waiter brought what was ordered. Cloten threw himself into an
arm-chair opposite to Barnewitz, and stretched out his legs.
"Well?"
"Well!"
"Don't you know anything?"
"No! Do you?"
"No!"
After this exchange of bright thoughts there followed, as a matter of
course, a pause of exhaustion, and the ship of conversation remained
for a quarter of an hour stranded on a sandbank, while the two men
smoked their cigars and sipped their wine.
Cloten and Barnewitz had been apparently excellent friends ever since
their terrible collision in summer, but in reality they had watched
each other with unbroken distrust. It is true, the distrust was but too
well founded in this case. Hortense Bamewitz had no sooner come to
Grunwald than she cast out her net--experienced fisher of men as she
was--after her old lover, and Cloten had at that time already
discovered that happiness in the arms of his former lady-love was far
more attractive than the honor of being the husband of the most
fashionable lady in town. Barnewitz, on the other hand, gave the noble
couple ample opportunity for meeting; for he threw himself, at
Grunwald, head foremost into a vortex of amusements, of which there was
no lack there for a rich nobleman who cared more for quantity than for
quality. Nevertheless, he was as much the victim of jealousy now as
before, and he was therefore highly pleased to see, what all others saw
as well, that Emily treated her husband like a school-boy, and had
evidently found a worthier object for her loving heart.
Barnewitz had long wished for an hour when he might inform Cloten under
the mask of friendship of the reports which filled the town about him
and his wife. The day before he had accidentally heard of some new
scandal, and to-day Cloten's superiority at billiards had greatly
annoyed him. After thinking the matter over for some time, therefore,
he exploded:
"How is your wife, Cloten?"
"Thanks! Pretty well; why?" replied Cloten, not a little astonished at
the brusque question.
"Well, I suppose it is permitted to inquire after your wife! Or do you
allow no questions to be asked?"
"Certainly; but what do you mean?"
"Because she has been so very charming for a little while past."
"Is that so very uncommon?" asked Cloten, slightly embarrassed, and
torturing his moustache.
"Yes; for she had just before treated everybody, yourself included, so
very badly, that one could not help wondering at the sudden change. At
all events, I was not the only one to notice it; the whole world is
full of it."
"The whole world ought to pull its own nose," said Cloten; and his hand
trembled with annoyance as he filled his glass.
"Certainly; but they don't do it."
"---- the whole world!"
"Certainly; if you wish it. But if you would rather talk about
something else;--I only thought that, as your oldest friend, it was my
duty to call your attention to certain things."
"Well, then, come; out with your story," said Cloten, with nervous
vehemence. "What is it? Out with it!"
"I shall take good care not to say anything more, if the first word
puts you into such a state."
"I am not in any state," said Cloten; and to prove it, he dashed his
glass upon the table, so that the foot broke to pieces and the wine
flooded the marble top.
"You are a queer fellow," said Barnewitz. "Wait till you have cause to
get angry. What does it amount to? They say that you are not exactly
Darby and Joan; that your wife has her own way; that you quarrel
occasionally so that the servants hear it in the kitchen, and the
like."
"Who says so?"
"The whole world!"
"And you believe it?"
Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.
"I shouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Arthur; but I cannot deny it
that the way your wife acts looks very suspicious to me. I should not
wonder, and no one in our circle would wonder, if she had some little
_liaison_, and I rather think I know the person."
"I insist upon it that you tell me all you know," said Cloten, with
great pathos.
"Do you recollect the party at my house last summer? But of course you
do, for we came near killing each other on that occasion. Ha, ha, ha!
Well, on that evening already your wife began to flirt with that
confounded fool--that Doctor Stein--in a way which struck everybody,
and me too. But I had totally forgotten the whole affair till I was
reminded of it yesterday. You recollect I had left Stilow's because, to
tell the truth, the wine was too bad, and I was very thirsty. I found
in my way to the city cellars, where the company is low enough but the
wine excellent. There were a dozen people--authors, actors, and such
stuff--sitting round a table and drinking; among them our old friend
Timm the surveyor, who talked very big. I sat down at some distance,
ordered a few dozen oysters and a bottle of champagne, and listened,
because I could not help listening. They talked, heaven knows what
stuff. I did not understand a word, and was just thinking what a lot of
sheep they all were, and my eyes were beginning to be heavy, when I
suddenly heard somebody mention your name, or rather your wife's name.
Of course, I was wide awake in a moment. 'Who is she?' asked somebody.
'A wonderful creature,' said Timm. 'Well, and friend Stein is in love
with her.' 'That's it!' 'What a fellow--that man Stein!' 'How did he
get hold of her?' 'Oh, that is a long story!' said Timm; and then they
put their heads together and talked so low that I could not hear the
rest. At all events they laughed like madmen, and I had a great mind to
pitch a few bottles at their heads."
"Why didn't you do it?" asked Cloten, angrily.
"I do not like to get into trouble in a strange establishment; I have
had to pay for it often enough," replied the philosophic nobleman,
pouring the rest of the bottle into his glass.
Then followed a pause, after which Cloten cried out with much
vehemence: "I don't believe a word of it."
Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.
"That's the best for you to do."
"Don't say so! I won't have it!" exclaimed Cloten, furiously.
"I only say what the world says," replied Barnewitz, sipping his wine
leisurely.
"And you think the world says nothing about you?" asked Cloten,
ironically.
"What do they say about me?" cried Barnewitz, starting up. "---- the
fellow who dares say a word; and I think you, of all men, ought to be
most careful not to open your mouth."
"Careful or not, I don't see why I should not talk as well as you."
"What! a fellow like you?" said Barnewitz, thrusting his hands into his
pockets with an air of contempt "I suppose you think you are
wonderfully successful with the sex?"
Who knows what serious consequences might have arisen from this
word-combat if the door of the billiard-room had not opened just then
to admit Professor Jager, who crept in cautiously, after having first
reconnoitred the room through his round glasses.
Professor Jager's appearance was never specially inviting, but on this
evening there was something peculiarly unpleasant about the man's pale
face. His stereotyped smile, and the drooping corners of the mouth,
contrasted with his effort to give an air of solemnity to his forehead,
and to look as melancholy as possible through his spectacles, so that
he appeared on the whole not unlike a black tom cat who glides purring
and with raised back around a person's leg, preparing to scratch his
hands the next moment furiously.
Thus he drew near to the two noblemen, made a very low bow, and said:
"I beg ten thousand pardons if I am disturbing the _entente cordiale_
of two bosom friends, but----"
"Come here, professor," said Barnewitz, who welcomed the interruption;
"join us in a glass of Pichon. Waiter! another----"
"Pray, don't; many thanks. Regret infinitely that I should have
interrupted you in your cozy talk; but I heard at your house, Baron
Cloten, that I should find you here, and a matter of importance which I
had to communicate----"
"Don't mind me, gentlemen," said Barnewitz. "I'll go into the
reading-room till you have done."
"Pray, pray; I have only two words----"
"Well, all right. Call me when you have done!"
With these words Barnewitz went into the adjoining room, where he
rested his elbows on the table and his head on his hands, and then
plunged into the mysteries of the Grunwald official journal.
He had no sooner left them than Professor Jager turned to Cloten and
said, whispering mysteriously:
"Baron Cloten, I have to tell you something that will frighten you."
Cloten turned pale and stepped back. His first thought was that his
stables had been burnt, and Arabella and Macdonald, his two
thoroughbreds, had perished in the flames. The professor did not leave
him long in this terrible uncertainty; but with a low, spectral voice,
and drawing the corners of his mouth so low down that they seemed to
meet under the chin, he said: "Your wife----"
"Ha!" cried Cloten. "What is it? What has happened?"
"I don't know," replied Jager, "but I fear for the worst. Look at this
paper [he searched his pockets and produced a folded-up piece of
paper]. I found it just now on my wife's writing-table. But before I
read to you what is on the paper you must swear you will never tell
from whom you have heard it."
"I'll swear anything you want," said Cloten, with nervous excitement.
"What is the matter with the paper?"
"Directly, directly! First, let me tell you that for some weeks now
your wife and mine have become great friends, an intimacy which from
the beginning has puzzled me sorely. Their meetings, I was told, had a
purely poetical purpose--you know my wife is president of the Lyric
Club--but I was struck by the fact that a third person appeared there
always, or at least very frequently, a person against whom I have ever
felt an unconquerable aversion. This person is----"
"Doctor Stein! I know! Go on," said Cloten, breathlessly.
"You know!--ah, indeed!" replied the professor, with a Mephistophelian
smile, which gleamed unpleasantly behind his glasses. "Oh, well; then
the hardest part of my task has been performed by others. Well, sir, if
you know it already I will not detain you by telling you how the first
spark of suspicion fell into my simple soul; how subsequent
observations fanned this into a bright flame, which threatened to
consume this heart of mine, that only beats for the welfare of my
brethren [here the professor laid his hand with its black glove on the
left side]. I dared not forbid my wife all intercourse with the person
in question. You know, sir, poetic minds are apt to be eccentric, and
the æsthetic standpoint from which----"
"But I pray you, professor, come to the point," said Cloten, who was
standing upon coals. "What was on the paper?"
"Why, you see," said Jager, opening the paper, "it is the rough sketch
of a poem, which I found quite wet yet on my wife's bureau; the servant
told me she had just left the house to pay a visit. Shall I read it to
you?"
"Yes; in the devil's name!" cried Cloten, who hardly knew what he was
saying.
Professor Jager arranged his spectacles carefully on his nose, drew the
light somewhat nearer, and read, in a half-loud, rattling voice, while
the young nobleman was looking over his shoulder: "'Grunwald, December
10, 1847.' You see the date corresponds exactly.
'FOR THE ALBUM OF AN ESCAPING PRISONER.
'You flee!--by the light of the twinkling stars,
In rapturous flight through Cimmerian night;
You flee! and alas I would break all the bars,
I, who have watched over you day and night!
But terrible bonds have forged me a chain,
Which ever in bondage will here me retain.
You flee!--and I stay in Cimmerian night.'
"You see this poetical eccentricity of a soul generally chaste and full
of affection," said the professor, who had read the last lines with a
somewhat unsteady voice.
"Go on! go on!" urged Cloten, whose sufferings made him indifferent to
the sufferings of others.
The professor continued:
"'You flee! and the icicles glitter so bright,
The hoofs now thunder on quivering ice,
You are not frightened by terrible night,
You follow the lurings of glorious price.
You flee! and you do what is proper and right!
Why should you remain with a wretched wight
A puppet of wood on a couch of ice?'"
"That is meant for me!" said Cloten, furiously, grinding his teeth.
"Certainly, certainly!" said the professor; "but listen:
"'You flee! and yonder on rockiest strand,
In nurse's familiar house by the sea,
There falls in a moment the hampering band
That bound you before, and there is he!
There love in a thousand fiery brooks,
Breaks forth in caresses and tenderest looks
In Nurse's familiar house by the sea.
"'You flee! and alas 'tis not to the port,
Where spies are no more nor watching eyes!
Oh flee to the safe, to the only resort,
Where wait for you milder and happier skies!
Oh flee to the banks of the beautiful Seine,
Where love is at freedom, amain! amain!
And free from society's hateful lies!'"
The professor folded up the paper again, pocketed it, and said:
"This poem troubled me sorely, for I know the way my wife makes her
poems. She takes the subject from actual life. But I was much more
startled yet, when I went on using a husband's right and examined the
papers that were scattered all over her table. I found this little note
[here the professor put his hand in his waistcoat pocket]. Do you know
the hand-writing, Baron Cloten?"
"That is my wife's hand," cried the young nobleman, casting a glance at
the paper. "What does she say? Let me see! 'All remains as agreed upon,
dear Primula. Everything is ready. We meet at Mrs. Lemberg's. Tomorrow
at this hour a world divides us. Shall I be able to embrace you once
more? I shall be at home at three. I should like to see you so much,
but--can you venture to come without rousing suspicion? I leave the
matter to you. Good-by, good-by, dearest! Free to-day! Oh, I can hardly
conceive such happiness! Good-by--a thousand farewells!' By the
Almighty!" cried the happy husband, crumpling up the paper and pushing
it into his pocket. "Now I see it all! I never could understand why she
was all the time going to see that old woman in Ferrytown! But I'll
spoil the fun; I'll----"
As the happy man did not exactly know what he was going to do, he broke
down, and walked up and down, like a man suffering with a furious
toothache.
Professor Jager looked at him, his head inclined on his right shoulder,
and folding his hands in sympathetic emotion; but he had the air of an
ear-owl, gazing with big, staring eyes at a poor foolish bird that has
been caught in a snare.
"You may believe me, my dear sir," he said; "I am heartily sorry for
the whole thing; and I assure you I would have kept it all to myself if
I did not think it was the good shepherd's duty to snatch the lamb from
the jaws of the wolf. For this man is a raving wolf. I found him out at
first sight, but they would not believe me. Now they see it clear
enough. Only this morning Doctor Black, one of the trustees of the
college, came to see me, and to tell me that Doctor Clemens had called
for an official inquiry into the conduct of the terrible man, which
could not fail to end in his dismissal--his dismissal in disgrace. And
while I was still considering how we could best make it known to all
the world that he was a wolf in sheep's clothes, chance came to my aid
and caused these papers to fall into my hands, which prove clearly that
the worst that was reported about this man was not as bad yet as the
truth. I knew at once what my duty was. Certain that my wife would
never hear of the exposure to which I had been morally forced, and
relying on the discretion of a nobleman, I hastened----"
"I must consult Barnewitz," said Cloten, suddenly; and he made a motion
as if he were going into the room where Barnewitz was waiting.
"For God's sake, my dear sir," cried the frightened professor, "are you
going to ruin me? Consider, I pray, you have solemnly promised not to
expose Mrs. Jager----"
"Nonsense!" said Cloten; "you surely would not have me go into such a
serious matter alone. Barnewitz!"
"What's the matter?" said the latter, looking up from his paper.
"Just come this way! I have something important to tell you."
Barnewitz came, and Cloten told him rapidly what the matter was, while
the professor stood by, rubbing his hands, in great embarrassment.
"It cannot be doubted," continued Cloten. "I must tell you frankly I
had my suspicions; but, to be sure, I did not guess that rascal--that
man Stein ... But I see it all now. I knew she was going over to Ferry
town again to-day; and now I remember she said, contrary to her
usual way, she would not be back before night. And then you saw last
night--oh, no doubt it is all so! What am I to do? What ought I to do?"
And the young man struck his forehead with his closed fist.
"What ought you to do?" said Barnewitz. "Let her run!"
"Pardon me," said the professor; "that would cause an unheard-of
scandal, which even now, I think, can only be prevented by very
energetic measures."
"The professor is right," said Cloten; "we must not let them get off;
but I cannot prevent it alone. Will you help me, Barnewitz?"
"_Avec plaisir_," replied Barnewitz. "I never could bear the fellow!"
"But _periculum in mora_, gentlemen. You must go to work at once!"
chimed in the professor.
"Well, we will," said Cloten. "Come, Barnewitz; I'll tell you on the
way what I think we had better do. The professor will accompany us part
of the way."
"With pleasure; with great pleasure!" replied the professor. "To be
sure, my time is very limited now; very limited. Ah--here is the door;
I pray, after you, gentlemen!"
And the three gentlemen hastily left the restaurant.
CHAPTER IV.
The broad sheet of ice between the main land and the island had been
for many a week an immense bridge. People no longer reflected that they
were walking on frozen water, and that the hoofs of the horses were
ringing so loud because they were trotting over a vast abyss. What fear
they might feel was easily dispersed as they looked at the gigantic
blocks of ice which the fishermen had placed as warning-posts around
the large holes cut for the fish, provided they did not carelessly
drive or walk right into them, which was not likely, at least in the
daytime. And as long as the slanting rays of the sun shone on the
bright ice, which covered the sound for miles and miles east and west
of the town, there were crowds of pedestrians to be seen among numerous
sleighs, which were often drawn by two and not unfrequently even by
four horses. But when the sun had set and the mists were thickening,
the moving black thread which connected by day the town with the little
village of Ferrytown became thinner and thinner. The fishermen, who
have been out fishing miles away, come in on their low sledges; or,
standing upright on their sleighs, and pushing them with a long
iron-shod pole, they sweep by, one by one, drifting with marvellous
swiftness through the gray fog, like ghosts of the desert, like spirits
from the northern regions. And now lights are seen on both sides of the
sound: a few on the island, many more on the side of the town; now the
stars also, which until now have peeped stealthily here and there only
through the dark evening sky, begin to sparkle and shine in groups, so
that the eye cannot see enough of their great splendor. But no one
minds them. The moving black thread is no longer seen; only here and
there a belated wanderer, who hastens his steps, although knowing full
well that nothing can happen to him if he but follows the path; or a
sleigh, one of those small, light one-horse sleighs which are fitted up
in vast numbers during winter by fishermen and ferrymen in order to
serve the restless public.
Such a sleigh was just trotting past through the dim twilight as night
was sinking lower and lower every moment, and fogs and mists began to
cover the fields of ice. There was but a single passenger sitting in
the sleigh by the side of the driver; he had a fur cap drawn low over
his face, and the collar of his cloak was drawn up high.
As long as they were meeting near the harbor sleighs and
foot-passengers on their return, not a word was said by passenger or
driver; but when they rode out on the wild desert of ice, when the
lights in town were looking dim, and the trot of the crop-eared hack
was sounding loud and clear, the gentleman raised himself in his corner
and said:
"All in order, Claus?"
"Yes, sir," replied the handsome youth, turning, half round on his
seat.
"Have you heard from your cousin?"
"I saw him yesterday myself. He will be on the strand near Barow
punctually at five. He has his two best horses. They will trot with you
until to-morrow at the same hour."
"That is more than I want, if you know the track to Barow?"
"If I know it? I drive it every day. But I should not advise any one
who does not know it as well as I do to drive alone."
"Why not?"
"The Barow people have cut hole upon hole into the ice; and where they
stop the Ferrytown holes begin. You see nothing but blue water on your
right and on your left. Cheer up, Fox!"
The crop-eared horse went faster, and the two men relapsed into
silence. Both listened carefully, but with very different feelings.
Claus Lemberg enjoyed the adventure, because it stirred up his strong
nerves most delightfully, and brought out his cunning and his courage,
the two qualities which he was proudest of in his whole nature. The
other man looked at it more thoughtfully. He knew he was taking a step
which he could never retrace, a step which was to decide not only his
own fate--that mattered little--but also the fate of another being, a
woman, who had won a right to his love by her own sacrificing love, a
woman who had given up rank and riches, and every advantage which her
birth and her social position gave her, for the sole purpose of being
his, and who now was waiting for him in anxiety and anguish on yonder
shore, from which the lights began to beckon to him. His heart was
naturally full of anxious care. He had broken off the bridge behind
him; he was hastening toward a future as black as the night by which he
was surrounded, but by no means lighted up by as many bright, sparkling
stars. But no matter--the die is cast; he cannot go back. Forward then,
forward! What is that? A sleigh coming behind us?
Oswald raised himself and listened, but Claus's sharp ears had already
discovered the direction from which the sound came.
"It is a two-horse sleigh from over yonder," he said, turning a little
to the right. "They have fine horses; they'll be here directly."
Almost at the same moment they saw the sleigh--a dark mass, which
slipped through the darkness like a flash of lightning. As they passed
each other the driver checked the horses a moment, and a voice asked:
"This is the track, isn't it?"
"Straight ahead?" was Claus's reply.
Then again the same voice:
"The ice is strong enough for two horses?"
"Oh, for four!" replied Claus.
"Thanks!"
"Welcome!"
And the sleigh moved on swiftly again.
"Strange!" murmured Oswald; "I thought I heard Oldenburg's voice. What
strange tricks our fancy can play us!"
The rest of the journey to Ferry town was accomplished in silence. They
reached it in a few minutes, rights were shining in the houses up on
the bluffs. Below, near the ferry, where an inn was standing, there was
much life; the windows were bright; music was heard; sleighs were
standing before the door.
Claus stopped; Oswald got out.
"I'll drive along the beach as far as our house," said Claus, "and wait
for you there. But make haste. In half an hour the moon rises, and then
they can see us two miles on the ice."
"Don't be afraid. We shall not keep you waiting."
Oswald went past the inn, up the steep village street; then he turned
to the right and hastened along the low cottages, which there line the
beach, until he came to the last of the row. Through a crack in the
shutters which protected the low window there came a faint ray of
light. Oswald gave three measured knocks against the shutter.
Immediately the door was opened cautiously. Oswald slipped in. In the
hall he was met by an old woman of tall stature and large frame,
holding a light in her hand; by her side stood a frail, youthful
person, who fell into Oswald's arms as he entered.
"At last! at last!"
"At last! Emily? Why, I come at the minute!"
"Maybe! I am nearly dead with impatience."
"Is everything ready?"
"Yes."
"Did anybody see you when you left?"
"No one, except Jager's wife; she insisted upon coming with me. I could
not get rid of her. She is in the room there."
"The fool!"
"Don't scold her. We owe her much; be kind to her!"
"She will show our enemies the way."
"I am not afraid of that. Cloten is quite unsuspicious. I told I him I
would not be back till night. Come in!"
Emily drew Oswald into the little low room, where Primula was standing
by a table, making tea. As soon as she saw Oswald she rushed into his
arms.
"Oswald!" she cried, "this is the last moment! A cup of tea, some rum,
and you must go! Be brave and firm!"
"Time is precious," said Oswald, disengaging himself from Primula's
embrace. "We must go, Emily."
"Not without having drained this cup," said Primula, pouring the tea
into a cup. "You know, Oswald, it is cold without, and in the night air
we shiver; even we immortal gods."
Primula's effort to be jocular was a failure; tears drowned her voice,
she sat down on a settee, pressed her hand on her face, and sobbed. But
a moment and she jumped up again.
"No womanly weakness, Primula," she cried; "we must be strong now.
Drink, friends, drink; and then out into the dark night and the
star-crowned life!"
"Come, Oswald," said Emily, who stood there ready for the journey;
"Mrs. Jager is right; a cup of tea will do no harm, and a few minutes
more or less can make no difference."
"I wish we were off," said Oswald, taking the cup she was offering him
from her hand.
He had hardly uttered these words when somebody knocked violently
against the shutter.
All looked at each other frightened.
"Hallo!" cried a voice.
"For heaven's sake! That is Arthur!" said Emily. "We are lost."
"Farewell, my friends!" cried Primula, and dashed into the adjoining
chamber, after having in vain tried to break open the door of a huge
wardrobe.
"Hush!" said the old woman. "We are not so easily caught here in Ferry
town. Not a word!"
She went to the window and said, "Who is there?"
"Is the Baroness Cloten here? I have important news for her."
The old woman turned round and whispered, "Make haste and get away; I
will try to keep him here. What do you want of her?"
Oswald and Emily did not hear the reply. They slipped stealthily,
holding each other's hand, through the hall to the back door, which
opened upon the sea. A flight of steps led down to the beach. Below was
the sleigh. Once in the sleigh they were safe.
"Stay behind me," said Oswald when they came to the door.
The door was closed by an iron clasp. Oswald opened it cautiously.
Everything was quiet. The wintry sky looked down with its bright stars.
"There is nobody here," whispered Oswald. "Come!"
They had no sooner stepped out than the door was closed violently and
with a bang, evidently by somebody who had been standing behind it, who
now, as if to cut off the retreat of the fugitives, was leaning against
it with his broad shoulders.
In such moments the mind acts promptly, and Oswald recognized instantly
by the aid of the starlight and the sheen of the snow that the
broad-shouldered form before him was that of Baron Barnewitz.
"We are betrayed," he whispered; "but they shall pay for it. Quick
Emily, step into the sleigh; I'll follow."
"But not just now!" said Barnewitz, leaping upon Oswald, and seizing
him by the shoulders with both hands.
Oswald tore himself away, and jumping back a little distance, so as to
have elbow-room, he seized one of the iron-shod pikes which the
fishermen use in propelling their sleds, and of which several were
standing in the corner. He struck his adversary with it so terrible a
blow that the latter, in spite of his gigantic size and enormous
strength, fell down without uttering a sound.
In an instant Oswald had overtaken Emily, and putting his arm around
her waist he bore her down the steep steps.
Below, on the snow of the narrow beach, stood the sleigh.
He put Emily in and followed her.
"We are betrayed, Claus," he said; "drive fast. It is a matter of life
and death."
Claus clacked his tongue and the crop-eared hack went off.
"Thought so!" said Claus, turning half round. "A minute ago a sleigh
came and stopped not a hundred yards from here. I saw two men get out
and climb up the bluff. I was just going to follow them and to warn
you, when you were coming out a the door. Now it's all right. I should
like to see the horses that can overtake Claus Lemberg and his Fox."
"You might soon have that satisfaction," said Oswald who had been
looking behind; "there they are coming. It seems these bulls do not
fall at one blow, and want to make the acquaintance of a bullet. Where
is the box I gave you, Claus?"
"Just behind you, in the straw."
Oswald opened the box, took one of the two pistols that were in it, and
cocked it.
"For Heaven's sake, Oswald, what are you going to do?" said Emily, who
had not uttered a word since they were in the sleigh.
"Shoot down the first man who dares touch you."
"Oh, God! oh, God!"
"For whom do you tremble; for me? or for him? You have time yet. He
will forgive you, I am sure, if you turn back now;--perhaps lecture you
a little in Barnewitz's presence."
"How can you talk so? I turn back? Rather dead at the bottom of the
sea!"
"That may come too," murmured Oswald.
Oswald thought the crop-eared hack, however swiftly he cut with his
rough-shod shoes into the ice, could certainly not long keep up the
speed so as to escape from the two thoroughbreds before the sleigh of
his pursuers. He had a start of a few thousand yards, but that could
not avail much, as the distance from Ferrytown to the village of Barow
was over a mile. There they were to find another sleigh, provided by
one of Claus's cousins, who was overseer on one of the Breesen estates,
and ready to do and to risk anything in the world for Miss Emily.
"Once more, Emily: what do you want me to do if they overtake us?"
asked Oswald, bending down to the little woman, who sat there silently,
wrapped up in her furs.
"Defend yourself like a man!"
"And if I succumb?"
"Then I jump into the first air-hole we meet with! Better at the bottom
of the sea than in his power!"
"Are you quite sure?"
"As sure as I live, and as I love you."
Oswald bent down and kissed the beautiful, pale face.
"Now it is all right," he said; "now come what may." Those were
terrible minutes, and the gloomy surroundings only heightened the
impressive character of the situation. All was perfectly silent around
them; nothing was heard but the ceaseless striking of hoofs on the
ringing ice, and that peculiar sound, resembling a long-drawn sigh,
which is produced when an object moves with great rapidity over a plain
of ice. As far as the eye reached nothing but the fearful solitude of a
plain covered with a thin layer of snow, and the dark night lowering
over it like a leaden cover. Even the stars were now hid by a light,
drizzling fog, and yet it began to be lighter and lighter every moment.
A reddish streak on the gray sky announced the rising moon. The sleigh
of the pursuers could already be seen more distinctly, like a great
black spot, which grew every instant greater and blacker as the light
on the sky grew brighter.
Only a few minutes had passed since they had left Ferrytown, but they
appeared to Oswald an eternity. He looked ahead for the shore, but
nothing could be seen yet; he looked behind at the pursuers, and the
great black spot bad again grown larger and blacker.
"We can't do it, Claus," said Oswald.
"What will you bet, sir?" replied Claus. "I will eat Fox alive if he
does not win. Why, sir, there is no such horse to be found far and
near. We are some twenty sleigh-owners in Ferrytown, and thirty over in
Grunwald, and all of us have good horses in our sleighs, but Fox beats
them all. Eh, Fox?"
And, as if Fox had been cheered by the praise of his master, he shook
his cropped mane, and cut with his sharp hoofs faster and faster into
the clear ice.
"But those are uncommon horses."
Claus laughed.
"And that's exactly why I don't trouble myself. They can't stand it;
and then they are afraid of the air-holes. In a few minutes you will
see they will fall behind, or I will eat Fox alive."
Perhaps Fox was afraid of the terrible fate with which he was
threatened if he should allow himself to be overtaken, and made
desperate efforts; perhaps Cloten's horses began really to be tried by
this unusual chase on the smooth ice, or to be frightened by the black
water of the air-holes; at all events, Clauses prophecy began to become
true almost as soon as he had uttered it. Although it was dawning
brighter and brighter on the horizon, the black spot became perceptibly
smaller and less distinct; and when at last the full moon rose over the
gray edge of the ice, and poured her pale light over the vast level
plain, the black spot was no longer to be seen on the white surface.
"Well, didn't I tell you?" asked Claus, turning round and showing his
white teeth, "that there isn't a horse that can overtake Fox? Up, Fox!"
Claus had turned round towards his horse. On, on they flew, with the
swiftness of an arrow, over the low thundering abyss, past the weird
glittering of waters, on which the pale moon cast an uncanny sheen. The
icy north wind whistled around their ears as it swept mournfully and
plaintively over the snow-covered fields. Oswald and Emily held each
other in close embrace. Glad to have escaped the danger, they enjoyed
the bliss of a love whose sweet flowers they were gathering on the
brink of a fearful abyss, and willingly forgot for a few moments how
deep that abyss was, and how full of unspeakable horrors.
CHAPTER V.
It was March. On the twenty-fourth of February the Republic had been
proclaimed in France. The grand event spread its effect in concentric
circles over the whole of the civilized earth. Berlin too had been
excited, and a feverish agitation had prevailed for a few days in all
circles of society--a kind of confusion, of nervous trembling, such as
befalls men when they are suddenly roused from deep sleep by a dazzling
light, and do not know exactly where to find their head; and at the
same time they feel a secret horror of the night in which they have so
long slept an unnatural sleep--a confused idea that, after all, the
golden light of the sun is a very precious thing; a hopeful expectant
stretching and moving in all their limbs, so that the watchmen, who
have kept and guarded the gigantic sleeper in his dreams, become
anxious to begin to converse with each other. "We will have to put him
in iron chains," they whisper, "or he may actually rise; and then, woe
unto us!"
There was a lively time one fine bright evening at the "Booths," the
principal resort of respectable citizens, who were in the habit of
amusing themselves here on Sunday afternoons with wife and child by
enjoying a mixture of music, beer, and sausages; but any one who had at
all followed the events of the last days in the great city might have
doubted for a moment whether this was a political meeting or a popular
entertainment. Perhaps it meant both. Work, that strict task-master,
had been cheated out of an hour only; and the simple fact that such
masses were here assembled, which no police constable would readily
dare interrupt or trouble, aroused in the assembled crowds a sense of
exuberant self-respect, a very unusual festive excitement. Then the
blue sky of early spring looked so lovely; the slender, leafless
branches and twigs of the trees in the park were so clearly defined
against the clear background, and the evening sun was shining warm and
hopeful down upon the thousands who crowded the vast open space between
the coffee-houses and the river on one side, and the park on the other
side. The pressure was especially great near the wooden stand on the
edge of the park, which was ordinarily occupied by a band, but from
whence to-day a very novel kind of music was heard--a music which was
so strange to the people, and perhaps on that account far more
attractive than all the waltzes of Lanner or Strauss. Further off,
towards the coffee-houses, where the speakers could no longer be heard
distinctly, people seemed to be merrier. Here the waiters could
scarcely hurry up as many glasses of the favorite white beer as thirsty
gullets were clamoring for. Itinerant venders offered rolls and
sausages, half-grown boys praised their cigars with gosling voices, and
even jugglers and acrobats played their tricks.
Two men were slowly making their way arm in arm through the heaving
crowd. Their appearance was signally different from that of the mass of
the people, which consisted mainly of men, especially young men, of the
lower classes. One of the two was very tall and thin; his gray eyes
looked so keen and bright from under the heavy brows, and around the
well-shaped straight nose there was so much life and meaning, that one
could very easily supply the lower part of the face, which was
completely covered with a close black beard. His carriage was careless,
like that of a man who is too busy with his thoughts to lay much stress
upon external forms; and his clothes, which were made after the last
fashion, and of the very best material, hung so easily and comfortably
on his spare form that one could easily see the owner believed in the
doctrine that clothes were made for men, and not men for clothes. The
appearance of his companion was perhaps even more striking. He was
nearly a head shorter than his tall friend, but much broader in the
shoulders. And yet he stooped like a man who has spent half of his life
in reading books. His large well-shaped brow, and his deep, meek,
dreamy eyes, also bespoke the scholar, the thinker. His hair, which he
wore rather long, was already nearly gray, and so were the bushy
eyebrows, and the beard, which flowed in abundant masses from cheeks,
lips, and chin, down to his waist. He glanced restlessly at the crowd,
and communicated his observations to his companion with a passionate
energy, which characterized his whole manner; the other simply smiling,
nodded his head, or replied in a few short words to the point.
"Well, how do you like it?" asked the man of the broad shoulders.
"Not so badly," replied the tall one.
"But do you think this people will ever dare venture upon a
revolution?"
"Why not?"
"Look at these stupid faces, listen to these miserable jokes with
which they try to drown their instinct of the grave nature of the
situation, and the painful feeling of their own insignificance. See how
the people, at the very hour when they hear liberty and justice
eloquently discussed, still have time and relish for _panem et
circenses_, and you see enough to smother the last spark of hope that
these men will ever talk of freedom, much less fight for it."
"You are still a pessimist, Berger! and in spite of the golden sunlight
which at last shines once more after so many dark years of your life."
"It is this very sunlight which fills my heart with such impatience.
During the gray winter days we think it quite natural that the trees
raise their bare branches to the sky; but when the first balmy air of
spring plays around us, and the sky is blue once more, we long to see
the green ocean of leaves twittering and rustling in the breeze; and
above all, when the winter has been so long and so hard that it has
taken all our strength from us, and we have no right to hope to live
into summer!"
"The dead travel fast! You have seen that in Paris."
"At that moment a man approached them who had for some time looked at
the two gentlemen as if he did not quite trust his own eyes, and said
to Berger,
"Is this really you, professor?"
"Why, see there! my old friend!" replied Berger, letting go Oldenburg's
arm, and offering his hand to the new-comer. "How did you get here?"
"Alas!" said the man, "that is a sad story. If you will come with me a
little way--I would rather speak to you alone."
"Excuse me a moment," said Berger to Oldenburg, and went aside with the
man.
Oldenburg looked at the latter not without astonishment. His was a
powerful body, with a broad, well-developed chest and long arms, while
the head appeared not less massive. In the coarse, bloated features one
might read, by the side of much good-nature, and jovial humor also, not
a little cunning, but of a perfectly harmless nature. To judge by his
appearance the man was not exactly well-to-do. His gray felt hat had
evidently seen many a stormy day before it had been reduced to its
forlorn condition. The black velvet coat, very shabby and covered with
rusty-looking frogs, had evidently seen better days; so also the large
linen trousers, the color of which was not easily distinguished, and
the boots, which began to burst in a threatening manner. A red-silk
handkerchief, boldly twisted around the sunburnt, muscular neck,
completed the expression of reduced artistic merit which the whole
person bore in all its features.
Berger spoke a few minutes earnestly with the man; then they went a
little further aside, and Oldenburg's sharp eye saw how Berger pulled
out his purse and pressed a few pieces of money in the hands of the
stranger. Then they separated; the man disappeared in the crowd, the
professor came back.
"Who was that strange person?"
"A man of whom I have often spoken to you: Director Caspar Schmenckel,
of Vienna."
"Ah!" exclaimed Oldenburg; "why did you not tell me so at once. I
should like to make the acquaintance of a man with whom Czika has lived
so long."
"He will call upon us in a few days. The poor man is in despair since
Xenobia and Czika have left him; he has met with nothing but
misfortune. First, his clown died; then his first artist ran away; and
the others he has been compelled to dismiss on account of chronic want
of money. Now he lounges about in all the inns of the city, and gives
performances on his own account."
"We must take care of him," said Oldenburg. "He has treated Czika well,
and I am under obligations to him. Besides, he seems to be a good
fellow. But let us go home. The thing here comes to nothing, as I
expected, at least for to-day."
As the two friends were leaving, a young man had just gone up on the
stand and demanded to speak. He was of a coarse, thick-set figure, but
the handsome, well-shaved face was full of life and cleverness; and as
he now took off his hat, brushed his long light hair from his white,
well-shaped forehead, he looked more like a precocious boy who has put
on spectacles for fun, than like a man who has a right to address
thousands. If the finely-cut features had something aristocratic, his
more than modest costume placed him far from the privileged classes.
His voice was peculiarly high and sharp and clear, and when he became
more animated it sounded somewhat like the clang of a trumpet, so that
it could be heard all over the large square to the furthest corner.
"Gentlemen," he said, and a smile of irony played around his lips,
"what would you say of a man who has a pointed arrow in his quiver, and
the strongest bow to shoot that arrow; and who, nevertheless, is
good-natured enough to send the sharp arrow, not by means of the strong
bow, but with his feeble hand? Well, gentlemen, we are exactly like
that foolish man. The arrow in the quiver is the petition with the nine
articles, as we modestly call the just demands of a nation; the
deputation chosen from among us, which is to present the address
to-morrow to the king, is the feeble hand. How far will it send the
arrow? To the threshold of the king's palace--no further! I tell you,
gentlemen, the feeble hand of the deputation will in vain knock at the
gate. His majesty will be graciously pleased to refuse accepting our
petition, and the deputation will return without having accomplished
anything."
When the orator had finished the phrase, raising his voice very high, a
murmur passed through the assembly not unlike a violent gust of wind
that sweeps over the sea. A few cried "bravo!" among them the gentleman
in the shabby velvet coat, who had pushed his way close to the
platform, and who had listened to the speaker with great delight, which
he tried to express by nods, grunts, and more violent applause. The
majority, however, was evidently opposed to energetic measures. For one
who cried bravo, there were a hundred who shook their heads and
whispered their misgivings.
The young man was not intimidated by these signs of dissatisfaction. He
repeated with great emphasis,
"The deputation will return without having accomplished anything! And
it serves us right. Why do we use the hand, when the bow lies idle in
the grasp, close by us? Do you want to know who the bow is? We are the
bow; I mean the whole assembly. If we went four, five, or six thousand,
as many as we are here, in close phalanx, and carried the petition, our
speaker ahead, up to the palace, I should like to see the gates that
would not open, the menials who would refuse to admit us, the
chamberlain who would dare to say: Gentlemen, his majesty is at tea,
and cannot see you."
"Bravo! bravo!" cried, the gentleman in the velvet coat, and clapping
his hands furiously. But the crowd was not at all pleased with this
humorous way of treating so serious a matter. They hissed and whistled
and cried from all sides. It was only with great difficulty that the
president, a man in a broad-brimmed hat and with a long beard, who
looked somewhat like an author, could restore peace by repeatedly
knocking with his cane on the table. The orator, quite unconcerned,
gathered the whole strength of his clear voice, and trumpeted down upon
the assembly:
"I have not offered the resolution to proceed in a body to the palace
because I expected it to be adopted, but simply in order to show you
what manner of men you are. Pioneers of freedom, my predecessor called
you. Yes, indeed! Freedom will be much benefited by you, if you are not
even now able to rouse yourself from the sleepy confidence in which you
have rested these thirty years----"
Whatever else the young man said could not be heard, for the last words
had brought down the storm which had been brewing for some time. "Down
with him!" cried those who stood nearest; "Knock him down!" those at a
distance.
It is not improbable that the last threat would have been carried out
by the insulted men if the powerful man in the velvet coat had not
embraced the orator enthusiastically as soon as he came down from the
platform, declaring himself thus openly his friend and protector. No
one seemed to desire engaging in a fight with a man of such herculean
build; at least they allowed the two to leave the assembly unmolested,
in spite of the striking minority in which they had found themselves.
The new friends turned into one of the avenues which lead near the
stand from the open space of the "Booths" into the park. As soon as
they were alone the man in the velvet coat once more shook hands with
the young man of the light hair, and said, with great cordiality,
"I am exceedingly delighted to make the acquaintance of such a capital
fellow."
"So am I! So am I!" replied the young man, examining his admirer with a
quick, sharp glance from his blue eyes, and pushing his spectacles with
his finger higher up on his nose in order to be the better able to do
so. "With whom have I the honor?"
The gentleman in the velvet coat stepped back, threw his chest out,
lifted his much-tried hat, and said,
"I am Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna."
"Ah," replied the other, lightly; "glad to make your acquaintance. My
name is Timm, Albert Timm."
"You are not an artist?" said Mr. Schmenckel, confidentially.
"How so?" asked Mr. Timm, evasively.
Director Schmenckel imitated the gesture of one who throws a very heavy
object with both hands straight up in the air, in order to let it fall
again upon the neck.
"Aha!" said Mr. Timm, who quickly understood in which region of the
fine arts the director had been gathering his laurels; "pardon me that
I was not personally acquainted with a man of your distinction; but I
have only been here a few days."
"Well, I thought so," replied Mr. Schmenckel, as they proceeded arm in
arm. "You are a noble fellow; very different from these poor creatures
hereabouts. You speak as you think; as you feel in your heart. Caspar
Schmenckel likes such fellows, and if he can be of any service to you
say the word and it's done."
"Much obliged, director. Delighted to have the honor of your
acquaintance. I presume you are performing here in the capital with
your troupe?"
"Performing?--Hem! hem!" said Mr. Schmenckel, clearing his throat. "To
tell the truth, you do not see Director Schmenckel just now _in
floribus_, I have been compelled by many reasons to disband my old
troupe, and I am just now engaged in forming a new one--a task which
has its difficulties, as you may imagine. In the meantime----"
"You are living in private?"
"In a certain way, yes; that is to say, I perform from time to time
before a few friends; but, you know, only to keep my hand in, that is
all."
"Of course."
"Thus I am in a certain way engaged to perform to-night in a very noble
locality, where I meet the very best society; and if you will do me the
honor----"
"You are very kind."
"You will find very nice people there; perfectly free and easy; all of
them democrats to the core, although they drink prodigiously little
water, I should think. Ha, ha, ha! I have been a daily guest at the
'Dismal Hole' ever since the winter began, and yet I have never liked
it so well as since we have gotten a new landlady. She has been there
about a week."
"Indeed!"
"I shall be proud to make you acquainted with her. Mrs. Rose Pape is a
model of a woman."
"What did you say?" suddenly asked Mr. Timm, with great animation.
"I said Mrs. Rose Pape is a capital woman."
"Did you not say she had taken the business quite lately?"
"Yes; for she used to be a midwife. The French revolution has made her
an innkeeper."
"That is original."
"Isn't it? But then Mrs. Rose is an original, too. She has a wonderful
knack for business; and when the trouble commenced in Paris, she said:
'Now golden days are coming for beer-houses with female waiters!' The
next day she had rented the 'Dismal Hole.'"
"I am exceedingly anxious to make the acquaintance of the excellent
lady."
During this conversation the friends had followed little frequented
paths in the park, and were now near the magnificent gate which leads
on this side straight from the park into the city. The crowd at the
Booths must have dissolved immediately after they had left it, for the
head of an immense procession coming from that direction had just
reached the gate. Here they met the crowd that were still coming from
the city into the park. It could not be avoided; the crowds met and
filled the narrow passages of the great gate immediately before the
guard-house, where a company of soldiers was standing with arms
grounded. The people gazed and wondered at the unusual sight. Others
pushed their way up to see what was the matter. In an instant
the guard-house was surrounded by hundreds of men standing in a
semi-circle, which was steadily growing smaller and smaller. The
captain in command of the company, a tall officer with a savage
expression in his sharply-marked features, cast furious glances at the
multitude, but did not deign to say a word. It was easy to see what was
going on in his soul. Suddenly he gave an order with an angrily-shrill
voice: "Attention! Eyes right! Shoulder arms! Attention! Load!"
The ramrods rattled, and in an instant the order was obeyed.
It had been intended as a warning merely for the crowd; but, as it will
happen in such cases, it produced exactly the opposite effect to what
had been intended. Those who stood nearest could not move back, and
those behind had only become more curious to know what the noise of the
ramrods meant. A fatal encounter between the soldiers and the people
seemed unavoidable.
Just then a tall man pushed his way between the idlers and walked up to
the captain.
"Allow me to say a word to you."
"What do you want?"
"My name is Oldenburg. I have the honor to address Count Grieben?"
The officer touched his helmet to salute. "Glad to see you again,
baron, after so many years. Come in time; shall be compelled to fire
upon the rabble."
"It was to prevent that that I begged leave to introduce myself. You
have a simple and infallible means to induce these people to move on,
and thus to prevent an irreparable calamity."
"What is that?"
"Let your men retire into the guard-house."
"What are you thinking of! to make such a concession to the rabble?
Besides, it is against orders."
"Then at least call upon the people to go home."
"I have no desire to open negotiations with the _crapule_."
"Will you permit me to do so?"
"As you like," replied the officer, leaving Oldenburg with cold
politeness.
Oldenburg advanced a few steps towards the close semi-circle and said,
speaking as loud as he could,
"Gentlemen, you are in some danger if you remain standing here. Many of
you have been in the army, and know that the soldier has to obey
orders, and no questions allowed. Don't, therefore, force your
fellow-citizens, who are here under arms, to turn against you. Let us
avail ourselves of our right to go where we choose to go. It is a bore
to remain standing so long on the same spot."
"He is right," said a square-shouldered citizen from the head of the
crowd. "I will begin to scramble off!"
The people laughed. And as the shrill voice of a cigar-dealer began to
sing, "Move slowly, slowly, good Austrians, now!" the dense crowd
gradually got into motion, especially as at that moment cries and other
noises arose in a different direction and attracted the curious among
them.
Some distance higher up the Lindens--for Unter den Linden is the name
of the superb street which leads from the gate to the palace--a
collision had taken place between the people and one of the numerous
patrols which had been marching up and down for some hours between the
palace and the gate. Unfortunately there had been no Oldenburg here to
interfere and prevent the mischief. The commander of the patrol--a
second detachment was marching on a level on the opposite side of the
street--was an officer of gigantic stature, whose dark, threatening
mien announced the firm determination to punish the slightest
resistance instantly and without mercy. Everybody had so timidly given
way before him, as he marched down at the head of his men, that he
seemed to be justified in smiling contemptuously whenever such an event
occurred. But now he came to a place where a narrow but much frequented
side street opened upon the Lindens. This passage was crammed full of
people, who wanted to see what was going on in the main street. From
the Lindens others came who wished to go down that passage. Thus an
immense mass of people had been crowded together here, and the
confusion, great as it was, became still more awkward, when the patrol
marched straight down upon them.
"Make way!" ordered the officer, marching into the crowd without
looking right or left.
Those who stood nearest gave way to the side, but others pressed back
upon them. A short confusion arose, during which the officer was cut
off from his men.
"Make way!" repeated the officer, in still harsher tones.
"Make way yourself!" cried a young man in the crowd.
He had no sooner uttered the words than the officer rushed upon him,
seized him by the collar and tossed him, by a slight effort of his
powerful arm, into the midst of his men, saying:
"Arrest the rascal!"
The soldiers seized the young man, who tried in vain to free himself.
"Knock the dog down if he resists!" cried the officer.
Who knows but the soldiers would have done his bidding if at that
moment Mr. Schmenckel had not suddenly appeared before the officer,
crying out:
"Let the man go, your excellency, or ten thousand----"
The officer of the Life Guards and the man of the people stood a few
moments opposite each other, both of them men of gigantic size,
surprisingly alike in their tall figure, their full chest and ample
shoulders, with long, muscular arms; yes, as they stared at each other
with fierce passion, there was some resemblance even in the massive,
coarse features.
But it was only a moment during which they stood thus; at the next
moment the officer had hit the man with all his strength upon his chest
in order to gain room to draw his sword. But he might as well have
tried to move a rock from its place as the man in the velvet-coat. The
blow sounded dull on the broad chest--that was all; but at the same
time the man extended his powerful arms, seized the officer around the
waist, lifted him sheer from the ground, and threw him with such
violence against the soldiers, who had their hands full in holding the
young man, that officer, men, and prisoner all rolled together in a
heap.
"Hurrah!" cried the delighted crowd, admiring the display of physical
strength. "Hurrah! At them! Down with the soldiers!"
Mr. Schmenckel probably did not expect much assistance from the courage
of the crowd. He drew the prisoner with one great effort from out of
the confused heap of men, and before the officer could regain his feet
both had disappeared in the crowd, who readily opened to let them pass.
It was high time, for the two detachments had been able in the meantime
to break through the crowd and to unite their forces.
The officer started up and ordered with a voice shrieking with rage:
"Left Wheel! Forward! Charge bayonets!"
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried the soldiers, pressing with lowered bayonets
into the crowd. The people scattered, crying and howling.
CHAPTER VI.
While such scenes were taking place, Under the Lindens and the
inhabitants of the adjoining streets felt a feverish excitement, so
that the crowd scattered at the mere sight of an approaching force,
merely however to reassemble at another temporarily safe point, and
arrests were made in large numbers. The inhabitants of distant parts of
the city dwelt in profound peace, utterly ignorant of what was going on
elsewhere, and enjoying the calm monotony of an idyllic country
village.
In a small one-story house in one of these quiet streets, which
derived, from a garden before the door and a slight iron railing
between the garden and the gate, somewhat of the appearance of a villa,
there sat just before sunset two persons in eager conversation. A
little aquarium with gold-fish stood near the window, a bright cage
with a canary bird hung between the curtains, and flowers were seen all
about in pots and in vases, so that everything bespoke the presence of
a lady, although the inevitable work-stand was not to be seen. The man
was not exactly young, although even the bald places at the temples
would hardly have justified any one in calling him old; the lady was
much younger. They conversed eagerly, like two good friends who have
not seen each other for months, while in the interval events have
happened of the greatest importance for both, which indeed may be said
to have inaugurated a new epoch in their lives.
"And Franz is perfectly satisfied with his position here?"
"Perfectly! How pa would have been delighted, if he----"
The young lady did not end the sentence, but turned towards the window
and busied herself with the flowers. The gentleman looked at her kindly
through the glasses he wore, and after a while he laid his hand lightly
on her arm and said:
"You must not only appear firm, my dear friend; you must be so;--you,
the daughter of such a father!"
"You are right, Bemperly; I will try to be as firm and as reasonable as
I look. But now let us speak of something else. What does Marguerite
say to our new plan?"
"She is delighted--or _charmée_, as she says. But I think it is less
because our position will be better--although, quite _entre nous_, a
married student is a very remarkably amphibious creature--as because
she will be able to be near you again. You do riot know what an
impression you have made on _ma petite femme_."
"She is so kind-hearted! And I have done so little for her; been able
to do so little for her! I have, properly speaking, done nothing but
tease her. Even that last evening--you recollect Bemperlein, when you
appeared as author--when you kissed each other in the bay-window, when
we drank the old hock, and pa afterwards gave his grand speech, the
last I ever heard from his lips. Now only I know what it was that moved
him so deeply. He took leave of us, not only for the moment, but
forever."
Sophie tried to master the emotion which threatened to overcome her,
and then she continued:
"I have done so little for Marguerite, and she has done so much for me!
Do you know, Bemperlein, that I was weak enough to become quite jealous
of the little one when I saw, in papa's letters, how very fond he was
of her, and how he disliked the idea of your getting married even more
than our own marriage?"
"And yet it was only by his assistance that we were able to marry; at
least Marguerite is indebted to him alone for her trousseau and the
furnishing of our house, both of which would otherwise have been almost
out of the question. You know, I am sure, what I mean!"
"The Timm affair! Marguerite wrote me about it. What amazed me most
was, that Timm should have returned the money so promptly."
"We were all astonished; no one more so than I, who knew best how
overwhelmed he was with debts--a fact which led me to dissuade your
father earnestly from making a useless effort. The whole affair has
caused me, _entre nous_, a good deal of heart-ache; and little reason
as I have to like Mr. Timm, I have still been quite sorry when I heard
soon afterwards of his being sent to jail. He was unable, it seems, to
pay a note long since due, and perhaps only because he had paid us. For
all I know, he is a prisoner still."
"What!" said Sophie, "has my old admirer really come to that at last?"
"Your old admirer?"
"Yes; don't you know it? I went to the same dancing master as Timm; and
I can well say that I liked him best of all with whom I talked or
danced. He is an extremely clever man, and can be most agreeable when
he chooses to be so. I am sincerely sorry that he should manage his
great talents so very badly. He resembles in that respect----"
"Oswald Stein, you mean. Well, say on. I have fortunately mastered the
feeling of bitterness which used to overcome me in Grunwald every time
I heard the name mentioned. He does not exist any longer, as far as I
am concerned, especially after his last adventures."
"That is hardly right, Bemperly. You know I never liked Stein
particularly; but since you all rise in arms against him, and since
even Franz, who used to excuse him so long, begins to chime in, I have
a great inclination to take his part."
"Of course," said Bemperlein, with a slight touch of bitterness; "that
is the old story. Women like a man the better, the worse he is. Even my
Marguerite, who generally cannot bear him, breathed the other day a
_pauvre homme_ in her softest notes! _Pauvre homme!_ I should like to
know what sensible man would think so of him. If a man rushes madly
through life, acting not upon principle but upon impulse; if he must
needs gratify all his caprices, and if he meets with difficulties
breaks out in furious anger; if, instead of loving his neighbor like
himself, he runs away by night with his neighbor's wife--they say of
him, with tears of sympathy in their fair eyes: _Pauvre homme!_"
"Bravo, Bemperly," cried Sophie, almost with her old cheerfulness;
"bravo! You could not preach better if you were yourself the happy
neighbor! But tell me, has no one heard anything yet of the reckless
couple?"
"As far as I know, no one? The earth seems to have swallowed them up."
"But how does the unlucky husband bear his misfortune?"
"Ah," said Bemperlein, almost angrily, "it is not worth while to
sympathize with that class of people. They deserve nothing better, and
reap what they sow. Just think, Miss Sophie--I meant to say _Mrs._
Sophie--this man, this Cloten, who, when Stein had run away with his
wife, behaved himself as if he never cared to see the sun shine any
more, not only found comfort in a very short time, but has inflicted
the same injury on his neighbor's house that he himself suffered. Baron
Barnewitz, Frau von Berkow's cousin--the one with the red beard, you
know, and the broad shoulders. Oh, you must have seen him. No? Well, it
does not matter--_Eh bien!_ Baron Barnewitz comes home the other day at
an unseasonable hour and finds--so gossip has it--the door to his
wife's room locked, suspects mischief, breaks a window, pulls out the
whole sash, rushes into the room and catches Baron Cloten, whom his
wife is just pushing out at another door! Then follows an explanation;
and the result is that Hortense has gone to Italy, and Baron Cloten,
after keeping his bed for a week, has retired to his estates without
taking leave of anybody."
"What a treasure trove that must have been for the good gossips of
Grunwald!"
"You may believe it; almost as great as when Helen Grenwitz became
engaged to Prince Waldenberg."
"How is that?"
"As far as I know, the solemn betrothal--I mean the official
ceremony--is to be celebrated here in the city in a few days. Anna
Maria told me recently that Helen would be here at the beginning of
March."
"Then you are still keeping up your relations with the family?"
"I could not well find an excuse for giving up the lessons. Anna Maria
honored me all the time with her special favor; and, besides, I have
recently become better reconciled with her ways. I believe we have
wronged her in many points. She has her very objectionable sides, no
doubt; but, if we wish to be just, we must acknowledge also that her
position is a very peculiar one. If she procures Helen a rich husband,
she does after all only what every mother in her position would do
likewise. And her circumstances are by no means as brilliant as they
think. Since her husband's death she has nothing but a comparatively
small annuity and the income from what she may have saved, but the
whole amounts to very little in comparison with her former revenue. And
if Malte should follow his cousin Felix's example, and die of
consumption, she would lose even that--and the poor fellow looks
shocking; he is nothing but skin and bones."
"Ah," said Sophie; "why, then Helen's marriage is almost a kind of
necessity in the meaning of these people, although I am convinced it
must be a very sad necessity for Helen."
"Why?"
"I will tell you in confidence. I think she had given her heart to
somebody else when she accepted the prince. Would to God she had been
less reserved towards me, perhaps it would all have come differently."
"Don't believe that! The girl has a kind of obstinate pride that no man
can bend, perhaps not even fate. She will allow no one an absolute
control over her decisions."
"Tell me, Bemperly, what is the truth of this report, that your Frau
von Berkow and Baron Oldenburg are living on very intimate terms with
each other?" asked Sophie, after a short pause.
"Nothing; nothing at all!" said Bemperlein, very earnestly. "I should
like to know what people have to do with that. There is an old
friendship between them, which dates back to the years when they were
children. That is all. Then they are neighbors, and must needs see each
other frequently--is not that perfectly natural? Why could not they
marry each other if they liked it? Instead of that the baron goes to
Paris, and leaves her, amid snow and ice, quite alone at Berkow. Does
not that show as clear as daylight that there is no question of love
between them?--or it must be a strange kind of love."
At that moment Sophie started with joy. She had caught a glimpse of a
tall, elegant man with a black beard, who was hastily passing the
window.
"There is Franz!" cried the young wife, her large blue eyes brightening
up and her cheeks blushing a deep red. "Hide yourself, Bemperly!"
"But where?" said Mr. Bemperlein, looking around in the room.
"There, behind the curtain! Hold it together in the middle, so that it
cannot open--thus!"
The bell was rung. Immediately afterwards the door of the room opened,
and Franz entered with rapid steps.
"Has not Bemperlein come?"
"Do you see him anywhere?"
Franz, it is true, did not see Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein, but upon a
chair a gentleman's hat; and, besides, the folds of the heavy curtain
arranged in a manner which very clearly betrayed the efforts of a hand
to hold them together.
So he said:
"That man Bemperlein is, after all, an utterly unreliable, frivolous,
unconscionable whipper-snapper; a man without faith, without principle;
a quack, whom I have regretted over and over again to have recommended
to Mr. Planke as director of his chemical manufactory, so that he has
actually engaged him with a salary of a thousand a year and five per
cent, of the clear receipts. He is a perfect Don Giovanni of a
Bemperlein, who has secret interviews with the wives of his friends,
hides himself when they return behind curtains, and is stupid enough
to leave his hat in the middle of the room. A harlequin of a
Bemperlein----"
"Stop!" said that gentleman, opening the curtain "I am found out!"
The two friends embraced with great cordiality.
"Do you know whom I have just seen?" asked Franz after the most
important questions had been fully answered.
"Well?" cried Bemperlein and Sophie.
"Baron Oldenburg and Frau von Berkow."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Bemperlein, casting an embarrassed look at
Sophie, and receiving in return a triumphant smile.
"As I tell you. I met them arm in arm near the palace. Frau von Berkow
has given me her address and asked me to call on her. There! Broad
street. No. 54. She has furnished lodgings. This, and the circumstance
that she has her children with her, make me believe that she has come
here for some time. I told her we were expecting Bemperlein to-day, and
she seemed to be very glad to hear it. Baron Oldenburg also sends his
best regards, and wants you to know that he has returned only yesterday
from Paris, in company with Professor Berger. You know, I suppose, that
the two met in Paris and witnessed the whole revolution? They are
staying at the Hotel de Russie Unter den Linden. I have advised Frau
von Berkow, if she has not very pressing business here, to leave the
city, because we shall in all probability have very troublesome times
soon. Albert street is full of people, swarming to and fro like an
ant-hill in uproar. Aids and orderlies are galloping through the
streets at full speed. At the corner of Albert and Bear streets they
had actually guns in position. Under the Lindens, they say, there has
actually been a collision, and an officer of the guards is said to have
been brutally ill-treated by the mob. Some said it was Prince
Waldenberg. The excitement was so great that the people left the grand
opera, although they were giving a new ballet, soon after the beginning
of the performance. In Fisher street the mob has attacked a gun-shop,
and an acquaintance of mine saw in Gold street the beginning of a
barricade. In one word, the city is in a state of feverish excitement,
and therefore, little wife, you had better bring out your tea, instead
of standing there with your mouth wide open and swallowing the horrible
news."
Sophie fell upon her husband's neck, pressed a kiss on his lips, and
went out to order supper. The two friends sat down on the sofa and
discussed their own and public affairs with that seriousness and
thoroughness which becomes wise men.
CHAPTER VII.
The "Dismal Hole" was one of those suspicious places to which
respectable people never resort, even after a long and dusty walk, when
some refreshment seems to be needed. Young men, perhaps, who have less
virtue than desire to enjoy life, and whom the spirit of mischief has
led far from their accustomed haunts, occasionally drift into its
sombre halls, and find next morning their heads aching furiously, and
their minds filled with confused but by no means pleasant reminiscences
of the night. Nevertheless the "Dismal Hole" was found in a by-street
of a very fashionable quarter of the city, and very modest in the day.
It shone forth at night by means of a blood-red lamp, which looked up
and down the street invitingly until the sun came and extinguished it.
During all these hours it seemed to be irresistibly attractive to many
people; at least it was almost always crowded with customers. Thus it
was on this evening also. There was scarcely a vacant chair in the four
or five large rooms which formed the "Dismal Hole." Eliza, Bertha, and
Pauline, the three pretty waiters, had their hands full in bringing the
beer to each thirsty guest, and in giving him time to pinch their
cheeks, or at least to say a civil word. These confidential interviews,
short as they were, no doubt interfered somewhat with business, but
what could be done? Thirsty gentlemen, belonging to a certain class of
society, insist upon holding the pretty hand that brings them the mug
of beer, though it may be slightly moistened with foam, a little while
in their own; and in this case such a desire was all the more
justifiable, as the three girls were really very pretty, and did all
honor to the good taste of the landlady of the "Dismal Hole."
Mrs. Rosalie Pape was a lady of fifty or more, who struck you at first
sight by her enormous size. It was only after more careful examination
that you noticed the coarseness of the features, which were half hid in
fat, and the short and square fingers of the plump white hands; and
only the experienced observer could discover that the brown hair which
adorned abundantly the head of the matron could not possibly be her
own, and that the small, bright blue eyes, in spite of the apparent
kindliness of the broad mouth, had a sharp and at times even a
downright wicked and dangerous expression.
The guests at the "Dismal Hole," however, were not the men to make such
observations. In their eyes Rosalie was a charming, splendid woman,
under whose management the fame of the place was spreading far and
near, and they were delighted when the good lady left her place behind
the bar and made a tour through the whole basement. Here she would
familiarly clap an acquaintance on the shoulder, or welcome a newcomer;
there she would graciously accept the praise of her beer, or try to
disarm a critic by putting his glass to her own lips and taking a pull
of which a sergeant need not have been ashamed.
Thus she had just now approached two men who were sitting alone in a
corner, and putting their heads close together whispered so eagerly
that it was evident the topic of their conversation must have been of
the greatest importance.
"Well, little Schmenckel, how do?" said Mrs. Rosalie, putting her fat
hand upon the broad shoulders of the strong gentleman in the velvet
coat; "it seems to me you look rather warm. Do not drink too much, or
you will not be able to show off well afterwards. You have a large
audience to-night."
"I fear I wont be able to do much to-night," said the director, with
stammering tongue, his face flushed and almost painfully.
"But, Schmenckel, you promised!" replied Mrs. Rose, and her eyes did
not look very kindly at him. "One good turn deserves another, you
know."
"My friend Schmenckel will consider it," said the other gentleman, a
man with light hair, and wearing spectacles over his sharp blue eyes;
"he happens just now to be somewhat excited by an encounter he had an
hour ago Under the Lindens. However, I am particularly delighted,
madame, to have found out your new address through Mr. Schmenckel. I
had been looking for you all over town for two days, and all in vain."
Mrs. Rose Pape cast a glance at the speaker. There was something in his
whole appearance, and in his way of speaking, which attracted her.
"With whom have I the honor?" she said.
"All on my side! Will you favor us with your company for a few
moments?" said the young man, offering Mrs. Rosalie the third yet
vacant chair near the little table. "My name is Albert Timm, from
Grunwald. I have a letter of introduction to you from an old friend,
who sends his kindest regards. May I be permitted to place the document
in those beautiful hands?" And Mr. Timm handed the lady an unsealed
letter, which he had drawn from a very shabby pocket-book.
Mrs. Rosalie seemed to be a little embarrassed by this communication.
She cast one more searching glance at the stranger, looked all around
the room to see that she was unobserved, opened the note, turned
ralf-round to get the benefit of the gas-light, and read:
"Dear Rose: The bearer is a very good friend of mine, whom you can
trust _unconditionally_. He will tell you something about that matter
at Grenwitz that will make you open your eyes wide. If you and Jeremiah
will help him, we can, I am sure, help a certain gentleman to his
inheritance, and make a prodigious profit out of it ourselves. Good-by!
I hope you are well; and I hope the same of your still warmly attached
T. G."
"You know the hand-writing?" asked Mr. Timm of the good lady, who,
after reading the letter twice, and folding it up carefully to put it
in her pocket, had been looking at him for some time with suspicious
glances.
"It seems to me the hand-writing is familiar," she said.
"Well, for the present that is the main point. As for the rest, I will
tell you more at the proper time. I hope you will grant me, to-night,
the favor and the honor of a confidential talk. I am sure we shall be
the best friends in the world by to-morrow."
There was a confidence and self-assurance in the manner of the young
man which decidedly imposed on Mrs. Rosalie, however nicer people might
have been shocked by the air of vulgar impertinence with which it was
flavored. She returned the familiar pressure of Timm's hand and rose,
as just at that moment one of the three Hebes came to say that she was
wanted at the bar.
Mr. Timm turned once more to Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna,
who was so drunk or so absorbed in his thoughts that he had paid little
or no attention to the conversation between his friend and Mrs.
Rosalie, and then he said:
"I don't see how you can be doubtful a moment. I tell you, as you were
thus facing each other I was struck by the likeness, although I had
little leisure at that time to make observations. I grant the accident
is marvellous which has brought you together once more after so many
years, at an hour and at a place where you perhaps least expected ever
to meet. But what does that amount to? I have a great respect for
Master Accident, for he has helped me over and over again out of many a
predicament when all cleverness and wisdom were at fault. And this
accident is too famous not to be something more than a mere accident.
And what is the great wonder, after all? You court, twenty-two years
ago, a frivolous lady, and you succeed. When the husband returns, and
finds you under suspicious circumstances, you pitch him out of the
window. The lady never has had but one child, and the age of that child
agrees to the day. You were in St. Petersburg, you tell me, in
September, eighteen hundred and twenty-five, and the prince was born in
May, twenty-six ----"
"How do you know all that?" asked Mr. Schmenckel, and shook his head
incredulously.
"I tell you, my man, I know it! That is enough for you. And suppose the
fellow is not your son, then----"
"But why shouldn't he be my son?" cried Mr. Schmenckel, striking the
table with his gigantic hand "Do I look as if I was not up to having
children?"
Mr. Timm took off his spectacles, wiped the glasses carefully, put them
on again, looked laughingly at Director Caspar Schmenckel's flushed
face, and said good-naturedly:
"Look here, old man, you are a funny old creature. First, I talk till I
lose my breath to prove to you that you are the father of this hopeful
youth; and then, when I merely assume it might not be so, you become
disagreeable, and look as if you were going to beat me. I only meant to
say this: Suppose the man is not your son, then, that also does not
matter much. We can only try. We can ask if the princess remembers a
certain evening at St. Petersburg, and so forth, and so forth. I'll
wager my head against an empty pumpkin we frighten her out of her wits,
and the roubles come tumbling down into our lap."
"But wont they hand us over to the police?" asked Mr. Schmenckel,
shaking his head thoughtfully.
"Pshaw! They will be glad if no one else hears of it. There is no
better ally for people like us than a bad conscience. I tell you I have
some experience in that department."
Mr. Schmenckel reflected so deeply on the grave matter that, what with
the mental effort, and perhaps also with too much beer, his head began
to glow. Suddenly a thought occurred to him which might throw some
light, if not upon the matter itself, at least upon the character of
his new friend.
"But," he said, "what, after all, is the whole story to you?"
"Fie, director," replied Timm, with great indignation "I should not
have expected such a question from you. Did you not save me from the
paws of the soldiers! Does not one hand wash the other? Is there no
such thing in the world as gratitude? If you insist absolutely upon
being a poor devil for the rest of your life instead of living in your
own house with an annuity of a few thousand roubles, and of driving
your own carriage, I have nothing to say to it! I beg your pardon for
having troubled you with all these things. Come, let us talk of
something else!"
"Now, come, don't fly off at such a pace!" cried Mr. Schmenckel,
anxiously. "I don't dream of taking anything amiss, especially if you
want to make me the father of a live prince. But that I should have
such a grand son, and that I should have whipped him so unmercifully
the very first time I ever set eyes on him, that is surely amazing
enough. If Caspar Schmenckel were to tell anybody else so he would not
be believed."
"I do not see," said Timm, "why that is any more amazing than that I
must be the only one of the thousands in the park to run right into the
arms of the prince; that I alone happen to know him from former times;
that I remember his name, mention it to you, and thus call up in your
mind a remembrance which helps us to make this important discovery. I
can assure you I was at first quite as much amazed as you are; but such
things, thank God, do not last long with me."
Mr. Timm threw himself back in his chair and picked his teeth. Mr.
Schmenckel looked with infinite astonishment, not unmixed with fear, at
the man whom even such an extraordinary event could not move from
habitual coolness. Mr. Schmenckel was not the man to reflect deeply on
the relations in which he stood to this man; but still, he had an
indistinct feeling about it. As he was looking at him thus, he felt a
decided inclination to give the young man a hearty drubbing, or to
punish him in some other way for his superiority, as an elephant
sometimes may dream of the pleasure he would enjoy if he could hurl his
Carnac on the ground and trample upon him with his feet for a few
minutes.
It was a few hours later. Only a few guests had remained in the "Dismal
Hole," where they had had very lively times--the excitement was intense
everywhere; beer was drunk by the cask, and speeches were made without
number and without end. They sat scattered about, in groups of three
and four persons, mostly people of rather peculiar appearance, such as
are only seen in large cities, and there also rarely or never in the
day-time and on the streets. Men in shabby, often fantastic costumes,
with dissipated and yet attractive features, and with eyes which now
blazed up in wild passion, and now gloated stolidly on vacancy--strange
figures, who tell the knowing eye without opening their lips long
stories of proud plans and childish deeds, of great talents and still
greater recklessness, of lofty pride and low disgrace, of senseless
dissipation and gnawing hunger, of incredible efforts condemned to end
like the labors of Sisyphus, and of an ambition leading only to the
sufferings of Tantalus, until efforts and ambition and every virtue,
nay, every good instinct, is drowned in the morass of apathetic
indifference.
But these groups also gradually disappeared; one light after another
was put out by the poor girls, who had for the last hour been nodding
here and there in the corners, their pretty faces buried in their round
arms; and at last there was nobody left but Mr. Schmenckel, who was
asleep, drunk, on one of the sofas, and two other gentlemen who were
sitting with the landlady around one of the small tables over a bottle
of champagne. One of these men was Albert Timm, from Grunwald; the
other was a man of middle age, who had only come about an hour ago, and
whom Mrs. Rose had introduced to Mr. Timm as the brother of his
landlord in Grunwald, Mr. Jeremiah Goodheart. From his clothes and his
whole general appearance he might have been taken for a modest citizen
in tolerably good circumstances; a grocer, perhaps, or a tobacco
dealer; but in his small eyes, overshadowed by heavy eyebrows, there
was something that seemed to indicate that the occupation of the man
was not quite so harmless, or at least had not always been quite so
harmless.
The three persons had been conversing very eagerly, and Mr. Timm now
summed up what had been said.
"Then there are two questions," he said. "First we must get a peep at
the baptismal register at St. Mary's; or, better still, obtain a
certified copy of the entry; and, secondly, we must find the principal
personage in this comedy--I mean Mr. Oswald Stein."
"But how do you know he is to be here?" asked the man with the odd
eyes.
"I do not know it; I only presume so. He wrote me a week ago from Paris
that he could not support himself any longer there, and that he must
try to reach home before his money was at an end. It seems to me,
beyond all doubt, that he must have come here, where he had had
literary engagements when he was a student here, and where he has
therefore the best prospect of finding some means of support for
himself and his sweet one. Only I think he will not appear under his
true name, so as not to expose himself to disagreeable encounters with
the relations of the Baroness Cloten, who, I know, are still after him,
and would very soon find him out here. This might therefore be the more
difficult task of the two, unless accident, my faithful old ally,
should again come to my assistance."
"That item you may quietly leave in the hands of my friend here," said
Mrs. Rosalie, familiarly placing her hand on the head of the man with
the odd eyes; "and now, gentlemen, I believe it is time we should part.
Tomorrow is another day. Yes; but what shall we do with the big fellow
there on the sofa, who has been drinking for twelve to-day?"
"We shall have to carry him home, if you, fair lady, have not perhaps a
snug little place for him somewhere," replied Mr. Timm, with a look
full of meaning.
"You scamp!" said the lady, pinching Mr. Timm's cheeks. "I will have to
stop you."
"I hope so--with a kiss."
"You scamp, you!" said the lady, evidently not unwilling to try the
experiment.
Mr. Timm seemed to be afraid of it, for he suddenly turned to Mr.
Schmenckel and began to shake him, first gently, then more vigorously,
and at last as hard as he could.
"Uff!" groaned the giant, half asleep yet; "let me go, I'll manage the
boy."
"What will he do?" asked the man with the odd eyes.
"Oh, he is talking in his sleep," said Mr. Timm, "give me a glass of
water, Lizzie; I believe that will wake him up."
At last the colossus stood upright, but not without swaying to and fro
like a beacon in a storm. Still he could stand on his feet now, and, as
Mr. Goodheart happened to know where he lived, the task of carrying him
home seemed feasible. Mr. Timm seized him by one arm, the man with the
odd eyes by the other, and thus they managed to lift him up to the
cellar door and into the street.
The night was as dark as a night can be when there are no stars
visible. The wind was sweeping mournfully through the deserted streets
and threatened to extinguish the few gas-lights that were still
burning. Mr. Schmenckel recovered in the fresh air somewhat, and
embraced his companions tenderly; then he vowed them eternal
friendship, and promised each of them a hundred thousand roubles as
soon as it should be fully established that Prince Waldenberg, whom he
had whipped that day under the Lindens, was really his own son. Thus
they reached the street, then the house, and at last even the little
bed-room in which Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, was residing
for the present. Mr. Schmenckel sank down upon his modest couch, and
his two companions left him, but not until Mr. Jeremiah had pulled out
a dark-lantern from his pocket and gone about, to Mr. Timm's great
astonishment, examining every corner of the room. What he found was not
much: iron balls, brass balls, sticks and staves of all kinds, drums
and trumpets, odds and ends, all in fearful disorder.
"Now you must fill the measure of your kindness," said Timm, when they
were in the street again, "and tell me my way home. I live----"
"White Horse, Falcon street, No. 43, back room," interrupted Mr.
Jeremiah Goodheart, closing his lantern and putting it back into his
pocket.
"Are you the devil?" cried Mr. Timm, nervously retreating a step. "How
can you know where I live; I have told nobody."
"Do you think so eloquent a speaker at the great meeting at the Booths
can long remain unknown to us?" said Mr. Goodheart.
"To us? To whom?" asked Timm.
"Never mind that. Anyhow, I would advise you to deliver your speaking
exercises rather within the four walls of your house, especially for
the sake of our little affair, which might be sadly interfered with if,
for instance, you should go to jail."
"Pshaw!" said Timm; "do you think I covet the glory of a political
martyr? I have given the good people a speech because I like to talk;
and secondly, because I was angry at the fools."
"All the better," said the other, dryly.
As they were passing under a gas-light Timm cast a glance at his
companion, and all of a sudden he understood the enigmatical appearance
of the man, and the "us" which he had used.
"Excuse me, Mr. Goodheart," he said. "I think I have heard your brother
say that you are a highly-valued member of the Secret Police. Is that
so?"
The man with the odd eyes smiled.
"You are a cunning fox," he said, "and have a keen scent. My brother,
to be sure, did not tell you any such thing, for he knows nothing about
it; nor did Rosalie tell you, for she knows it, but she has her reasons
not to speak of it; consequently----"
"The evil one must have told me," interrupted Timm, quite restored to
his former sense of security by this proof of his ingenuity. "I think I
might have made a good detective."
"That might depend on yourself alone."
"How so?"
The man with the odd eyes did not answer his question, but said, as
they had reached a corner of the street:
"That is your way. I shall call at eleven o'clock. Then we will talk
the matter over more fully."
The two men parted. Their footsteps were heard for a while down the
lonely streets, while the gray twilight was slowly rising over the
house-tops.
CHAPTER VIII.
In a fine room of a large private hotel in Broad street there sat, a
few days later, Melitta and Baron Oldenburg. A lamp was burning on the
table; lighted wax-candles were standing on the mantel-piece and on the
consoles. Frau von Berkow expected other visitors that night, and
Oldenburg had only availed himself of the privilege of an old friend to
come before the appointed time.
"It seems to me you are very silent to-night, Adalbert," said Melitta,
putting her work on the table and turning with a kindly smile to
Oldenburg. "I talk to you of the children, how hearty the boy has
grown, and how pretty Czika looks in her fashionable dresses, and you
look--well, how do you look?"
"Like the knight of the rueful countenance, most probably; at least I
feel so, from head to foot;" replied Oldenburg, rising and walking up
and down in the room.
"Not exactly!" said Melitta. "I thought, on the contrary, you looked
very well in your brown paletot."
"Jesting apart, Melitta, I am quite sad to-night."
"That is a pretty compliment for me, who have made the long trip from
my home-nest to this tedious city only for your sake--you hear, sir,
only in order to give you what I thought would be a pleasant surprise
to you; bringing you the children too. For your sake, I say; so that we
might see and talk unobserved. For this reason only I have taken rooms
here at a private hotel, like a farmer's wife; and now, in return for
all this apparently wasted goodness and love, I am told: 'You might as
well have remained at home!'"
"Do you believe it, Melitta? That thought has occurred to me really
more than once, yesterday and today!"
"That is hard!" said Melitta, and her face showed that she did not
exactly know whether she ought to take Oldenburg's words as a jest or
in earnest.
The baron did not leave her long in uncertainty. He sat down again by
her, seized her hand, and said:
"My dear Melitta, my words may sound hard, but I ask you yourself, if
I, as a man, must not think and feel so. I need not assure you, I hope,
that I am heartily grateful to you for your kindness, for you know
that; or, at least, you ought to know it. Even that you do not mind
evil tongues for my sake I do not count for so much, since I know how
little the judgment of the world is worth; I have despised it all my
life. There is something else which prevents my enjoying your presence
here heartily, and I will tell you what that is. Look, Melitta: it is
natural to man to wish to work and to care for her whom he loves; more
than that, he likes to see the beloved one in a certain way dependent
on him; I mean on his strength, his courage, his wisdom. Many a warm
affection has died out simply because it was impossible to arrange
matters in this way, and many an affection is even now fading away for
the same reason. Thus it is with my love for you. As matters stand I
can only live for you, care and work for you, in trifles; but not at
every hour, every minute, as I must do, if I am to be happy. In the
country, where we, as neighbors, could often spend half of a day
together, without being observed and watched, it was easier; and yet,
even there, the feeling of my uselessness was so painful to me that I
was grateful for the political storm which drove me to Paris, where I
could at least imagine that nothing parted us but distance. But here,
in a large city, the painful feeling overcomes me; it looks to me as if
the moment at which we meet had been expressly chosen to show that the
relations between us are unnatural and false. We are standing here on a
volcano, which may break out every moment. The soil is trembling under
our feet, and before many days are passed we shall have seen unheard-of
things. I am not afraid of the end; on the contrary, I desire a
decision, for it is necessary and will do us good. But in order to
stand firm in days when our people are going to be in trouble and in
danger, in order to be a man in the full sense of the word, I must have
peace within me and that I cannot have as long as we stand thus. I
shall have no peace, Melitta, till you are mine, till we are one; till
I know that I speak and act and fight, and, if it must be, die for wife
and child! Melitta! in your own name, in my name, in all our names, I
ask you: Will you be at last my wife, after I have served you for more
years than Jacob served for Rachel?"
The baron's voice trembled, although he evidently made a great effort
to speak as calmly and as convincingly as he could. He had bent over
Melitta, who held her beautiful head bowed low; when he paused she
looked up, and showed Oldenburg her pale, tear-flooded face. She said
in a low voice:
"Would to God, Adalbert--for your sake, for my sake, for all our
sakes--I could answer you Yes!"
"Why can you not do it?"
"You know!"
"But, Melitta, is the memory of the man whom you cannot possibly love
any longer, and of whom you say yourself that you do not love him any
longer, to part us forever? Have you not paid the penalty of your
wrong--if wrong it was to follow the impulse of a free heart--with a
thousand tears? Are you not now to me what you have always been? And,
if there must be a reckoning between us, have you not to forgive and
forget far more in me than I in you? Is it reasonable to sacrifice the
wife to a rigorous moral law, which the husband does not consider
binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I; nor you. Why then should
you and I obey it? I tell you, the day of freedom, which is now
dawning, will blow all such self-imposed laws to the four winds, and
with them all the ordinances devised by a dark monkish prejudice to
fetter nature and to torment our hearts."
"Whenever that day comes--and when it comes for me," replied Melitta,
"I will greet it with joy. If it is a mere notion which prevents me
from falling into your arms and from saying: Take me; I am yours, now
and forever!--have pity on me, it makes me suffer as much as yourself.
But Adalbert, I am a woman; and a woman can wait and hope for the day
of release, but she cannot fight for it. And until that day comes,
until I feel as free as I must be in order to be yours in honor, things
must remain as they are now."
Melitta had said this with a low and sad but yet firm voice, and
Oldenburg felt that it would be cruel to press her further. He took her
hand, kissed it, and said,
"Never mind, Melitta! I am patient. I know that you do not make me
suffer from obstinacy. That is enough for me. And then the day of
release which you wait for, and which we fight for, must come sooner or
later."
At that moment old Baumann knocked and entered to announce the expected
visitors. Melitta passed her handkerchief over her face, while
Oldenburg advanced to greet Sophie, who entered with her husband and
Bemperlein by her side.
Melitta and Sophie met to-night for the first time, but the meeting was
free from all ceremonious formality. The two ladies had heard so much
of each other (especially Sophie of Melitta) that they knew each other
down to the smallest details of their outward appearance, and then it
was natural to both of them to lay aside all restraint when they felt a
sympathetic attraction. Nevertheless they looked at each other with
much interest as they shook hands and exchanged the first words. Sophie
noticed that Melitta appeared much milder and gentler than she had
expected from the great lady; and Melitta observed, on the other hand,
that Sophie did not look half as serious and thoughtful as Bemperlein
had made her believe of the clever and highly educated daughter of the
privy councillor. Sophie saw also Baron Oldenburg for the first time,
and she cast from her seat on the sofa many a trying glance at the tall
man in black, who stood in the centre of the room talking to the two
gentlemen. He also had never seen her before, and, on his part,
observed carefully the two ladies. It struck him that both had an
abundance of soft, curling hair, and in that feature, as well as in the
cut of their large, expressive eyes, a certain resemblance like two
roses, of which one, the darker and fuller, has entirely opened its
calyx, while the other lighter one is but just unfolding the
delicately-colored leaves to the light of day.
As a matter of course, Sophie was especially curious to see how
Oldenburg and Melitta would behave towards each other, for, in spite of
Bemperlein's assurances she had persisted in believing that there were
close relations between them. But Melitta was too much of a lady of the
great world, and Oldenburg had too much self-control, to show anything
more than a tone of perfect politeness and mutual esteem.
There was no lack of topics for conversation in those days of great
excitement, when feverish restlessness had seized on all minds, because
all felt, more or less, the shadow of the coming events. Franz was not
a politician, properly speaking. His fondness for the Fine Arts, which
at first threatened to divide his strength, and then the study of his
great science which gave him finally peace and satisfaction, had left
him little time for politics. But he was liberal in all respects, and
besides, his profession had given him frequent opportunities to become
acquainted with the wants of the people themselves, and an insight
which had convinced him of the necessity of an entire change of social
relations. He was not quite as clear about the doctrine that this could
not be done without first changing the political forms of the state,
especially because his eye was more busy with details than with the
whole. "I am at heart a Republican," he was wont to say, "but I have no
desire to hear a Republic proclaimed, because I do not believe that
that would help us essentially as long as the evil is not taken hold of
at the root. But I see the root of the evil in the dark superstitions
which reverse nature and change men from free citizens of this earth
into helots of a supernatural world."
Franz expressed himself in this sense to-night also to Oldenburg, but
he found him a decided adversary.
"I believe, doctor," said the latter, "that you attach too little
importance to the results obtained by a well-ordered commonwealth--_res
publica_, ladies, the Romans used to call it--and to the difference
between a sensible and an unwise form of government. I wish you could
have heard the discussions I have had with Professor Berger, speaking
of the sad character of a time which produces hardly anything else but
problematic characters."
"Where is the professor?" asked Bemperlein. "I had half promised Mrs.
Braun that she should meet her father's old friend."
"I cannot tell you," said Melitta; "do you know, Oldenburg?"
"No; I lost him at the meeting at the Booths from my arm, and could not
find him again in the crowd. I am quite sure, however, that he will yet
come."
"Problematic characters!" repeated Franz, who had been so absorbed in
his thoughts that he had not heard the last words. "Do you know, baron,
that when I heard that expression of Goethe's the first time it was in
connection with your name, and from the lips of a man who was once very
dear to me, and in whom you also, as far as I know, once took a very
lively interest? You need not beat the devil's tattoo on the table,
Bemperlein; I know that you, who are generally as gentle as a lamb,
have talked yourself into a most unchristian hatred against Oswald
Stein, and I only mention our former friend because he, as well as his
teacher, Berger, appeared to me always as a type of such problematic
characters."
As Franz had not the least suspicion of Oswald's former relations to
Melitta, to Oldenburg, and to Bemperlein, he did not notice the blush
which suddenly spread over Melitta's cheeks so that she bent low over
her work in order to conceal it; and the vehemence with which
Bemperlein exclaimed: "I should think, Franz, that man does not deserve
being mentioned here," only excited his opposition.
"Do you too think so, baron?" he said, turning to Oldenburg; "would you
relentlessly condemn a man whose greatest misfortune it probably was to
have been born in these days?"
"No," said Oldenburg, calmly and solemnly; "I have not yet forgotten
the old word, that we must not judge if we do not wish to be judged. I
have always sincerely admired the brilliant talents which nature has
lavished upon that man, and I have as sincerely regretted that a mind
so richly endowed should, like a luxuriant tree, bear only sterile
blossoms, which can produce no fruit whatever."
While Oldenburg spoke thus his eyes had been steadily fixed on Melitta,
who had raised her face once more and now looked as eagerly up to him
as if she wished to read him to the bottom of his soul. Franz was still
too warmly interested in Oswald to be really satisfied by Oldenburg's
words. He replied, therefore, in his earnest, hearty manner:
"I was sure you would judge Stein fairly. I have heard Stein himself
quote you too often not to know how fully you understood the peculiar
condition of his mind, and your intimacy with Berger was a guaranty for
me that you are a physician for the sick, and not for the healthy, who,
Bemperlein, need no physician. Berger and Stein are two characters
strikingly alike in talents and temper. How else could they have formed
so close a friendship, with their great difference in age?--a
friendship which, I fear, has contributed more than anything else to
develop in Oswald those eccentricities which sooner or later must lead
him to insanity or suicide."
"But don't you see, Franz," said Bemperlein, who was always
particularly tenacious in matters connected with Oswald, "that Berger
has successfully rid himself of the alp of his disease, which was
evidently more bodily than mental, and has thus shown that there is a
very different energy in him from Stein?"
"Do not praise the day before the evening comes!" replied Franz. "I
desire, of course, as anxiously as either of you, the complete recovery
of Professor Berger; but I am bound to say, as a medical man, that I do
not consider a relapse yet out of question. And if I am not mistaken,
Bemperlein, you mentioned only last night that my father-in-law had
expressed himself in the same manner?"
"But would not that be fearful?" said Melitta.
"I do not say, madame, that it will be so; I only say it may be so."
"Have you lately noticed anything peculiar in Berger?" asked Melitta,
turning to Oldenburg.
"Yes!" said the latter, after some hesitation. "I cannot deny that his
manner has seemed to me lately much more excited than before. Since the
revolution in February, in which, you know, he took an active part, he
seems to be undermined by a kind of feverish impatience, which often
reminds me of the restlessness of a lion who walks growling up and down
behind the bars of his cage. Minutes seem to grow into hours to him,
and hours into days. I have told him in vain that the history of great
ideas counts only by thousands of years. 'I have no time,' is his
invariable answer. 'If you had, like myself, wandered forty years
through the desert, you would comprehend the longing of the weary
pilgrim to breathe at last the air of the promised land. This delaying
and deferring, this hesitating and halting, will cause me to despair.'
But, gentlemen, what is that?"
All listened. From afar off there came a low but steady sound, louder
than the rattling of carriages.
"That is the beating to arms!" said Oldenburg, and his cheeks flushed
up. "I know the sound; I heard it just so on the evening of the
twenty-third of February, along the _Boulevard des Capucins_."
Oldenburg had hardly said these words, and they were all rising to go
to the window, when the door was hastily opened, and a man rushed in,
whom they found it difficult to recognize as Berger. His long gray hair
hung in matted locks around his head; his face and beard were covered
with blood, which seemed to come from a wound in his forehead; his coat
was torn to pieces, as if sharp instruments had cut and pierced it in
different places. His eyes were glowing, his breath came with an
effort, as he stepped close up to the table and, gazing at the company,
said, in a hoarse voice,
"Up! up! You sit and talk, while without your brothers and your sisters
are murdered! Up! up! With these our bare hands we will turn aside
their bayonets and strangle these executioners."
"He is fainting," cried Franz, seizing Berger, who had already while he
was yet speaking begun to sway to and fro, and now broke down
completely.
The men ran up and carried their fainting friend to a sofa.
"Some cologne, madame," said Franz; "thank you. Do not be afraid; it
amounts to nothing this time, but I fear for the future."
They all stood around the patient, whose breathing became more quiet in
proportion as the beating of the drums became more subdued in the
streets.
CHAPTER IX.
While the small company in Frau von Berkow's rooms in the second story
had been so suddenly and so terribly startled, there was a young lady
sitting quietly in a room a story higher, who had only arrived at the
house a few hours before with her husband (at least they took the young
man who had accompanied her to be her husband). As the luggage was
marked "Paris," and the gentleman had spoken French to the lady, the
people of the house took it for granted that they were French,
especially as the hotel was always full of French travellers. Mrs.
Captain Black, the owner of the hotel, had herself shown the strangers
to their rooms, and as the young lady seemed to be tired and suffering,
she had asked her very kindly if she could do anything for madame? The
young man (the young lady did not open her lips) had asked her to send
up some tea, but declined all other assistance. Soon afterwards the
young man had left the house.
He had not been gone five minutes when a cab, which had been waiting at
a little distance up the street ever since the strangers had arrived,
drove up to the house. A young man stepped out and asked the porter if
a gentleman and a lady who had arrived from Paris perhaps a quarter of
an hour ago were at home? When the porter replied that the gentleman
had just left, remarking he would be back in an hour, but that madame
was, as far as he knew, in her rooms. The young man asked him to show
him up at once. The porter--a man of great experience--saw that the
young man, who evidently belonged to the higher classes of society, was
in a state of great excitement; and as nine o'clock at night did not
seem to him the most suitable hour for visiting a lady who, besides,
was alone in her room, he replied that he did not think the lady could
be seen now. Would not the gentleman be pleased to call again to-morrow
morning?
"I am in a great hurry," said the young man; "I--I must see the young
lady--on family business. Will you be good enough to inquire if she
receives company, and carry this--this card?" he added, after some
reflection.
With these words he took a small card-case from his pocket and gave the
porter a card. It had on it the name of Adolphus Baron Breesen.
The young man's hand trembled so violently as he gave him the card, and
his face looked so pale and disturbed, that the porter was more
convinced than ever that all was not right, and that the interview of
the newcomer with the French lady was probably possible only at the
expense of the gentleman who had gone out.
"Why, I forgot," he said; "there is the key! They are both out."
The young man still held the case in his hand.
"I am sure," he said, drawing a gold-piece from a side pocket and
slipping it into the porter's hand, "that the lady is at home, and that
she will receive me when she sees the card."
The porter was an honest man, but he had a large family, and to-morrow
the school-money for his two eldest children was due.
"Third story, second door in the passage, on the left," he said,
grumbling.
The young man did not wait for more. He ran up, taking three steps at
once, and knocked at the door.
"_Entrez!_" answered a low voice.
When her companion had left her, to take a stroll through the streets,
the young lady had remained seated where she was, immoveable, her head
supported in one of her hands, and the other hanging listlessly by her
side. The light of the two wax candles on the table fell bright upon
her face. The face was evidently a lovely one when it beamed with joy
and exuberant spirits, as it was wont to do; but now it was pale, and
disfigured by much weeping. The large gray eyes stared fixedly at the
ground, the beautifully arched brows were painfully contracted, and the
lips closed firmly. Mechanically she said "_Entrez!_" when the waiter
knocked to bring tea; she did not even look up while he set the things
upon the table; and he had to ask twice if she had any more orders
before she answered a short "No!" She had totally forgotten that he had
been there as soon as the door closed behind him, and when another
knock came she said, quite as mechanically as before, "_Entrez!_"
"Emily!"
The young lady started up with a cry, and stared with wide-open eyes at
the young man who stood before her, as if she had been suddenly roused
from a deep sleep and did not know whether she were still in a dream or
saw what was real before her.
"Emily!" the young man said once more, and opened his arms.
"Adolphus!" she cried, and threw herself on his breast.
The two held each other embraced as they had done in the days of their
childhood when the brother came home during vacations, and the sister
had gone to meet him at the park gate.
But the days of childhood's innocence were long past. Emily tore
herself from her brother's arms, and cried, stretching out her hands as
if to keep him away from her,
"Where do you come from? What do you want here?"
"Can you ask that, Emily?" he replied, sadly; "What I want here? You!
Where I come from? From Paris; where I have searched for you months and
months; where I found a trace of you at last, just as you were leaving
town, and from whence I have followed you from town to town, from hotel
to hotel, without ever succeeding in finding you alone. Not that I am
afraid of him!" said the young man, unconsciously drawing himself up
proudly to his full height, "but I wanted to speak to you kindly and
gently, and I knew I should not be able to do that in his presence."
Adolphus approached his sister to seize her hand. She stepped back.
"What do you want of me?" she murmured.
"Emily!" he said, sadly; "is that your old love? Emily! child! come to
yourself! What else can I want of you than to free you of these chains,
which must have long since become intolerable to you! Oh, do not say
no! I see it in your eyes, I see it in your dear, pale face, that you
are very unhappy! Emily, sister! darling sister! come with me! By our
old father, who is dying for grief and sorrow; by the memory of our
sainted mother; by all you hold sacred, I beseech you, come with me!"
Emily had thrown herself into a corner of the sofa, sobbing and hiding
her face in her hands. Adolphus knelt down before her. He took both of
her hands in his own; he kissed her brow and hair and eyes; he spoke to
her with that eloquence which even the simplest of men find when their
heart is full of true love. He told her that he did not mean to carry
her back to her husband, whom he could not respect, and whom she had
married against his wishes; that she should not even return home if she
did not wish it; that he would take her to Italy--anywhere. He tried
every chord in her soul which he thought would vibrate under his touch,
but for a long time it was all in vain.
"I cannot leave him!" she repeated over and over again, amid tears and
sobs.
"But, for Heaven's sake, Emily!" cried the young man, "is it possible
that such a folly can last so long? Is it possible that you still love
this man?"
"Yes; yes! I love him; love him better than I ever did before!"
Adolphus started up and paced the room for some time. Then he came once
more to Emily and said,
"I must believe it, since you say so; but Emily, upon your honor--for
it is your honor now which is at stake--answer me this question: Are
you as sure of his love?"
Emily's only answer was more violent sobs; and crying bitterly, she
shook her head.
"Oh God!" said Adolphus bitterly; "have you fallen so low that you
follow a man who no longer loves you? to whom you are a burden? who
would give much to get rid of you again? Is this my proud sister? Well,
well! I shall have to break my coat of arms, and to cast down my eyes
before every wretched creature in the streets, and take it in silence
if anybody calls me a coward!"
The young man beat his forehead with his hand, and tears of wrath and
shame filled his eyes.
Emily started up from the sofa.
"Come!" she said hurriedly. "Come! You are right! I am a burden to him.
He will be glad to get rid of me. Come!"
"God be thanked!" said Adolphus.
"Let us go this instant!" cried Emily, following up her resolve of the
moment in her usual passionate manner. "I do not wish to see him again.
I will write to him----"
"Yes, yes!" said Adolphus. "Here is a leaf from my pocket-book; pen and
ink are here. Write to him, but just a few words."
Emily sat down at the table; but she had only written a few words when
she broke out once more in violent weeping.
"Oh God! Oh God!" she said, dropping her pen; "I cannot do it."
"Let me do it," said Adolphus, taking the pen; "I will do it. In the
meantime get your cloak; I shall be done in a moment."
While Emily was getting ready, Adolphus wrote rapidly a few lines. He
was not generally very expert in such things, but now the words came,
as it were, by themselves.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes!"
They went down. No one met them.
Adolphus gave the porter the keys to the rooms.
"Tell the gentleman, when he comes home, that the lady has gone out and
will probably not come back again."
Adolphus had put Emily into a cab.
The cab drove up with unusual rapidity.
"Hem!" murmured the porter, as he hung the key to No. 36 again on its
hook on the board; "I thought at once it would be so. Well, I cannot
keep the people if they must needs run away."
CHAPTER X.
In William street, the real Faubourg St. Germain of the great city,
Prince Waldenberg's head steward had bought shortly before New Year one
of the largest and finest town mansions, the owner of which had
recently died. The prince himself, who came soon afterwards from
Grunwald, had superintended the inner arrangements, and pushed them so
rapidly, in spite of the magnificent style in which they were carried
on, that he could move in with his numerous household before the end of
January. He took one wing for himself; the other wing remained
unoccupied, as he did not wish to anticipate the desires and the good
taste of his betrothed, who was to leave Grunwald with her mother in
the beginning of the month and to come to Berlin. The upper story,
however, was full of workmen and upholsterers. Here his mother, the
princess, was to stay and to receive company.
He was gratified to see this part of the house also fully furnished and
ready for her reception when he left the town on the first of March for
the harbor of Stettin, where the steamer from St. Petersburg was
expected in a day or two. At the same time his steward had engaged a
suite of rooms at the Hotel de Russie, Unter den Linden, for his
father, Count Malikowsky, who was expected from Munich.
It was the same evening on which the above mentioned events had taken
place in the furnished lodgings in Broad street.
In one of the magnificent rooms of the Hotel Waldenberg, in a
well-padded easy-chair, which had been moved quite close up to the
bright fire burning in the fire-place, the Princess Letbus was
reclining. The prince stood by her, bending his tall form down to her,
as if to spare his mother even the trouble of speaking loud. As the
fire was blazing up brighter, so that brilliant flashes of light fell
upon the two figures, the group with its background of tall mirrors and
costly pictures would have formed a superb subject for the hand of a
modern Rembrandt. It would not have been easy to find two more striking
representatives of frail womanly beauty and overpowering male strength
than the forms of mother and son. While the latter, with his broad
shoulders and long muscular arms, looked as if he were made to perform
the labors of Hercules, the lady, sitting bent and drooping, and
wrapped up in costly furs in spite of the blazing fire, might have
suggested that even the weight of a fly could have been troublesome to
her. Nor was there any resemblance to be traced in the features.
Although the lips were languid and the cheeks faded; and although the
brow of the lady, who could hardly be over forty, looked narrow between
the sunken temples and beneath the dark hair with its numerous silver
threads, the connoisseur could still see that these lips and these
cheeks must have once been of surpassing beauty, and that the hair once
upon a time furnished a frame of glorious curls around a blooming face
of marvellous perfection. The large black eyes were very beautiful
still, when she raised her long silken eye-lashes, which she ordinarily
held drooping, and a deeper emotion brought back for a moment the fire
which had shone in them in days gone by, with too great lavishness,
perhaps, and fatal danger. There could have been no stronger contrast
with this soft melting beauty than the low forehead of the prince, half
hid under thick, crisp curly hair, which stood in perfect harmony with
the coarse though energetic lines of his face. And yet in spite of this
thorough difference in their physical natures, mother and son felt for
each other a tender affection, which in the former almost rose to
enthusiasm, and in the latter formed almost the only sentiment which
acted as a counterpoise to his boundless pride, and the prevailing
passion of his energetic but unintelligent mind.
"Good-by, dear mamma," said the prince, bending still lower, and
carrying his mother's feeble hand to his lips. "It is time for me to
go, if I do not mean to be too late at the station; the train will be
in."
"Adieu, my dear son," replied the princess. "Welcome your betrothed in
my name. Tell her she will find a second mother here. Has the count
consented to be present when the ladies come?"
"Yes, dear mamma."
"Well, then, my dear son, go with God; and may He bless your going out
and coming in!"
She breathed a kiss on the brow of the prince, who then arose and
noiselessly stepped on the thick carpet to the door.
The princess remained deeply imbedded in her easy-chair after her son
had left her. There were evidently no pleasant thoughts passing through
her mind at that moment, for her features became darker and darker, and
the black eyes stared more fixedly than ever at the blaze in the
fire-place, so that they shone like weird fires in the flickering
light, and contrasted almost painfully with the pale face. At last a
shudder seemed to pass over her and to rouse her; she rang the tiny
silver bell that stood close by her on the little buhl table.
Immediately her first waiting-woman, Nadeska, entered the room.
Nadeska was a serf, who had grown up with the princess, and gradually
made herself indispensable to her mistress by her pliant submission,
and especially by her perfect skill in carrying on all kinds of
intrigue. The princess had, in her somewhat stormy youth, required the
assistance of such a person; and when she became afterwards a devotee,
being sick in body and soul, she was not disposed to dismiss a servant
who had always been near her person, and knew, therefore, all her
secrets in their minutest detail. And, besides, Nadeska had always been
faithful to her, and even made many a sacrifice for her. Only once, in
one of the most serious difficulties to which the princess had been
exposed by her evil inclinations, had she suspected her of having
played false. But Nadeska had sworn by all the saints of the almanac;
and as there was no evidence against her, her mistress had at last
received her back again in her favor.
"What does your grace desire?" asked Nadeska, in a tone of voice which
betrayed, through all its deep respectfulness, a certain familiarity.
"Have the candles lit in the rooms, Nadeska; and, you hear, let all the
servants be called together to receive the ladies in the great hall.
Whom will you give them for their personal attendants?"
"I thought Katinka, Mademoiselle Virginie; and, among the German girls,
Mary and Louisa."
"Very well. You will receive the ladies yourself at the door, and show
them to their rooms."
"Has your grace any other orders?"
"No, Nadeska."
The woman courtesied and went to the door. When she was quite near it,
the princess called her back. She came again to her chair.
"Did you notice the count this morning, Nadeska?"
"Yes, your grace."
"Did you observe anything particular?"
"He looked more dandyish, and was rouged more than formerly."
"Nothing else?"
"No!"
"Nadeska, I am terribly afraid he is plotting against us."
"You have always feared so, your grace, every time the count has come
to see you; and you are especially afraid now, because you were
positive he would not accept the invitation of the prince."
"Well, does it not look like mockery that he is coming? What does he
want here? But that is not all. He asked me yesterday again for an
enormous sum of money."
"Which I hope you gave him."
"No, Nadeska; my patience is exhausted, as well as my exchequer.
Michail tells me he cannot procure the money."
"He must get it. Consider how much is at stake!"
"But this tyranny is intolerable!" cried the princess, and her large
black eyes shone in the reflex of the fire like burning coals.
Nadeska shrugged her shoulders.
"What can you do? You know the count hates you as much as the prince.
If he does not indulge his hate, and if he does not utter the single
word which would part mother and son forever, it is not from fear of
the disgrace--when has the count ever minded disgrace?--but from fear
of poverty, which he hates still more. Let him find out to-day that his
silence is to be no longer profitable to him, and to-morrow he will
speak!"
The princess knew that her confidante was perfectly right, and she
groaned like a tortured prisoner, pressing her thin hands upon each
other.
"Oh, Nadeska! Nadeska!" she whined; "why did the count come home at
that unlucky moment! Why did you leave your post at that very hour,
which was the decisive hour? If I had only had five minutes' warning
the count would have found me alone, and with all the suspicions he
might have, there would have been no more evidence then than at any
previous time."
Nadeska was standing by the side of her mistress and a little back of
her. This enabled her to make a scornful face before she replied,
"Your grace will pardon me, but _this_ time there was evidence, even
without the sudden coming of the count. It was certainly an ugly
accident that the birth of the prince took place just nine months after
a strange man had thrown his father out of the window of his own
bedroom!"
The remembrance of this tragi-comic accident dispelled for a moment the
melancholy of the princess. The half-ludicrous, half-horrible scenes of
that mad night passed very clearly before her mind's eye, and the image
of the hero of the night--the man of the people, whom she, the
high-born princess, had honored so highly--reappeared to her as he had
appeared then, the beau ideal of exuberant vigor and manhood.
"I wonder if he is still alive?" she asked, quite lost in her
recollection.
"Who, your grace?" asked Nadeska, who knew perfectly well of whom her
mistress was thinking.
The princess made no reply, and Nadeska began noiselessly to light the
candles in all the rooms. Gradually a voluptuous twilight spread over
the salon in which the princess was, which grew brighter and brighter
without losing its soft characters, for all the lights were burning in
rosy shades. This was the only light which the irritable nerves of the
princess could endure; and even during the day, which generally only
began for her in the afternoon, the windows were invariably darkened
with rosy curtains. Scoffers maintained that the princess avoided a
bright light merely because her faded features and injured complexion
could not well be exposed to bright day-light.
Nadeska had just lighted the last candle when the maid on duty slipped
into the room and whispered something into her ear, for no message was
brought directly to the princess.
"What is it, Nadeska?" asked the latter.
"The count wishes to see you," replied her confidante.
The princess trembled.
"What can he want?" she said. "He ought to be at the railway station."
"He probably mistook the hour."
"Maybe! Let him come; but stay in the room."
Upon a nod from Nadeska the maid went out, after waiting humbly at the
door. Immediately a gentleman entered rapidly.
He was a tall, slender man, dressed with exquisite taste, who looked at
the first glance as if he might be twenty-five, and grew older and
older the longer one looked at him, until at last one was disposed to
think him sixty years old. This required, however, a very careful
examination, as his mask was finished down to the minutest details. His
black hair and brows, his curly beard, his snow-white teeth, his broad
shoulders and full hips, were triumphs of art; and if his valet had
been able to give a little lustre to his eyes, to calm the paralytic
trembling of his hands, and to remove the bad, tiny wrinkles which lay
like diminutive snakes around his eyes. Count Ladislaus Malikowsky
might still have been a dangerous man for women, at least for a certain
class. He had been irresistible when a young man; but now nothing was
left him of his youth but an insatiate desire for enjoyment, and a
reckless profligacy, which went hand in hand with the cool, calculating
prudence of old age.
This disgusting caricature of youth approached the princess, kissed her
hand courteously, and said, while sinking carefully into one of the
arm-chairs before the fire:
"You wonder, Alexandrina, that I do not appear with the others----"
"Indeed I do."
"Do not think it a want of consideration for the betrothed of my
son"--the count uttered the last word with a peculiar accent, and never
without showing his false, white teeth--"on the contrary, it is the
very interest I take in the welfare of the young couple which brings me
here, I may say, out of breath. A discovery which I have made--but,
Alexandrina, may I beg that that person may leave the room; my
communication is strictly confidential," whispered the count, bending
over towards the princess.
"Leave us alone, Nadeska; but stay in the ante-room," said the
princess.
"Alexandrina," said the count, when Nadeska had gone into the adjoining
room to place her ear to the key-hole, "you were not disposed yesterday
to help me in my embarrassment. I have lost heavily at cards, and my
exchequer is exhausted. Well I might have been offended by your
refusal, especially considering the peculiar relations existing between
us. But for my part I know how to do with little, and I should not
like, for anything in the world, to be troublesome to you, or to my son
[here the white teeth actually shone]. I am all the more sorry,
therefore, to have to appeal once more to you, not for myself in this
case, but for one who has stronger claims than I have."
"I am not so fortunate as to guess even the meaning of your words,"
replied the princess, sinking back into her chair with half-closed
eyes.
"Perhaps," said the count, drawing from his coat-pocket a letter, which
he opened slowly, as his hands were tightly encased in close-fitting
kid-gloves--"perhaps this letter, which was handed me half an hour ago
by a young man, may give you the desired explanation. Permit me to read
it to you."
The count did not wait for an answer, but adjusted his gold eye-glasses
on his nose, and read, glancing every now and then over the paper at
the princess:
"Most noble count:--At a moment when his highness, Prince Waldenberg,
is bringing home his fair betrothed, the Baroness Helen Grenwitz, to
present her to his mother, the princess, it cannot be but desirable
that all the members of the family should be united by that harmony
without which even less important festivities are often very sadly
interrupted. You yourself, most noble count, set an example, when you
kindly dropped a veil over certain events which took place in the
night, from the 21st to the 22d November, 1820, in the Letbus mansion
in St. Petersburg. I should like to follow your example, if
circumstances permitted. But I have no alternative, and see myself
compelled to present my business personally to you, or to trouble
certain persons with it, who have special reasons for keeping certain
matters a secret from his highness the prince. I beg leave, therefore,
to address myself to his excellency, Count Malikowsky, as the most
suitable person for an arrangement, with the request that immediately
fifty thousand roubles in silver be paid me by his bankers in town; if
not, I shall see myself compelled to present my request in person to
his highness the prince.
"In the meanwhile (which I beg to limit to eight days from to-day) I
remain, etc., etc., etc.,
"Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna.
"P.S.--If you should prefer to negotiate directly with me, I may be
found every evening after 7 o'clock in the 'Dismal Hole,' Gertrude
street. No. 15. The same."
"Well, what do you say, Alexandrina?" snarled the count, letting his
eye-glass drop, and putting the letter back in his pocket.
"That the whole thing is a poor invention of yours."
"_Comment?_" exclaimed the count, with an astonishment which was not
affected in this case.
"Do you really think, sir," said the princess, trembling with rage and
secret fear, "there is a particle of truth in the whole thing, and that
I would be caught in such an ill-made snare? That I do not see what it
all means? That you have only thought of this impudent invention
because I am unwilling to waste the rest of my fortune upon your mad
dissipation?"
"Really, Alexandrina. Hearing you speak so, one might actually believe
your conscience was as clean as my gloves. Why, you are blinded by
anger, my dearest! Please observe, this letter contains things of which
I have no idea, nor can have an idea, _e. g._, the name of the good man
in question. You know I have never been so happy as to hear yet whose
blood flows in the veins of my son" (the count's teeth were glittering
in a perfectly frightful manner); "and besides, you have an infallible
means to ascertain the genuineness of this letter. Send for the writer!
Twenty-one years will hardly have changed him so much that you should
not recognize him."
"You think I am not going to do that? You are mistaken. I insist upon
your bringing me this man of straw, with whom you wish to frighten me.
Give me the letter."
"_Avec le plus grand plaisir!_" replied the count "There! But,
Alexandrina, I hope the interview will take place in my presence, or I
shall not be able to contain myself for jealousy."
"Devil!"
"Oh, my angel! Do you call the man so to whom you owe so much?"
"Owe so much? to you? I, who picked you up from the gutter?"
"But I have given you my good name."
"Good name! A name dragged through every mean vice, and every blackest
sin----"
"And yet good enough for the friend and----"
"Have a care!"
"Why? The heavens are high, and the czar is afar off. But you are quite
right in demanding that too much importance should not be attached to
this connection. The whole world knows pretty well that, in some
respects, no rank or position came amiss to you."
"That goes too far. I----"
"Keep quiet, _ma chére_! I hear a carriage coming. No doubt, our dear
ones. We must give them an example of conjugal love."
* * * * *
It was perhaps two hours later. Helen was wandering restlessly up and
down in her superb room. Nadeska had left her, and the baroness,
fatigued by the journey, had retired to her chamber. Helen could not
sleep. Her soul was oppressed by an indescribable anxiety, which was
all the more painful because so vague. She felt in the midst of all the
splendor by which she was surrounded like a child in an enchanted
castle, where in every corner into which the light does not penetrate
fully, and behind every silk curtain gently waving in a current of air,
some unspeakable horror might be lurking. Was this the realization of
her proudest hopes? She could not get rid of the impression made upon
her by her reception in the salon of the princess. She still felt her
icy-cold lips on her forehead; she still saw the repulsive, impudent
smile of the count and the dark frown of the prince. It was an
uncomfortable spirit that dwelt in this house. And she had surrendered
herself to this spirit; she had sacrificed to it her freedom, her young
girl's dreams, her future! And what was she to gain in return! High
rank, great wealth--how little all that seemed to her at this moment!
How willingly she would have given it all up for the mere shadow of the
unspeakable happiness she had enjoyed last summer, when she stepped
from her cool apartments into the golden morning light of the park, and
slowly sauntered about between the bright flowers, expecting at every
turn around a shrub or a bosquet to meet Oswald! How far, how
irrecoverably far, this was lying behind her! As far as the paradise of
her childish years, which no longing of ours, no return of spring, can
bring back to us! She was quite surprised, herself, that all her
thoughts were wandering back to-day to Grenwitz; that a thousand little
scenes, which she thought she had long forgotten, came back to her now:
a walk with Bruno and Oswald through the fields when the evening sun
was hanging low, like a huge ball of fire, near the horizon, and bright
lights were playing fitfully over the golden grain, while the larks
were jubilant high above them in the deep blue of the heavens. And
again, one hot afternoon, when she had fallen asleep on a bench in a
shady avenue in the garden, tired by the monotonous humming and
whizzing of insects, she awoke at the moment when somebody--it was
Bruno--was placing a wreath of dark-red roses on her head, while a few
steps from them, somebody else--it was Oswald--was peeping from behind
a tree. And ever it was Bruno and Oswald who gave life to the idyllic
picture--Elysian forms in Elysian fields. Oh, were not both dead? Helen
had suffered indescribably when Oswald's elopement with Emily had
become the common gossip of Grunwald; for only now, when a whole world
parted him from her, she felt how dear this man had been to her. She
tried, it is true, to master her passion and to be reconciled to her
fate, which she had after all brought upon herself. But she caught
herself only too frequently comparing her betrothed with Oswald, a
comparison which invariably resulted in the conviction that the former
lacked everything which had made Oswald so attractive: the graceful,
elegant carriage, the bright and yet so tender eyes, the deep voice
with its gentle music, the ever-changing and ever-interesting
expression of his face. She had never felt as deeply as this evening
how little her heart had to say to her betrothed. She recollected with
a shudder that when the drums had beat in the streets, when the war of
the excited multitude had been heard from afar, and the prince had
started up to hasten to his post, she had felt only that this gave her
a good opportunity to retire to her rooms.
And the poor girl's heart grew heavier and her eyes dimmer. She thought
she was thoroughly wretched; she pitied herself that she was so alone
and had no one to share her sorrow. But had she not prepared her
isolation herself? Had she not repelled good people, who had come to
her with open hearts, by her cool politeness? How she now wished for
good old Miss Bear; for clever, cordial Sophie Roban! But was not
Sophie in town? Might she not look up the friend whom she had
so sadly neglected during the last days in Grunwald? Helen clung
to this thought, while she hid her beautiful face in the silken
cushions;--proud Helen! who looked as if she could go on her path,
lonely, like a bright star, unconcerned about the doings of poor men
far down in their humble huts!
CHAPTER XI.
The excitement in town grew daily. In vain were troops massed by whole
brigades, and held ready day and night in their barracks; in vain every
assembly was dispersed with the bayonet, and the loudest criers
arrested. Every day brought new and more serious disturbances. The
assemblages of the people, especially on the large public squares near
the palace, became more formidable; the threatening cries and
whistlings and cheers of the masses were heard more frequently; and the
soldiers, maddened by their incessant duties, could less and less
resist the terribly provoking irritation. Paving stones on one side,
and drawn swords on the other, encountered each other daily and hourly.
The number of more or less seriously wounded persons which were carried
to the public hospitals had become considerable. The last evening had
been especially fearful. A detachment of cuirassiers of the guards,
galloping forward with loose reins and drawn swords, had driven a large
crowd of people into one of the smaller streets that opened upon the
square near the palace, and at the other end a picket of dragoons
prevented escape. There ensued a scene of fearful confusion and
consternation in the crowd, thus hemmed in on both sides, while the men
were forcing their horses pitilessly into the thickest, striking right
and left with their heavy swords. The howl of anguish of women and
children, mingled with the cries of rage of the men, and the curses of
the soldiers, while imprecations and threats came down from the windows
of the houses, where peaceful men were frightened at their quiet work.
The commotion quickly spread further and further, and even in remote
parts of the city groups were formed in the streets, when the report
came that the imperial city on the Danube, generally looked upon as
thoughtless and frivolous, had had a complete revolution, and that the
oldest master of diplomacy, the cunning ruler of a whole generation of
men, had at last been driven from the scene of his triumphs. A thousand
cheers arose when the good news was proclaimed, and the great results
which a month before would have been looked upon as impossible, were
made known in detail. They asked one another why they should submit any
longer to misrule and ill-treatment by a privileged caste, if it
required but a firm resolve to establish freedom and equality among
them.
While thus even the most indifferent were gradually drawn into the
whirlpool of the revolution, one man sat in apathetic calmness in his
room, unconcerned about what was going on around him.
When Oswald returned the night before, after wandering aimlessly
through the crowded streets, and found his room empty and Emily's
letter on the table, he had laughed out so loud that an old lady who
had been living next door for twelve years was frightened out of her
first slumbers. Then he had thrown himself on the sofa. He was too
wearied and exhausted to be able to sleep. But after a while he started
up with a cry. He had dreamt that he was walking with Emily arm in arm
by the side of a precipice, whispering of love and caressing her hand,
and suddenly she had fallen away from his side down into the deep, from
rock to rock into fearful abysses, from which now cries for help and
groans of anguish were rising up to him. Oswald tried in vain to shake
off the horrible image; it had imprinted itself too deeply on his
over-excited mind. He would have sought rest and oblivion in sleep, but
he felt no longer tired. A thousand thoughts and images were chasing
each other wildly through his head, and he found himself unable to lay
the weird ghosts. He could only look on. Scenes of former days ran into
events of recent date, and the fat gentleman who had been in their
coupé from the last station suddenly changed into the public crier of
his native town, whose big bell he had followed often as a boy.
Oswald made a violent effort to rouse himself. He rang the bell and
ordered the fire to be rekindled. Then he sat down before the blaze and
recalled the first evenings at Paris, as they were sitting in their
modest lodgings in the fifth story of a house in the Quartier Latin
before the fire-place, and congratulated each other that at last they
were "at home." They had tried to make each other forget their troubles
and anxieties by jesting and caressing, and forming a hundred bright
plans for the future. But the golden, hopeful future had become a dark,
comfortless present; the jests had ceased, and the caresses had become
colder and colder. And then came evenings when Oswald came home out of
sorts and out of temper, having in vain called upon publishers who
"could not avail themselves of" his manuscripts; when he found Emily in
tears, and had to tell himself that he and he only was responsible for
these tears. Then came wretched scenes, when regret at their own folly
sought concealment under reproaches and accusations of fickleness and
heartlessness, and the tender little flower of love was ruthlessly
trodden under foot in the fierce encounter. And yet it had always been
Emily who, good-natured and light-hearted as she was, and full of
tender love for Oswald, had offered her hand to make peace. "I do not
reproach you," she had often said; "I should be perfectly happy if I
could but see you happy. But to see you unhappy, and unhappy through my
fault, that makes me wretched." Had she spoken the truth? Oswald had
then doubted it; now an inner voice told him that it was so, and that
she would never have left him if he had not driven her from him. He
took the letter he had found on the table and stared at the "Dear, dear
Oswald!" written by Emily's trembling hand, and then marked out by
another hand, and the two stains on the paper--the trace of tears she
had wept at parting with him. Oswald dropped the letter into the fire,
and groaned aloud as he saw how eagerly it seized the paper and
consumed it, and the hot draft carried away the black ashes. So there
was an end of that also.
And as he sat staring into the smouldering embers, his head resting in
his hand, the fever spirits began their mad dance once more. Faces of
marvellous beauty looked at him with large, loving eyes, and then
changed in a moment into grinning negro grimaces; Rector Clemens and
Professor Snellius came walking solemnly in grave converse and broke it
off abruptly to dance a wild Mazurka; Melitta, Helen, and Emily floated
by on a rosy cloud which changed into dismal rain, and the three
witches of Macbeth were shaking their snaky locks. Thus the whole
wearisome night passed away. When twilight began to peep in at the
windows the spirits grew paler and paler. Oswald opened a window and
let the cool morning air play around his heated temples. This refreshed
him somewhat. But as the streets began to become more lively he closed
the window again and let down the curtains; he wanted to see and to
hear nothing of life, for he hated life.
Emily's escape had hardly been noticed in the house. The only one who
knew more about it, the porter, felt no disposition to speak about it,
as he was not quite sure of his own share in the matter. It was
thought, therefore, that the lady had not been the gentleman's wife, as
was first believed, but his sister, and that the other gentleman who
had come for her had been her husband. The times, moreover, were too
eventful to leave much room for such small matters.
Such were Mrs. Captain Black's ideas when she called next day at noon
on Oswald, after the custom of the house. For it was the lady's notion
that she ought to inquire in person after the welfare and the wishes of
those of her guests who seemed to propose staying there for some time.
This was partly a matter of courtesy with her, and partly prompted by
her good old heart. She had a twofold interest in Oswald. The young
man's appearance, the expression of his eyes, and the tone of his
voice, had struck her, and reminded her wonderfully of long by-gone
days, and of a person whom she had loved tenderly and whose loss she
had never yet been able to forget. Then the young man came direct from
France, from where that unfortunate young friend had also come, and
where she had probably died. It is true the poor girl had never given a
sign of life, and it was highly improbable therefore that she was still
alive, but that did not keep Mrs. Black from feeling glad whenever a
Frenchman came to her house, as it looked like another chance to hear
something of the poor girl.
The good old lady was, therefore, not a little astonished and grieved
when she saw how pale and haggard Oswald looked this morning, a mere
shadow of the stately young man of last night. He had had a bad night
to be sure. It must have been a very bad night to pull down a young man
so grievously. Should she send for the doctor? No? But a cup of strong
beef tea with an egg stirred in? _Qu'en dites-vous, Monsieur?_ The good
old lady tripped away to attend to the beef tea herself, as no one else
could make it as well. And while she was busy about it she shook her
gray head again and again, because Monsieur Oswald--the stranger had
given that name--spoke German so very well, and looked so very sick and
unhappy, and yet had some resemblance to the lost one. Her eyes filled
with tears and she decided to ask him about the cause of his grief at
the risk of being considered indiscreet.
With this desire she entered Oswald's room once more and found the
young man in the same position in which she had left him. He was
sitting on the sofa, his arms crossed on his bosom, his eyes staring
fixedly at an old French engraving, in which Andromeda was represented
chained to the rock and guarded by a dragon, while Perseus was coming
through the air to her rescue, with the gorgon's head in his hand. He
had noticed the picture in the early twilight, and long tried to find
out in the imperfect light what it could mean, till at last, as day
broke, he found it out. The engraving was extravagant, as most pictures
of that epoch. Andromeda was rather too small, a mere child in
comparison with the very tall and slender hero, who was just putting
one foot on the rock and preparing to strike a blow at the monster,
which opened its huge mouth wide and stared at him with basilisk eyes.
Still, it was not without merit in the conception, nor without delicacy
in the execution. The spark of hope which appeared in the girl's eyes
and the whole of her childish, beautiful features, and the heroic
indignation in the face of the youth, were well rendered; while the
landscape--a lonely rock in the boundless ocean, with the sun rising
above the horizon and the first rays trembling on the waves up to the
rock--showed something of Claude Lorraine's cheerful vigor and
grandeur. Oswald had looked at the picture again and again with a
feeling of painful sadness. The beautiful meaning of the ancient
myth--that bold courage carries the happy possessor with god-like wings
over land and sea, that the hero overcomes danger by a mere glance, and
finally that for him alone there blooms the sweet flower of love and
beauty on the rude rock in the vast inhospitable ocean of life--all
this had reminded the dreamer painfully of what he also had already
called his own of love and beauty; but only, alas! to lose it in a
short time and forever, forever!
Even now--when Mrs. Black at his request took a seat on the sofa, and
told him all she knew about the excitement in the city, the bloody
scenes which had taken place last night quite near by, in Brother
street, the large assemblies of people Unter den Linden, and the sad
times in which everything seemed to be turned upside down--even now
Oswald could not take his eyes from the picture. The old lady noticed
it and said:
"Yes! It was just so twenty-five years ago! It used to belong to a
countryman of yours, a dear old gentleman who has lived here many
years, and whom I loved like a brother. The picture is here, but
he----"
She sighed so grievously that Oswald, whom his own sorrow had not made
insensible to the sorrows of others, asked her kindly:
"He died, the old gentleman, did he?"
"I do not know," replied the old lady. "He went into the wide world in
order to save a girl whom I had brought up as my own child; a sweet,
lovely creature; but he did not come back, and she did not come back,
and I grieve over my loss, although it is now nearly twenty-five years
old. Have you, monsieur--ah! it is foolish in me to ask, but after all
nothing is impossible in this world--have you, monsieur, ever heard
anything of a Mademoiselle Marie Montbert and a Monsieur d'Estein?"
The old lady had asked the question so often, and received so often
nothing but a curt: _Non madame!_ in reply, that she scarcely noticed
Oswald's regretful shake of the head, and continued with animation:
"Ah, I knew it was so! No one ever heard of them. The world is so
large, and there are so many people in it! And in this great world and
this multitude of people how soon are two unhappy beings forgotten!"
The manner of the old lady was, with all her ingenuousness, so refined
and dignified; the deep-sunk eyes, still full of expression, looked so
gentle and kind; and her voice had such a true, good sound, that Oswald
felt strangely moved, and begged her with cordial warmth to tell him
something more about the two persons whose unhappy fate she deplored so
painfully after so long a time. Mrs. Black smoothed her black-silk
apron, and told him in simple words a simple, touching story.
Her husband, a brave but wild and reckless man, had compelled her for
years before he lost his life on the battle-field of Waterloo to
provide for her own support. She had taken lodgings in the rear part of
the building which she now owned, and rented out the larger part of the
rooms to single gentlemen. She had always tried to keep up pleasant
relations with her "foster-children," but with none of them had she
been on as friendly a footing as with a certain Monsieur d'Estein, a
descendant of French refugees, who supported himself by giving lessons
in the tongue of his ancestors. Monsieur d'Estein was an old bachelor
of kind heart but very eccentric, who had fallen out with the whole
world, and yet shared his last mouthful of bread with any one who asked
him for it. He had his own ideas about everything, and brooded
constantly over plans how to overthrow the whole world, while he led
all the time a most simple, harmless life.
Monsieur d'Estein had been living with her several years and had become
a warm friend of hers, who listened patiently to all her complaints
about hard times and domestic troubles, when one fine day a Colonel
Montbert, of the French army, came and called on his relation, Monsieur
d'Estein. The colonel was under orders for Russia--it was in 1812--and
he was accompanied by a little daughter of eight, a lovely child, whom
the father loved tenderly, and perhaps all the more tenderly as she
stood perfectly alone in the world, and had no one on earth to love and
protect her except her father. Until now she had followed the colonel
in all his campaigns, but the brave old soldier trembled at the idea of
exposing his only treasure to the dangers of a winter campaign, the
results of which he might even then have anticipated. As he had been in
Berlin in 1807, and had then made Monsieur d'Estein's acquaintance, he
came now once more to ask him to take care of Marie till he returned;
and if he should not return, there were the family papers, and a large
sum of money in gold and bills of exchange; and the friends looked at
each other and shook hands. The colonel kissed his little girl,
promised to bring her a sleigh with two reindeer from Russia, kissed
her once more, cried: _Adieu, ma chère! Adieu, ma petite!_ mounted his
horse and was gone.
Colonel Montbert never fulfilled his promise about the sleigh and the
reindeer. His little girl waited and waited for the sleigh and the
father till she was a tall young lady, but sleigh and father never
came.
Marie had grown up a tall, fair girl, so beautiful that the whole
neighborhood called her, unanimously, pretty Marie. She was a good girl
too, with a good heart, that could be merry with the joyous and weep
with the sorrowful. Her only fault was an over-active imagination, a
fondness of strange, extraordinary things--an inheritance from her
father, the French colonel of cavalry, whose adventurous, fantastic
disposition Monsieur d'Estein said approached very near to insanity.
This peculiarity of the girl caused much anxiety to Monsieur d'Estein
and to Mrs. Black, but especially to the former, whose plain,
straight-forward mind was utterly averse to everything irrational or
fantastic. "The girl ought to have no time for dreams," he used to say;
"she must learn to think and to act. She ought to have a counterpoise
to her gay dream-world in the prosaic reality of life. No man ought to
live in castles in the air." According to these views he sketched out a
plan of education for little Marie, with which Mrs. Black never could
fully agree, in spite of the unbounded respect she had for Monsieur
d'Estein's intelligence and character. Marie was to dress in the
simplest way, like the children of humble mechanics; she was to learn
every kind of domestic labor: and when she was grown up Monsieur
d'Estein carried his oddity so far that he sent her to a respectable
milliner. "One could never know but that it might become useful to her
in after life." Mrs. Black shook her head, but she could not be angry
at the old gentleman's odd notions when she saw how well he meant it,
and especially how successful he was. For the girl grew brighter and
fairer every day, and looked, in her simple calico dress and her plain
straw bonnet, as refined and as distinguished as the greatest lady in
the land.
Mrs. Black was proud of the girl. She had never had any children of her
own, but she felt as if she could never have loved one of her own
better. And was she not the child's mother? Had she not watched over
her in health, and nursed her in sickness? And was the girl not as
fondly attached to her as a daughter could be to a mother? Mrs. Black
was almost jealous of this love (she had had so little love in her
life) and did not like it that Marie had not evidently more confidence
in her than in her adopted father. But the latter was, for his part,
not less jealous. Mrs. Black even sometimes suspected that monsieur was
cherishing very different feelings for his beautiful niece, as he
called her, from those of an uncle for his niece, and that his system
of education which confined Marie very strictly to the house, might
have been prompted by other than pedagogic considerations. Monsieur was
at that time only forty years old. It was the mere shadow of a
suspicion, but subsequent events gave it strength.
One evening--it was a Sunday--monsieur returned from his promenade with
Marie very much out of temper. Marie also looked excited, and showed
traces of tears in her beautiful eyes. She went to bed as soon as
supper was over, and Mrs. Black begged monsieur to tell her what had
happened, till he at last consented.
Marie and he had been walking up and down in the long avenues of the
public park, chatting cozily with each other, and had then gone into
one of the public gardens, there to order some refreshments for Marie
and himself. They had just taken their seats at a table when two
gentlemen, who had before been sitting at a distance, had come and
taken seats near them. Monsieur, who turned his back to them, had not
noticed them, and only became aware of their presence when he saw
Marie, who was talking to him, cast half-curious, half-embarrassed
glances at somebody behind him. He turned round to see what was the
matter. At the same moment one of the gentlemen approached their table.
He was a remarkably handsome man--monsieur could not deny that, in
spite of his irritation--a lofty, noble figure, a superb head, a fine
though somewhat exhausted face, large deep-blue eyes, with a haughty
and yet kindly expression. He lifted his hat and in very good
French--monsieur and Marie had as usual conversed in French--he asked
leave for himself and his companion to join their company. Monsieur was
the most courteous man in the world, but he said there had been
something in the manner of the distinguished stranger which had filled
him instantly with a violent aversion against him, and he had therefore
replied dryly and curtly that he and mademoiselle preferred remaining
alone. Thereupon a slight altercation between him and the stranger had
taken place, which ended in his rising and leaving the garden with
Marie, pursued by the scornful laugh of the two gentlemen. From that
evening Marie showed a decided change in her whole manner. Formerly gay
and cheerful, she now hung her head, turned pale and red by turns, was
at one time immoderately merry and at another time wretchedly sad.
Neither Mrs. Black nor monsieur knew what to make of it. Misfortune
would have it that monsieur must be taken sick just then, so that Mrs.
Black had to spend nearly her whole time in his room nursing him, and
Marie consequently was left much to herself. Formerly monsieur had
regularly gone for her to the place where she learnt her profession;
now she had to come home alone. What happened to her during these days,
into what snares she had fallen, Mrs. Black never found out. But one
morning, when she came to wake the poor girl, she found the room empty,
and a little note on the table, in which the unfortunate child stated
that irresistible reasons, which she could not now explain, compelled
her to leave town; that she begged her benefactors with tears in her
eyes to forgive her if she rewarded them for their great love with
apparent ingratitude, and that she hoped to God the day would come, and
come soon, on which all this sorrow would be changed into joy.
That day had never come, but the poor lady had suffered more and more.
Monsieur had nearly lost his senses when he heard of Marie's escape,
and had sworn a fearful oath that he would not rest an hour till he had
rescued Marie from her miserable seducer and personally avenged himself
on the man. Monsieur was the man to keep his word. The little weakly
body harbored an energetic soul. This became evident now, when a
ruthless hand had cruelly destroyed the happiness of his life. For Mrs.
Black could now no longer doubt that the strange man had loved the lost
one with all that intense passionateness which is so often found in
such reserved, eccentric characters. He carried on his search with
restless activity. Success crowned his efforts. He found traces. Where
they led him? He said nothing about it, but observed the strictest
silence upon the whole affair, even to his friend, Mrs. Black. He
packed his trunks as if for a long journey, tore himself from her,
promising to send her news in a week--and now twenty-five years had
passed, and Mrs. Black was still waiting for a fulfilment of that
promise....
The old lady had so completely abandoned herself to her own
recollections that she had forgotten her first intention to inquire
after Oswald's troubles. She was only reminded of this when she noticed
how pale the young stranger's face had become during her recital.
"But you are really worse than I thought, dear sir," she said. "Your
hand is burning hot, and--pardon an old lady--your forehead also is
hot. Let me send for my physician!"
"I beg you will not do it," said Oswald, making a violent effort. "I
must tell you: I have not slept a moment all last night, probably from
over-fatigue during my long journey."
"Then you ought at least to lie down for a few hours," begged the old
lady. "I know very well young people cannot do without sleep like us
old people."
"I mean to do it," replied Oswald, as Mrs. Black rose. "You'll see a
few hours' sleep will set it all right again."
"God grant it!" said the old lady, cordially pressing Oswald's hand
once more. "Pray, pray, no ceremony! I will inquire again a few hours
hence."
What had he been told just now? At the very first words of the old lady
he had no longer doubted that this was the continuation of the story
which mother Claus had told him in Grenwitz that evening when he and
Timm had sought shelter in her hut. All the details agreed. Just as the
old lady had described the strange gentleman, the portrait of Baron
Harald looked now, put of its broad gold frame; and had not the
beautiful poor girl, whom he had so sadly ill-treated, borne the name
of Marie d'Estein, like the adopted daughter of Monsieur d'Estein?
But that was not the reason why his blood froze in his veins and his
limbs shook as in violent fever. It was another terrible fear, which
rose with demoniac power from the lowest depths of his soul. Was it the
work of fever spirits--was it incipient insanity--which changed in his
inflamed imagination Monsieur d'Estein, the eccentric teacher of
languages, into his father, the strange old man? and the beautiful
daughter of the French colonel into the lovely young woman with the
sweet eyes, around whose knees he once used to play during bright
summer mornings in the cosy garden behind the town wall, while the
white butterflies were fluttering about the blue larkspur?
And mad thoughts chased each other once more in wild haste. Old, long
forgotten thoughts awoke and answered clearly from long ago; strange
doubts, that had troubled him as a boy and as a youth, came again, and
said: There is the solution! So much that he had never been able to
explain in his life became of a sudden quite clear to him. It had not
been pure fancy, then, which made Mother Claus see in his face
continually the features of Baron Oscar, "who fell with Wodan;" nor
mere humor, when Timm declared, "You have the very face of the Grenwitz
barons!"
Oswald darted up and went to the mirror. A deadly pale face with
strange, wild eyes stared at him there. "See there! The evil spirit not
laid yet! It has not had victims enough yet! Must there be many more
sacrifices? Can a vampire die of his own venomous glance? A bullet? Eh!
a bullet, nicely driven in at the temples--that might make an end to
the gruesome story! But what will bring death really--a death from
which the soul can never awake again?"
Oswald uttered a fierce cry. A hand seized his arm, and over the
shoulder of his image in the mirror he saw a distorted face grinning at
him.
"Oho!" said Albert Timm. "Are you going on the stage, dottore, that you
stand before the looking-glass and rehearse monologues which might
frighten an honest man out of his wits? Let me look at you in the
light? Upon my word, you have a strange look about you. Little Emily,
eh? You ought to be glad she is gone, before she made you a mere shadow
of your shadow! You see, I know everything; and I know a good deal
more; and I am going to tell you something that will make you wish to
live again, you melancholy Prince of Denmark! But before I tell you,
send for a bottle of port wine or something; I am as dry as a salted
cod this morning."
Mr. Timm, as usual, did not wait for Oswald's answer, but rang the bell
and ordered port wine and caviare. "None in the house? Go to the
Dismal Hole, just around the corner, my man, quite near by. Give Mr.
Albert Timm's respects to Mrs. Rose Pape, and come back in a trice,
curly-headed youth!"
Mr. Timm's statement, that he had taken nothing that morning, was
evidently untrue. He diffused a remarkable smell of liquor around him;
his face was very red, and his eyes less bright than usual. Possibly he
might have sat up all night; his whole appearance made it probable. His
linen was less tidy than ordinarily, and the brown overcoat had
evidently made the acquaintance of numerous whitewashed walls and
stained tables. Mr. Timm's circumstances had not improved since Oswald
had seen him last.
He did not deny it; on the contrary he raised, unasked, the veil from
the unattractive picture of the last months.
"Ill-luck has pursued me step by step," he said, throwing himself on
the sofa and stretching his legs. "At the very time when I made the
discovery which I am going to tell you as soon as the wine comes, you
disappeared from Grunwald, leaving not a trace. The next day the police
caught us at faro, and--I was banker--confiscated all I had--several
hundred dollars--which I needed sorely, since on the following day a
bill of mine became due. I could not pay it, of course. The horrid
manichean, to whom I owed the money, had me put in prison, and there I
have been till about a week ago. How I got out? My landlord, the old
scamp, at last bethought himself of going to Moses and threatening him
with certain stories--well, never mind that! Here I am, a free man once
more, and here comes the wine and the oysters. Come, Oswald, fill your
glass! Hurrah for the brave! Man! I tell you I am beside myself at
having found you out so soon. I was prepared for a long hunt. And now I
am going to tell you a story that will make you jump out of your skin.
Yes, out of you skin! For you will have to lay aside the whole
miserable creature you are now and put on an entirely new man, whom I
have made ready for you, without any merit or claim of your own, but
from pure friendship on my part. And now another glass and I'll begin!"
Mr. Timm pushed the plate with the oyster-shells, which he had quickly
piled up, from him, and swallowed a full glass; filled it again, drew a
bundle of papers from his pocket, laid them on the table before him,
leaned his head on both arms, and with a loud hearty laugh at Oswald,
he said:
"What will you give me, _mon cher_, if I change you from a poor fellow
into the son and heir of a great baron, with a rental of ten or twelve
thousand a year? But I see you are already nearly overcome. I do not
mean to harass you any longer. Listen!"
There are moments in our soul's life when the overwrought brain looks
upon the most extraordinary, the most fantastic events, as ordinary and
quite natural occurrences. Thus it was now with Oswald. That Timm
brought him the confirmation of his suspicions, that he proved to him
in black and white that he had not dreamt, that he transformed a wild
fancy into a legal, well-authenticated document--all this appeared
quite natural to Oswald. There were Marie Montbert's family papers.
Her real name was that of her mother, Marie Herzog, who had found her
way to Paris, there to meet Colonel Montbert. And Oswald knew that
his mother's family name was Herzog. There was a copy of the
church-register, obtained by Timm's indefatigable activity and
mysterious connections, which proved the marriage performed at St.
Mary's between M. d'Estein _alias_ Stein, and Marie Elizabeth Herzog.
And then the baptismal certificate: On the 22 December, 1823, a son was
born unto Amadeus Stein and his wedded wife, Marie Herzog, who in holy
baptism received the name of Oswald. There were the letters which Baron
Harald had written to Marie during his residence in town in the spring
of 1823; there Marie's letters to the baron; a letter written by M.
d'Estein to Marie during the summer of the same year, in which he tells
her that he has at last discovered her hiding-place at Grenwitz, and
beseeches her by the salvation of her soul, to follow him when all
shall be prepared for her flight, etc.
"You see," said Timm, "it is all right and complete, and you can trace
every thread of this curiously complicated affair from beginning to
end. The identity of the persons can be established by documents and by
witnesses alike, for the evidence of Rose Pape alone would upset every
argument on the adversary's side. She knew your mother and was present
at your birth and at your baptism. The woman, it is true, is not
willing just now to appear in court and to testify to facts which make
her appear in an unfavorable light; but money makes the devil dance,
and Mrs. Rose will speak out if she is well paid. That is no trouble,
therefore. My only fear is that you have not energy enough for such a
thing. I must tell you frankly, I thought at first it might not be wise
to tell you anything at all about it, you have such very absurd notions
about many things, and so I dropped the old baroness a hint or two, but
she did not receive them very graciously, and----"
"In a word," said Oswald, and he turned still paler than he had been
before, "you wished to sell your discovery to the baroness, and she did
not pay you the price you demanded."
"Hear! hear!" said Albert, with sincere admiration. "You develop there
a talent for business which I did not expect. Well, take it for granted
it was as you guess; that will not prevent you from making proper use
of your claims. But, dearest _periculum in mora_! if you wish to become
not only the nephew of the baroness but also her son-in-law, you must
make haste. Things have come about which I foretold you last winter.
Helen is engaged to Prince Waldenberg, and the engagement is to be made
public in a few days here in town. Anna Maria arrived last night, and
stays at Prince Waldenberg's house with the Princess Letbus, the mother
of his highness. Now I have already dug a superb mine underground, in
order to create a useful confusion in the enemy's camp, and we can
begin the attack. I am as sure as of my own life that Helen has no
fancy for the prince, and that she would say No! even at the last
moment, if she knew that you are her cousin, and that she can recover
the fortune she loses by the discovery, by marrying you. But she will
not believe anybody who would tell her of the whole affair, except one
man, and that man is--yourself. Oswald, consider the stake! One single
bold step, and the girl whom you love--don't deny it!--whom you love
madly, is yours. A fortune such as you never dreamt of is yours. You
will have at once all that others spend a lifetime to gain; all that
they would unhesitatingly risk their very life for! Surprise works
wonders! Drive to the prince's house in William street; ask to see the
young baroness; tell her, if it must be, in her mother's presence,
not that you want to marry her--for that will come as a matter of
course--but that you have made this discovery under such and such
peculiar circumstances; and I will eat my own head if the girl does not
fall upon your neck and let the prince go when he chooses."
Albert was prepared to see Oswald at first reject this adventurous plan
altogether; for, suitable as it was for a man of Timm's character, and
capable as he was of carrying it out boldly, he knew Oswald's
hesitating disposition. His most sanguine hope was to find it accepted
after a long discussion. Great therefore was his joyful surprise when
Oswald, who had not said a word during the whole long explanation, now
rose and said:
"You are right. There is but one way. I must go myself, and at once."
"Brother!" cried Timm, jumping up and enthusiastically embracing
Oswald; "that is the most sensible word you ever spoke in your life."
Oswald shook himself free, with a shudder which Timm did not notice in
his great excitement.
"Leave me alone now!" he said. "You see how very much I am surprised
and shocked by your revelation. I must collect myself for the
interview."
"For Heaven's sake; only no new scruples!" cried Timm. "Fresh fish is
good fish! I am afraid, if I leave you, you will discover a thousand
Buts!"
"I promise you upon my word I will go to her within an hour. I suppose
you can leave me the papers? They might be necessary if the baroness
makes opposition."
Timm cast a malignant, suspicious glance at Oswald. He did not like to
give up the papers. If Oswald should play false; if--but there was not
time to consider long; and there was something in Oswald's manner which
made him shrink from making objections, a decisive firmness in the
firmly-closed pale lips, a dismal fire in his large eyes. Timm had
never seen him thus. It was no longer the old, fickle Oswald Stein; it
was Baron Harald's son who was standing before him.
"Well," he said, "do as you please. I see you are determined to go the
whole length! But, Oswald, if the enterprise succeeds, and I cannot
doubt now but it must succeed, do not forget the man who has furnished
you the means."
"You may be sure," said Oswald, with a strange smile, "that, as far as
material advantages are concerned, you shall not fare worse in the
matter than myself."
This promise moved the generous Timm so deeply that he was much
inclined to embrace Oswald once more. But the latter made a gesture
which looked not unlike disgust, but which failed to have any effect
upon Timm. He only laughed, and said: "Well, I see you are learning
your part. I will not detain you any longer. Good-by, Oswald! Play your
part well. It is three o'clock now. At four I will come again and
inquire how you have succeeded. Adieu till then."
Oswald paced the room slowly after Timm had left him. Then he went up
to the engraving, and looked at it long and anxiously. "It is too
late!" he murmured. "I cannot save her; I cannot set her free from the
rock to which fate has chained her. But I will see her once more, and
clear my memory of the disgrace with which this blackguard, no doubt,
has loaded me. She shall not believe that I could use such unfair
means. Who knows how far this man has used my name in order to attain
his end."
He stepped to the table and arranged and folded up the papers. Then he
began to dress himself for the proposed interview. It took him some
time. He felt as if he were benumbed in all his limbs, and had to sit
down more than once to let an attack of vertigo pass off. At last he
was ready. He put the papers in his pocket and left the room.
CHAPTER XII.
At the same time a carriage drove rapidly through the deserted street
in which Doctor Braun lived, and many faces appeared at the windows to
see what it was. It was an elegant coach, with two high-bred horses,
and a large coat-of-arms on the doors. On the box, by the side of the
coachman, a servant in gorgeous livery was seated. The coach stopped
before Doctor Braun's house, the servant jumped down to open the door,
and a young lady stepped out. She walked rapidly through the little
garden up to the door.
"Is Mrs. Braun at home?"
"I do not know," replied the maid, casting a shy glance at the velvet
cloak and the charming white bonnet of the lady. "I will see."
"You need not go," said Sophie, who suddenly appeared, adorned with a
long kitchen apron; "here I am."
With these words she hastened with open arms towards the lady, who, for
her part, drew back the white veil and flew into her arms.
"Dearest Helen!"
"Dearest Sophie!"
Sophie drew her friend into the room, helped her to unbutton her cloak
with trembling hands, took off her bonnet, and seizing her with both
hands, she said:
"Well, now let me look at you in broad day-light, you darling;
beautiful as usual, wondrously beautiful! But you look pale and
haggard, it seems to me. Can I do anything for you? You see I have been
at work in the kitchen."
Helen smiled. It was a melancholy smile, which made her dark eyes look
still darker.
"I thank you, Sophie! I only wished to refresh myself by seeing you.
Ah! you do not know how I have longed for you!"
Sophie was deeply touched by this unusual expression of Helen's
feelings. But she was even more deeply touched by the sad tone of voice
in which Helen said she had longed to see her. Such a confession, which
the boarder at Miss Bear's institute would have been too proud ever to
have made, was still stranger in the betrothed of Prince Waldenberg.
All this passed through Sophie's mind while she held Helen's hands in
her own and looked deeper and deeper into her dark eyes.
"Poor Helen!" The words escaped her; she hardly knew what she was
saying.
But the low, sympathetic words awakened in Helen's heart all the
painful feelings which had kept her from sleeping during the night, so
that she scarcely had more than an hour's rest near morning. Pity for
herself, such as she had never known before, overcame her, tears filled
her eyes, and she threw herself into Sophie's arms, hiding her
beautiful pale face on her friend's bosom.
"For Heaven's sake, dearest Helen! what is the matter?" said Sophie,
now seriously concerned. "I have never seen you so; I never thought I
should see you so; and that now, when I thought your whole life was
full of joy and glory!"
"Did you really think so?" asked Helen, raising herself and looking at
Sophie fixedly with her large sorrowful eyes.
Sophie cast down her own before this look. She did not wish to say No;
and she was too honest to say Yes. But she never hesitated long. Now or
never was the moment to tell Helen all she had had on her heart for so
long a time.
"Helen!" she said, looking up frankly and calmly with her deep blue
eyes; "I cannot feign and will not feign for any one, and least of all
for you whom I love dearly. Come, sweetheart, sit down by me on the
sofa here, and let us talk like two sisters; and let us be sisters, if
never again, at least for this hour. If you did not wish me to speak
candidly to you, I think you would have hardly come to me, when you
have so many brighter and greater friends. Am I right?"
"Go on!" said Helen, as if it were comfort and consolation merely to
hear the voice of her friend.
"You ask me," continued Sophie, gathering courage as she spoke,
"whether I really thought you were happy. I do not. You do not look
like a happy woman. Your beautiful, pale face says No, even if your
tongue should say Yes. I have often read in your face--I have read
there long, long stories of which your lips did not say a word, and I
will tell you what I read. Shall I do it?"
"Go on!" said Helen.
"I read on your brow that your mind is not satisfied with anything
except what is great and extraordinary, and even not always with that;
and I have read in your wondrously-beautiful eyes that your heart longs
for love as much as human heart can wish for it. Thus, there has always
been a struggle between your mind and your heart. You wish to rule and
to love at the same time, and that cannot be done. Helen! love, true
love--and there is no other love--must be humble; it bears all thing's
and believes all things; it wants only to be one with the person loved,
one in joy and one in sorrow Look, sweetheart! such love has fallen to
my share, and therefore I know what I say. Franz and I have but one
will: he wants to do what is right, and so do I; and even if our views
ever should be apart, our hearts are always united. All joys are doubly
great, and all sorrows are diminished by half. I felt that when my dear
papa died. What would have become of me if Franz had not been there?"
"I had no one when my father died!" Helen said, sadly.
"I know it, darling; and often, when I thought how lonely you were, and
how you did not have a soul to whom you could pour out your grief, I
have thrown myself on Franz's bosom, who many a time could not imagine
what brought me to him so suddenly and so passionately. You stand
alone, even now when you are on the point of being married; and what is
a thousand times worse, you are quite sure in your heart that it will
always be so--that your husband will never be your friend, your
brother, your beloved, before whom your soul lies open and clear, like
a crystal-clear mountain lake, into which the sun looks brightly down
to the very bottom."
"Never! never!" whispered Helen.
"I knew it," said Sophie, sadly; "but, Helen, if it is bad enough for
you to marry the prince without loving him, it is still worse to become
his wife while you are cherishing in your heart the image of another
man."
Deep blushes flew over Helen's face as Sophie said these words in a
firm voice, and at the same time looked at her so gravely and
reproachfully with her large blue eyes.
"No, darling; don't be ashamed of having loved him. That is not what I
blame you for. He is a man of uncommon attraction, and gifted by nature
with all that can charm woman. I do not even blame you for loving him
still. Who can cast aside true love so promptly? But, Helen, since it
is so, do not marry the prince! You ought not to do it from respect for
yourself, from respect for him, if he deserves respect."
"It is too late!" said Helen, hiding her face in her hands.
"Never too late!" exclaimed Sophie, passionately, and showing how
deeply her heart was moved. "It is never too late to confess a mistake
which must make you and him unspeakably unhappy. Do not misunderstand
me, Helen! I do not speak in favor of that man who, if he ever really
deserved your love, has long since forfeited all claim to it. I never
was a friend of his; his so-called brilliant qualities never attracted
me, because they were not founded upon goodness of heart; and, in my
eyes, good old Bemperlein stands immeasurably higher than Oswald Stein.
But, because he is not worthy of you, must you therefore marry a man
for whom your heart feels nothing, however estimable he may otherwise
be? Are there no other men in the world but Oswald and the prince? Oh,
Helen! I wish I had the tongue of angels to touch your heart, so that
you might humbly bow before the truth, and esteem all the splendor of
the world as nothing in comparison with the happiness you would find in
being true to yourself!"
Helen shuddered as if really one of the heavenly hosts were speaking to
her.
"Oh, you are so good!" she said. "I wish I were like you."
"You can be so, if you but choose."
"But how can I escape? I have pledged my word! I cannot take it back!"
"Speak openly to the prince!" said Sophie, who thought such a remedy
quite simple and natural.
"Rather die!" murmured Helen.
At that moment there came a knock at the door. The servant appeared
with a note in his hand.
"A special messenger, ma'am, on horseback, with a note from the
baroness."
Helen seized the note hastily.
"From mamma!"
She cast a glance at it and trembled.
"What is it, Helen?"
"Mamma has just heard from Grenwitz, that brother has been taken very
ill. She must go back immediately!"
"Poor girl!" said Sophie. "How pale and frightened you look! Shall I go
with you?"
"No, no!" said Helen. "You stay! I must go alone. Good-by, dearest
Sophie! Good-by!"
Helen tore herself from Sophie's arms.
Sophie accompanied her to the carriage. She held her friend's hand
firmly in her own, and said: "Let me hear from you, Helen! And, Helen,
whatever you do, follow the voice of your warm heart; it is a better
counsellor than your cold intellect!"
"I will do so," said Helen, already in the carriage; "you may rely upon
it, I will do so. Good-by!"
The servant closed the door; the carriage dashed off. Sophie followed
it with her eyes till it had turned the nearest corner, then she went
slowly back to the house, her lovely face bent thoughtfully to the
ground.
CHAPTER XIII.
In a room in the second story of the Hotel de Russie, Under the
Lindens, Berger was closeted that same afternoon with Director
Schmenckel. They had had a long interview, and Mr. Schmenckel was just
rising to say good-by. Berger rose likewise.
"You know exactly what you have to say?"
"I should think so," replied Mr. Schmenckel, and cleared his throat.
"Had we better go over it once more?"
"Might do no harm," replied Mr. Schmenckel.
"You will say, then, that you are sorry to have caused the princess so
much trouble. You, yourself, would never have thought of it; but that
man--how did you call him?"
"Timm!"
"----had led you on! Now you had found out that such proceedings were
not worthy of an honest man, and, that you promised the princess, upon
your honor, never to let another word of that whole affair escape your
lips."
"My lips!" repeated Mr. Schmenckel, like a school-boy who repeats a
lesson the teacher tells him to say after him.
"And as for that man, Timm, you will tell the princess not to trouble
herself about him; but, if he should come and ask for money, to have
him turned out of the house by the servants. As you do not intend to
support him in any way, he cannot expect to make much out of the story.
Have you got it all well in your head now?"
"I think it will do," said Mr. Schmenckel, meditatively.
"And, above all, you will accept no money from the princess, neither
much nor little. Don't forget that; do you hear?"
"All right!" said the director, putting his hat on his head with a
great show of resolution. "Adieu, professor!"
"Adieu!" said Berger, shaking hands. "Go and become once more the
honest, upright man you have been heretofore."
"And now," said Berger to himself, when the door had closed after
Schmenckel; "now the moment has come to pay an old debt." He went to a
bureau and took from a drawer a small box of ebony and a medallion.
Then he left the room and went down the passage till he came to a door,
before which he stopped, listening for a moment. The key was in the
key-hole. Berger noiselessly drew it out and knocked.
"_Entrez!_" cried a shrill voice.
Berger entered.
The man he came to see stood with his back to the door, before a
looking-glass, busy finishing his toilet. He turned round, thinking it
was a waiter. The new comer cast a rapid look around the room, locked
the door quickly and noiselessly from within, and then went to the
middle of the room.
"What do you want?" asked Count Malikowsky, still busy with his cravat.
"My name is Berger. I have already told you what I want."
"If you have any demand upon me you can speak to my valet. I do not
trouble myself with such things."
"I know very well," said Berger, without changing a feature, "that
Count Malikowsky likes best to have demands which are presented to him
in person attended to by others, even by assassins, if needs be; but
this time I trust he will make an exception."
With these words he approached the round table in the centre of the
room, placed the little box on it, and took from the box the two
pistols which it contained.
The count had witnessed these proceedings with an amazement which made
him for a time speechless and motionless. The sight of the pistols,
however, brought him to his senses again. With a rapidity which one
would not have thought possible at his age he hastened to the door.
Berger stepped in his way, the pistols in his hand.
"One more effort to escape," he said, "one sound, and you die like a
dog! Stand over there, on the other side of the table; so!"
"The man is mad!" murmured the count, obeying Berger's command and
trembling in all his limbs.
"Maybe!" said Berger, with an uncomfortable laugh; "but if I am mad it
is your fault, count. You do not know me?"
"No; indeed, I do not!"
"Maybe I have changed slightly since I last had the equivocal honor of
meeting you. I will assist your memory. Do you know this?"
He opened the medallion and held it towards the count across the table.
The count took his gold eye-glass and looked at the miniature. It was a
well-painted portrait of a marvellously beautiful, brown-eyed girl, in
the costume of the year 1820.
"Leonora!" cried the count, starting back.
"Yes; Leonora!" repeated Berger, closing the medallion again and
putting it away. "And now I hope you will know who I am, and what the
account is which we have to settle."
The count had turned pale even under his rouge; his false teeth
rattled; he had to sit down in an arm-chair which stood near the table,
as he could not stand any longer.
Berger seemed to enjoy the wretched sight.
"How the coward trembles!" he said. "How the mean heart in the hollow
bosom knocks against the ribs for the sake of a useless bit of life!
Miserable coward! You can seduce girls, but you cannot face a man!
Here, take this pistol and end a life full of disgrace by an honorable
death!"
"I cannot do it," whined the count; "have pity on me! You see, I am an
old man; my hands tremble from gout; I cannot hold a pen, much less a
pistol, steady!"
"Is that so?" asked Berger; "are you really nothing but a whitewashed
grave? Why, then, it would be harder punishment to let you live!"
Berger bowed his head and thought a moment.
"Be it so!" he said. He put the pistols back in the box. The count
breathed freely.
"I have longed for this hour these thirty years. I thought revenge
would be wondrously sweet; but the cup in which it is offered to me is
too disgusting. I do not want it."
Berger had said this as if speaking to himself. Now he raised his lids,
fixed his piercing eyes on the count, who was still trembling in the
corner of his chair, and said:
"I have done with you. I will leave you your miserable life, but under
one condition: You will leave town in an hour, and never appear again
in Germany. I do not want a blackguard like you to breathe German air."
"As you wish it! as you wish it!" said the count. "I shall be glad to
get out of the wretched country."
Berger put the box in his pocket. Suddenly wild tumult was heard in the
street. Berger was instantly at the window. Crowds of people--men,
women, and children--were rushing down the broad streets. "We are
betrayed! They fire at us! To arms! To arms!"
"To arms! To arms!" cried Berger, raising his arms on high in wild
joyousness. "At last! at last! Thanks, Great Spirit!"
He turned away from the window, seized the count, whom curiosity had
roused from his terror, by the breast, and shaking him with perfect
fury, he cried:
"Do you hear, coward? to arms! A whole nation calls to arms! Women and
children! Now all the old debts shall be paid that you and the like of
you have contracted for the last thirty years!"
He pushed the half-dead man contemptuously from him, opened the door,
and rushed out.
He ran against an officer, who was just about to enter.
It was Prince Waldenberg.
"Pardon me, father, if I cannot keep my promise to accompany you to the
princess," said the prince, out of breath; "but you hear the rebellion
is out again. I expect every moment to hear the drums beat."
The count was still quite beside himself from the encounter with
Berger. He stared at the prince with a pale, disturbed countenance.
"What is the matter, father?" asked the prince, who now only noticed
the change in his appearance.
"Go to the devil with your father, sir," cried the count, in whom the
wild hatred he had cherished for so many years against his wife's son
at last broke out into full fury. "I am not your father. I do not
choose to be your father. If you wish to see your father go to your
mother. You will find him there!"
"What do you mean, father?" said the prince, fearing the count had
become insane.
"Father!" mimicked the count, scornfully. "Delightful! Charming! But I
am tired of the farce. You can all go to the devil!"
He rang the bell.
"My carriage; do you hear?" he cried, as the waiter came. Then turning
to the prince, "Will you go now, sir, or not?"
The prince looked at the count like a man who does not know whether he
shall believe his own ears and eyes or not. Suddenly he seemed to have
formed a resolution. He cast one more look at the count, who was
running about like a madman, and left the room.
CHAPTER XIV.
Mr. Schmenckel walked slowly down the Linden to William street. He had
crossed his arms behind and pressed his hat low down on his brow.
People made way for him, for he stared fixedly at the pavement, and
continually murmured unintelligible words through his teeth. But Mr.
Schmenckel was neither drunk nor mad; he was only a little excited, and
repeated the lesson which Berger had taught him. It was a hard task;
but Mr. Schmenckel felt that he was only doing his duty if he broke up
the plot into which he had been entrapped by the cunning of Mr. Timm.
How fortunate that he had revealed it all to the professor in his great
anxiety! How that man talked! Why, he had frightened him out of his
wits! Schmenckel had always said that the professor was a man of very
special gifts. And that the Czika turned out to be a baron's daughter,
that was no wonder to Director Schmenckel, of Vienna. She had such
wonderful eyes, that girl, and he had always treated her well; it was
not so strange, therefore, that the baron should have offered old
Caspar Schmenckel a place as steward on one of his estates. No; Caspar
Schmenckel, from Vienna, need not try to obtain money by foul means.
Caspar Schmenckel could hold his head high again and----
"Why on earth, old man, are you coming only now?" said suddenly a very
sharp voice near him. "You ought to have done with your visit by this
time!"
It was Mr. Timm who had uttered these angry words. He had been
patrolling up and down William street, in the neighborhood of the
Waldenberg mansion, in order to hear the result of Oswald's interview
with the Baroness Grenwitz. He thought Director Schmenckel was by this
time on his way to the Dismal Hole, where they had appointed to meet in
case they should miss each other in the street. Timm had had his
reasons for sending Schmenckel an hour sooner than Oswald to the house.
If Oswald's interview with the baroness was to be successful, the
baroness must first have read a certain letter; and in order to make
the letter effective, Schmenckel must first have had a conference with
the princess. In Mr. Timm's exquisite plans each measure fitted into
the other as in the works of a watch. Mr. Timm had, therefore, good
reasons for being very indignant at Mr. Schmenckel's dereliction.
"It is enough to drive one mad," he continued, in his irritation. "I
cannot leave you alone for a moment but you commit a stupid blunder."
"Oh! not so rude, my friend!" replied Mr. Schmenckel, feeling in his
virtuous purposes quite able to cope with the serpent-wisdom of his
accomplice, "or I'll become personal too!"
Mr. Timm saw that he had gone too far.
"Well, well!" he said, gently; "between friends no offence ought to be
taken. Only make haste now to go in. All may come out right yet. You
have seen the count this morning?"
"No!" growled Mr. Schmenckel.
"But why on earth haven't you seen him?" exclaimed Timm, whose
indignation was roused once more.
"Because I did not choose!" said Schmenckel, defiantly. "Because I do
not want to have anything more to do with you anyway!"
"Ah!" said Timm; "you would like to raise the treasure by yourself? I
have burnt my fingers to draw the chestnuts out of the fire for you,
eh? No, my dear sir, we are not quite such fools. He who wants to be
paid must work."
"I do not want a farthing of that wretched money!" cried Schmenckel. "I
am going to tell the princess that I am an honest fellow, and that she
need not trouble herself any further."
"Are you piping in that way?" asked Timm. "You mean to betray me a
little, do you? Have a care, man; you might have to pay dear for the
fun!"
"I shall do what I like," said Schmenckel, assuming a very determined
air, and walking off with long strides.
"You shall not enter that house!" cried Timm, and seized Schmenckel by
the arm.
Schmenckel's reply to this challenge was a blow, which hurled Mr. Timm
very unpleasantly across the sidewalk against the wall. The next moment
the great portal had closed behind Mr. Schmenckel.
The little altercation with Mr. Timm had put him in a kind of heroic
ecstasy well suited for the interview he was about to have. Thus it
happened that he was not abashed by the gorgeous livery of the
servants, nor by the splendor of the rooms through which he was led.
But his courage failed him and his heart sank when the servant stopped
at a door and whispered: "Her grace is in there; go in without
knocking; she expects you." Mr. Schmenckel passed his hand through his
thick hair, cleared his voice, held his hat firmly under his left arm,
and entered cautiously.
A rosy twilight received him, and in the rosy twilight he noticed two
women, one of whom was seated in an arm-chair near the bright fire that
was burning there in spite of the warm weather, while the other stood a
little sideways behind the chair. Both of them examined him as he
approached with eager curiosity. His reception caused him to shorten
his steps more and more till he suddenly came to a stop half way
between the door and the fire-place.
"Come nearer, my friend," said the lady who was standing behind the
chair.
Mr. Schmenckel advanced a few inches and came again to a stop, quite
determined this time not to approach nearer to those formidable eyes.
"You are the man who wrote to Count Malikowsky day before yesterday?"
asked the lady behind the chair.
"Yes, your grace." Mr. Schmenckel felt as if these words, which he no
doubt had uttered himself, had been spoken by some one else at the
other end of the large apartment. This was by no means calculated to
bring back the heroic frame of mind which the rosy twilight and the
bright eyes had so seriously damaged. He blushed all over, and cleared
his voice in order to convince himself that it was really he himself
who was speaking to the ladies.
"Your name is Schmenckel?" asked the lady behind the chair.
"Yes, your grace."
"And you were in St. Petersburg twenty-four years ago?"
"Yes, your grace."
"And you visited at Letbus House?"
"Yes, your grace."
"Do you recognize me?"
Mr. Schmenckel fixed his eyes, which had been resting upon everything
in the room except the two ladies on the speaker, and said, after a
short reflection,
"I should think so; although I should not like to swear to it. If it
was not such a very long time since, I should say you were the Nadeska,
the chambermaid of the princess, who was all the time bringing me notes
and rose bouquets into the Black Bear."
Nadeska bent over her mistress and whispered a few words into her ear,
to which the latter replied in the same tone. Then Nadeska left the
room.
"Wont you sit down, Mr. Schmenckel?" said the princess, as soon as they
were alone.
Mr. Schmenckel seated himself on the outer edge of an arm-chair.
"Do you recognize me also?" asked the lady.
Mr. Schmenckel bowed, placing his hand on his heart.
"Why did you not come to me directly?" the princess continued in a tone
of gentle reproach. "Why did you take the count into your confidence?
Have I ever been ungenerous towards you. Was it my fault if our last
meeting ended as it did?"
Mr. Schmenckel was about to reply, but the princess continued.
"If I had known that you were still living, and where you were living,
I would have provided for you liberally; and I am still willing to do
so. But one condition I must make: you must have nothing to do with the
count; and, above all things, you must never dare come near the prince.
If you will comply with these conditions you may ask what you choose,
and if Alexandrina Letbus is able to do it it shall be done!"
The princess extended imploringly her thin, transparent hand; her black
eyes filled with tears; the rosy twilight gave a spiritual beauty to
her pale but still beautiful features. Mr. Schmenckel had a susceptible
heart in his bosom, and the humility of the great lady moved him
deeply.
"Let me say a word now, too, your grace," he said "I am not the
scoundrel you make me out. I should never have dreamt, your grace, of
writing a letter to the count, if I had not been persuaded to do so by
an awfully bad man. Timm is his name. I never knew at all that Caspar
Schmenckel, of Vienna, had such a great lord for his son. But that man
Timm said to me: No harm in beating about the bush; no harm in that!
Then he wrote the letter, and carried it himself to the count. The
count came the same evening to the Dismal Hole to see me, and told me
he was very glad if I could make life a little hard to you, Mrs.
Princess. But he said I must not say a word to the prince, or there
would be an end to the fun. And then, says he, you ask too much; a
fourth of it is enough. And he told me to talk it over with your grace
and then he would pay me the money this forenoon at his hotel. Now,
your grace, you may believe it or not, as you choose, but Caspar
Schmenckel, from Vienna, is an honest fellow, and don't like to do any
harm to anybody, least of all to a beautiful lady who was once upon a
time very kind to poor Caspar. And when your grace sent for me, and let
me know that you wanted to see me yourself, I said: Caspar, says I, go
to the princess and tell her so and so, and she must not trouble
herself about it any more; Caspar Schmenckel will never come near her
in all his life. And as for the money, I tell your grace, not a penny
do I want to touch of it, not if it were to turn into pure gold on the
spot. And so, your grace--princess, good-by to you! And if we don't see
each other again you must remain well, and don't you trouble yourself
any more about Caspar Schmenckel; he'll never do you any harm. I kiss
your hand, your grace!"
With these words he rose and made his best bow.
The princess was very much touched.
"Good fellow," she said, with trembling voice.
Her eyes dwelt with pleasure upon the herculean proportions of the man
who was the father of her son. The extraordinary resemblance between
them, in figure as well as in face, filled her with mournful
satisfaction. She thought of the days when this man, a lion in strength
and agility, had conquered not her heart but her imagination. But at
the same moment a sudden fear overcame her lest her son should find his
father here--lest her son with his pride and his passionate temper
should ever discover that this juggler, this rope-dancer, was the
father of Prince Waldenberg.
"You must go!" she said, hurriedly. "Here,"--she took a superb ring
from her finger, in which the diamonds shone in all the colors of the
rainbow as they caught the light of the fire--"here; no words, take it!
I wore it long, long ago, even when Nadeska first brought you to me;
take it as a keepsake from Alexandrina Letbus! But now go, go!"
She touched the silver bell. Nadeska entered.
"Show him out! Mind that no one sees you!"
Nadeska took Mr. Schmenckel, who would have liked to say something, but
was too confused and embarrassed to find words, and led him through a
secret door which led near the fire-place into a narrow passage, and
then through a private staircase into the courtyard.
The princess sank exhausted back into the cushions of her easy-chair,
and hid her eyes behind her hand. She did not notice that a heavy
curtain on the right hand from the fire-place, which had been moving
several times during her conversation with Mr. Schmenckel, now opened
and admitted the prince. She only heard him when he was close by her.
She opened her eyes, and at the same moment she uttered a piercing
shriek--his unexpected appearance and a single glance at his pale,
disturbed face told her that he had heard all.
"Mercy, Raimund! Mercy!" she cried, raising her folded hands in agony
towards him.
Raimund's broad chest was heaving as if it were struggling with an
overwhelming burden, and his voice sounded like a hoarse death-rattle,
as he now said, pointing with the finger at the door through which
Schmenckel had left,
"Was that man who has just left you my father?"
"Mercy, Raimund! Mercy! Are you going to kill your mother?"
"Better you had never borne me than this!"
The powerful man trembled as if violent fever were shaking him; a groan
broke from his breast which resounded fearfully through the gorgeous
apartment.
"By all the saints, Raimund, hear me, I beseech you! I will tell you
all!"
"I need not hear any more. I know too much already. The count called me
a bastard! I thought he was mad! He called me by my right name."
He put his hand to his side--he had laid aside his sword in the
ante-room. His eyes looked searchingly around as if looking for a
weapon. His mother understood him.
"Raimund, Raimund, what are you going to do?"
"Make an end of it as soon as possible!"
"No man will ever know----"
"_Will_ know? Who does not know it? Nadeska! the count! this man! Are
my rank, my honor, my fortune to depend on the whim of a chambermaid,
the discretion of a heartless roué, and the silence of a rope-dancer?
"Am I to wait till the people in the street----"
"I will kill every man who knows it! They shall die--they shall all
die, if you but remain my own."
"And if they were to die, and if no one knew but you and I--yes,
mother, if you were dead and the secret were buried in my bosom, I
should not think it safe even there; I should hide myself and my
disgrace in the lowest depths of the earth."
The princess covered her pale face with her thin hands. But this was
not the moment to abandon herself to idle grief. She knew her son's
character too well not to be aware that it was a question of life and
death.
"Raimund," she said, starting up again, "you do not kill yourself only;
you kill me too! You are my all, my sun, and my light! I never had
another child but you. You do not know what it is to have a child and
to love it, especially when one is as unhappy as I have been! I never
loved the count. I could not have loved a roué who has wasted his
fortune and his health in abominable profligacy. I became his wife
because--because the czar would have it so. And I was so young at that
time, and so frivolous and thoughtless, grown up in all the splendor
and luxury of the most splendid and most luxurious court on earth! I
was not a faithful wife--nor was the count a faithful husband. It
mattered little to him; but he wished to get a hold on me in order to
force me to provide for his mad expenditures. He had long watched
me--till at last, I do not know yet by what unlucky accident or by
whose treachery, he discovered my secret. From that moment my life has
been a perpetual torture; I have grown old before my time. I never had
anything but you and your love to warm my heart in this icy-cold world.
If you rob me of that also, I must succumb. Raimund, is this your
gratitude for all my love?"
The son had listened to his mother's cunning words, which interwove
truth and fiction so skilfully, with an air as black as a wall of
thunder-laden clouds.
"Show me the possibility of living," he replied, "and I will live. As
it is, I cannot live. I cannot endure the consciousness that my blood
is no better than that which flows in the veins of my groom."
"Am I not your mother?"
"Is that low person not my father?"
"Yes, Raimund, he is, and to him you owe your proud strength; to him
you owe it, that all men appear weaklings by your side. Would you
rather be the count's son and inherit his wretched feebleness, his
poisoned blood? And do you fancy that in our veins no other blood flows
but noble blood?--that your case is the only one in which a degenerate
race has been renewed by an admixture of sound but humble blood? Shall
I tell you a few anecdotes of our own circles? And do you think it is
different in higher and the very highest families?"
The princess rose lightly from her chair and whispered something in her
son's ear. But he grimly shook his head.
"Is it thus with us?" he said. "Then we had better break our swords to
pieces, and drag our coats-of-arms through the mire. I have kept my
honor unsullied; I have no sin on my conscience, but I must atone for
the sins of others, before the tide rises higher and higher, and I get
deeper and deeper into the mire. Do you know that the man with whom I
had a personal encounter Under the Lindens a few days ago was this very
man!" The prince pointed at the door through which Mr. Schmenckel had
made his way out. "Do you know that I escaped but by a hair's breadth
staining my sword with the blood of him who is my father? No! no! The
measure is full to overflowing!"
"And Helen?" The prince shuddered.
The princess saw how deep that arrow had entered. A gleam of hope
appeared to her; she thought she might after all be victorious in this
conflict.
"Are you going to destroy your greatest happiness? will you make this
angel also wretched? will you humiliate yourself before her, the proud
beauty? Impossible! You cannot mean it. You are bound to life with
chains of steel and with chains of roses. You can break the former, you
dare not break these."
"It is in vain," said the prince; "all your words cannot remove this
terrible burden!" He placed his hand on his breast. "Henceforth
Farewell!"
He turned to go.
"Raimund!" screamed the princess, rising suddenly from her chair and
clinging to her son, "what do you mean to do?"
"Nothing mean, be sure," he said, trying to disengage himself gently
from her arms. "Farewell!"
"Go then, barbarian, and murder--" She could not finish; the terrible
excitement of these last two scenes was too much for her suffering
nerves; she sank fainting upon her chair.
At that moment Nadeska came back. A glance at the scene in the room
told her what had happened.
"You will kill the poor lady," she said, hastening to assist her
fainting mistress. "And why all this? It will never be known."
The prince laughed. It was a fearful laugh.
"Do you think so, Nadeska?" he said. "But suppose you talked in your
dreams? Or have you sold your dreams also to the princess?"
He beat his forehead with his closed fist and rushed out.
CHAPTER XV.
As the prince hurried through the ante-room, like Orestes driven by the
furies, he met the Baroness Grenwitz, who came to take leave of the
princess. He thought he would sink into the ground for shame, as she
looked fixedly into his eyes. She said something to him, but he did not
hear what it was. His ears were ringing with strange sounds. He uttered
an inarticulate sound, which was to represent an apology. Then he
rushed out.
The baroness followed him with a sombre, suspicious look.
Anna Maria had not had a happy moment since she had entered the house.
The reception last night had touched her to the quick. The constrained
manner of the prince, the unprofitable efforts of the princess to give
to the interview a more cordial tone, the thinly-veiled irony of the
count, who ridiculed every affectionate word--all this had filled her
with sad apprehensions for Helen's future. She had passed the night
without sleep, thinking over the riddle, and again and again she had
come to the conclusion that the princess must have been faithless to
her husband at some time in her life, and that the count thus had an
iron hold on her. Perhaps the striking want of resemblance between
father and son might have contributed to such a conclusion. Thus she
had risen late in very bad humor, and with a violent nervous headache,
and was rather pleased to learn that Miss Helen had driven out to visit
her friend, Sophie. Helen had scarcely left the house when two letters
were brought in, one from Grunwald, the other from the city itself. She
opened the one from Grunwald first. The news of Malte's illness filled
her with consternation. She had always trembled for his life, from
childhood up; were her fears to be realized now? And if Malte should
die--oh that God in His great mercy would prevent that!--the whole
entailed estate went, now that Felix also was no more, to a Captain
Grenwitz, the son of her former husband's first cousin, a beggar, whom
she had never liked, and who had always looked like a hungry pike
eagerly snapping at the estate. He was henceforth to be master at
Grenwitz? Why, after all, she would have preferred to find out that
Oswald Stein was really Harald's legitimate son.
Mechanically she opened the second letter. It was from Albert Timm and
ran thus:
"Madame:--After our last interview you will not be surprised if I now
use the weapons _against_ you, which I until then had been using _for_
you. Mr. Stein has been fully informed. Before the year is out--you may
rely on it--he is master of Stantow and Baerwalde, and you will,
besides, have to pay the back interest for twenty-four years. This is
simple ruin for you. I might rub my hands with delight at your
discomfiture; but Albert Timm is a good-natured fellow and offers you a
piece of good advice in return for your ingratitude. Make your peace
with Mr. Stein before it is too late! Better a small sacrifice than an
entire loss. I send your adversary to you; receive him kindly, and if
you are wise give him the hand of your daughter, who loves him madly.
The princely match is anyhow at an end, considering that the prince is
not the son of a count, but of a rope-dancer, and the matter is in such
a position that the whole world will soon enjoy the grand scandal. But
I must resist your desire to hear the full explanation of this
interesting affair, which you might disregard as you disregarded
certain other explanations of mine. Perhaps you may change your mind
after the interview with Mr. Stein, and become convinced of the sincere
friendship with which I have the honor, etc., etc."
At any other time the baroness would have looked upon this letter
merely as a renewed effort on the part of Mr. Timm to regain his lost
position; but this morning her mind was so disturbed that the letter
and everything else appeared to her in quite a new light. Was not,
after all, everything and anything possible in this false world? It was
evident that this Mr. Timm knew more than most people, and at all
events the persistence with which he adhered to his statements was very
remarkable. Even Felix in his last letter had admitted the fact!
The usual energy of the baroness gradually gave way under the heavy
pressure. And now Helen, whom she had sent for, was not coming back;
and in an hour the train would start by which alone she could reach
Grunwald next day! Her trunks were not packed, the question whether
Helen should accompany her or stay had not been decided, and she had
yet to take leave of the princess and the prince. But that, at all
events, could be done in Helen's absence! Necessity released her from
the rules of etiquette; and, besides, the princess herself had asked
her the night before to come unannounced to her rooms.
Thus Anna Maria left her rooms and went hastily down the long passages
and through the ante-rooms which led to the apartments of the princess,
when suddenly the prince rushed out, evidently in a high state of
excitement, and passed her without saying a word.
"That is strange!" said the baroness. The door opened again suddenly,
and Nadeska rushed out with terror in her face.
"Where is the princess?" asked the baroness.
"In there. She is unwell. No one is coming to answer the bell. I am
going to look for the servants."
"Do so!" said the baroness. "I will stay in the meantime with the
princess."
Nadeska did not look as if she liked the arrangement, but she dared not
prevent the baroness from entering. She hurried away, while Anna Maria
stepped into the rosy twilight of the apartments of the princess.
She was still lying in the arm-chair near the fire. Her half-closed
eyes and the convulsive movements of her hands showed that she had not
quite recovered yet from a fit of fainting.
"Give me back my son, Nadeska!" she murmured. "He must not wrestle with
that Hercules; the father is stronger than the son. You see! you see!
how he takes him around the waist and lifts him up. He will throw him
down, here at my feet. There, there----"
The unfortunate woman broke out in hysterics, mixed with a horrible
laugh. Between times she raved:
"Don't let the count know! The count will tell the baroness! The
baroness will tell her beautiful daughter, and then she wont take the
rope-dancer's son! There he comes, his head cut open, and----"
A fearful cry broke from the bosom of the sufferer. She started up, and
stared with haggard looks at the baroness. Immediately she sank back
once more, fainting anew. Nadeska came in with a couple of Russian
maids. She seemed to be anxious to get the baroness out of the way.
"The princess has these attacks quite often," she said, in her smooth,
humble manner, while the servants took up the fainting lady and carried
her into her bed-room. "She must be left alone in such cases; the
presence of strangers makes it only worse."
"I am not going to disturb her, my dear," said the baroness, coldly;
"especially as I have to leave in an hour. I shall write a few lines to
her grace."
"What does that mean?" said Nadeska. "Does she also know more than she
ought to know?"
The baroness returned to her rooms in a state of indescribable
excitement. What was that she had seen and heard? The wild expression
in the prince's face, the confused speeches of the princess, the
suspicious' manner of the waiting woman, who evidently knew all about
the family drama--what was she to think of it? What ought she to do? It
was perhaps the first time in her life that the clever, sensible woman
was utterly at a loss. But was not the ground giving way under her
feet? Was the indestructible pillar of her success not snapping
suddenly like a bruised reed? The prince a rope-dancer's son! A family
secret anxiously guarded for twenty-odd years, suddenly proclaimed in
the streets and on the house-tops! Her son, the legitimate heir to the
immense estate, sick unto death! An unknown scion of a former owner,
rising unexpectedly from obscurity, a lost will in his right hand,
which made him owner of a fortune that the baroness had all her life
regarded as her own! And what would Helen say? How her pride would
suffer when she learnt that the diamonds of the princely crown were
nothing but vile glass, unfit for the lowest of the low!
A carriage came dashing into the court-yard. It was Helen. The heart of
the baroness beat as if the decisive moment was only now approaching. A
few anxious moments and the beautiful daughter came, pale and
distressed, into the room, and threw herself into her mother's arms
with a passionate vehemence which contrasted most strangely with her
usual reserve and coldness.
"God be thanked you are back!" said Anna Maria. "I must go; I wanted to
ask you if you will go with me!"
"Can you ask me?" cried Helen. "I should stay here, and without you?"
"Then you do not feel happy here, Helen?"
"No, no! I do not love the prince! I have never loved him!" And Helen
hid her face on her mother's bosom.
The baroness was much surprised. Helen's words, and even more the tone
in which she said them, and her whole strange, passionate manner,
suddenly gave her an utterly new insight into her daughter's character.
She had a dim perception that large portions of her inner life had so
far been utterly unknown to her, and that all her cleverness, of which
she was so proud, had not enabled her to see clearly in her own
daughter's heart.
"Why did you give your promise then?" she asked.
"I cannot tell. I was--I did not know what I was doing. But now I do
know it. I cannot marry the prince; he must give me back my word. If
you insist upon the marriage I shall die!"
"And if I do not insist?"
It was now Helen's turn to be surprised. She looked at the baroness
with wondering eyes.
"As I say, my dear child, I have made certain discoveries this morning
which have startled me, to say the least, very much, and which have
brought me the conviction that we have proceeded in this whole matter
with a want of caution which might possibly have been quite disastrous
to us all."
"I do not understand you, mamma!" said Helen.
"Well, it is hard to understand," said Anna Maria, plaintively. "I
hardly know where my head is. I am perfectly miserable!"
And the baroness threw herself into a chair as if she were
broken-hearted, and commenced weeping bitterly.
Helen had never seen her mother weep. The unusual sight touched her
deeply. She knelt down by her, and tried to console her with kind,
soothing words. But it was all in vain.
"It is not that alone, though that is bad enough," sobbed Anna Maria;
"but we also are threatened with a similar exposure," and under the
pressure of a moment, yielding to the natural impulse of all helpless
sufferers to cling to others at any hazard, she told Helen in a few
words all about Oswald's claims on her fortune, and that if these
claims should be legally established she and her daughter alike would
be beggars.
Helen had listened to her in breathless excitement. Her color came and
went continually, her eyes were fixed on her mother, her hand held her
mother's hands with a firm grasp.
"Beggars! you say? Better so and a clear conscience than in abundance
and fainting with anxiety! Come, mamma, I am not afraid of poverty! You
have often told me how poor you were before you were married to papa.
Why should I be better off? I do not see that being rich has made you
happy, or papa; he told me so in his last hour. I have seen it with my
own eyes how much happier people are who have nothing but their
affection, who rely on nothing but their own strength. I have strength;
I can and will work for you, if it must be so. But now let us go away
from here. You are sick and weary; your hand is icy cold, and your
forehead is burning; stay, do not get up. I will pack your things; you
need not trouble yourself; I shall be down in five minutes."
"No," said the baroness, "let me do that. Mary can help me. You can do
something else for me. We cannot well leave without writing a few words
of farewell to the princess, as she is too unwell to see us, and we are
in such a hurry. Sit down and write a few lines, kindly and politely,
but neither more nor less than what is indispensable."
"I will do so," said Helen, sitting down at her escritoire, while her
mother went into the adjoining room.
Helen had just taken up her pen when she heard a noise behind her which
made her look up. In the middle of the room stood Oswald, deadly pale,
his large eyes, brilliant with fever, fixed upon her. Helen was so
terrified that she could not speak nor move. She thought for a moment
it was an apparition.
Oswald seemed to guess so.
"It is really I!" he said. "Pardon me for my abrupt appearance. I asked
for the baroness; they showed me in here."
"I will call my mother," said Helen, rising.
"I pray, stay," said Oswald; "I pray you! I have only two words to say.
I would rather say them to you than to the baroness."
There was something so solemn in Oswald's manner and tone of voice that
Helen had not the heart to refuse his request.
"Will you sit down?" she said, sinking herself into a chair and
pointing at another chair near her.
Oswald sat down.
"I do not know, Miss Helen, if your mother has spoken to you of certain
intrigues by which she has been troubled of late, and which originate
mainly with a certain Mr. Timm?"
"I have just this morning heard of it for the first time."
"That was my own fate. And this is what brings me here. I cannot bear
the thought; I believe I could not die quietly if I thought that you
believed me capable of employing such vile means against you. Will you
please tell the baroness so?"
"I will."
"And tell her also, I pray, and believe yourself, how bitterly I regret
that you have been troubled with such a matter."
"It was nothing but an invention of Mr. Timm!"
"No, Miss Helen!" said Oswald, with a sorrowful smile. "I presume it is
more than that. I am only too much afraid it is the real truth, and
that is the second reason why you see me here."
"You surely do not imagine we would refuse to acknowledge legitimate
claims against us?"
"That case will never arise. I have no desire to make such claims. I
should never have done so, under any circumstances; and least of all
now."
He cast a look around him. The splendor of the apartment reminded him
forcibly in whose house he was.
"Least of all now!" he repeated. "Here are the papers which prove this
most unfortunate of all stories. I desire the baroness to take them and
to keep them, so as to be secure at all times against that man's
machinations."
He placed the documents and papers which Timm had brought him a few
hours before upon Helen's escritoire, and bowed to take leave.
"One moment, sir!" said Helen, rising likewise. "Do you imagine my
mother will accept such a gift? Who has given you the right to think so
little of us?"
"I think, Miss Helen, your pride misleads you in this instance. There
is evidently no one whom this whole matter concerns except myself, and
I desire to be relieved of an unpleasant suspicion. It was hardly
necessary to remind me that a few hundred thousand dollars, more or
less, mattered little to the mother of the owner of Grenwitz, and to
the betrothed of Prince Waldenberg."
"Circumstances ought not to affect our duties," replied the young girl,
rising to her full height and curving her lips contemptuously; "and you
need not believe that I am so indifferent to your claims because, I am
proud of our wealth and our rank. We are at this very moment on the
point of leaving for Grenwitz, where my brother is lying dangerously
ill; and there, on my escritoire, lies the beginning of a letter in
which the princess will be told that I shall never be her son's wife."
Helen's dark eyes were shining brightly; the hot blood gave greater
depth to the red on her cheeks. Oswald had never seen her so beautiful,
so marvellously beautiful. And this at the moment when he had already
in his heart bid farewell to life, which had no longer any charms for
him. Just now this glorious beauty, this highest beau-ideal of his
wildest dreams, must present herself to him, not at an inapproachable
distance, but within reach attainable to his bold desires--to his firm
will, perhaps! Why did she tell him that she would never marry the
prince? And why did she tell it in such a defiant tone, if she did not
mean to humble him--the weak, hesitating, fickle man--by the strength
of her will, by the promptness with which she abandoned all this
splendor, merely in order to remain true to herself?
These thoughts passed swiftly through Oswald's mind, which worked all
the faster as he had been so long sleepless and feverish. He knew that
she would never have told him all this if she had not loved him at some
time or other; if she did not perhaps still love him; and yet he knew
with absolute certainty that they were separated from each other
irretrievably by all that had happened. There was therefore no
bitterness, but deep sadness in his voice, as he fixed his eyes
immoveably upon the heavenly beauty before him and said, slowly:
"Let us not sadden one another still more by violent, bitter words! Who
knows whether we shall ever speak to each other again? I feel like a
dying man, and what I am going to say I do not say for myself, but from
an earnest desire to state the truth. Helen, I have loved you from the
hour when I saw you first in the park at Grenwitz! I have never
forgotten that moment. I know that you also would have loved me if I
had but been true to myself; you might have become my own. But when I
forsook myself you also forsook me, and now there is an abyss between
us over which there is no bridge. And what seemed to be about to bring
us together--the discovery of this morning--only parts us forever. I
feel it clearly. You will never be disposed to accept a gift, as you
call it; and I would rather burn my right hand than stretch it out
after the inheritance of a man who made my mother the most wretched of
women. There is no peace possible between us, even if everything else
were as it ought to be. And now, Helen, before we part--probably
forever--one more request; give me your hand across that gulf which
parts us, as a token that I am forgiven!"
Helen laid her hand in Oswald's.
Thus they stood and looked deep into each other's eyes; and as they so
looked they saw all the golden summer mornings in the past at Grenwitz
under the whispering trees, and all the purple-glowing evenings in the
green beech woods near the sea-shore--and then they saw nothing more,
for a close veil of tears hid the enchanting images.
"Farewell, Helen!"
"Farewell, Oswald!"
"Forever!"
"Forever!"
Oswald did not take the beloved one in his arms; a feeling of holy
reverence kept him back. He felt that the time for repentance which was
granted to him was too short, and swearing new vows which he felt no
strength to keep was not making amends for so many broken ones.
He let the hand go which he had held in his own, and--the next moment
Helen was alone.
She was still standing so, her eyes fixed on the door through which
Oswald had disappeared, when the baroness came back to the room.
"It is high time, Helen," she said; "the carriage is waiting. Are you
ready?"
"Yes."
"What papers are those on the escritoire?"
"Did he not take them again?"
"Who?"
"Oswald."
"Has he been here? What did he want?"
"He came to say good-by. Take those papers, mother. He brought them to
you."
"Helen, you look pale; and you have been crying! What does that mean?
Do you love that man? Must I lose my last child then?"
"Be calm, mamma. I shall not leave you in our misfortune. There is the
letter to the princess. One moment, mother."
She sat down and wrote in great haste a few lines.
"Well, that is done! I am free once more! Come, mamma; I will show you
that I have still strength and courage enough for life. Come!"
And she drew the baroness, who willingly yielded herself up to her
daughter's superior energy, with her out of the room.
A minute later the two ladies had left Waldenberg House, and half an
hour afterwards the train carried them away from the city.
CHAPTER XVI.
As Oswald hurried down the street, scarcely knowing what he was doing,
he felt suddenly some one seize him by the arm. It was Mr. Timm.
After his encounter with Mr. Schmenckel Mr. Timm had been compelled to
abandon his post of observation near the princess's house in order to
go into the courtyard of one of the adjoining houses, and there wash
off the blood which the director's weighty fist had drawn from mouth
and nose. Timm was as angry as he had ever been in his life. It
was the rage of the hunter when he sees a wild beast tearing his
cunningly-woven nets and escaping from his most ingenious trap. This
booby of a Schmenckel, with his stupid honesty! How he had worked at
the man to dazzle him with golden prospects; and now! It was enough to
turn a man's brain! The glorious fortune all lost! And why? For nothing
but a fit of honesty! And if Oswald, too, should be such a fool! These
blockheads can never be left alone for a moment! And just now the
bleeding will not stop! What enormous strength that fellow has!
Thus it came that the martyr of stupid honesty saw neither Mr.
Schmenckel nor the prince leave the house, nor Oswald go in, and he was
now also but just in time to overtake the latter as he was rather
running than walking down the street.
"Hallo! sir!"
"What is it?"
"Well, I ask _you_ that!"
"Is that you?"
"Who else? How did it go? Did the old one give in promptly?" And he was
about to slip his arm familiarly in Oswald's arm; but Oswald stepped
back.
"Don't touch me!" he said, "or I will beat your brains out!"
"Oh ho!" said Timm, giving way; "is he crazy too?"
"Wretch!" cried Oswald. "You wretch! who make vulgarity your
profession, and speculate on vice. Let me never find you again in my
way, or you will repent it!"
He left Timm, who had first turned ashy pale and then broken out into
loud laughter, and hurried away. He did not mind where his feet carried
him! He went as in a dream, and what he saw and heard appeared to him
only like dreamy images: curious, terrified faces of women and children
in doors and windows; dense crowds of men, who seemed to tell each
other fearful things with wild gestures and loud exclamations; running
and shouting, yelling and whistling on all sides, and between the
mournful ring of alarm-bells from all the steeples. Then, as Oswald
left the aristocratic portion of the town further and further behind
him, a new sound mingled with the others: a very peculiar rattling
noise, and a low thundering, which made the very houses tremble.
But all this did not rouse him from his waking dream. The sorrow for
his ruined happiness had made him blind and deaf to the sorrow of a
whole ill-treated nation. Suddenly a ghastly spectacle startled him.
From one of the side streets a young man came running out, who cried:
"Treason! treason! They are firing at us!" The young man's blouse was
torn and covered with blood; his face was pale, his hair dishevelled;
he staggered like a drunken man, and suddenly he fell down right before
Oswald. Oswald raised him up, and in an instant a crowd of men and
women were around them. "He is dying!" cried the men. "A curse upon the
executioners!" The women shrieked. One cried out: "Take him; don't you
see the gentleman can hardly stand himself!" A man took the dying youth
from Oswald's arms. Suddenly Oswald felt some one touch him. He turned
around and saw Berger. Oswald's soul had during the last hours been so
overwhelmed with strange, exceptional events and sensations that he was
prepared even for the most extraordinary occurrences. And if there was
a man in this world whom he wished to see just then it was his friend
and teacher, the companion of his fate. Oswald did not ask him how? and
whence? He threw himself into Berger's arms.
"Glad you are here," said the other, hurriedly; "come! let the dead
bury the dead. We must work and be doing as long as it is day!"
They hastened off together.
With every step they came nearer to the crater of the revolution which
had broken out a few hours before. In this part of the city barricades
were going up, built by a thousand brave and skilful hands, and manned
by death-defying men and boys, mostly belonging to the lower classes of
the people. These improvised fortresses did not inspire much hope of
being able to resist long, for they consisted mostly of one, or at best
of several, heavy wagons, torn-off planks, and other similar objects,
hastily piled up together, while the arms of the small garrison were
generally only rusty old swords, pikes, guns without locks, and similar
instruments.
Berger stopped here and there giving advice, encouraging others, and
calling with his deep, sonorous voice "To arms! to the barricades!" But
whenever Oswald offered to lay hand on the work himself he kept him
from it.
"Not here," he said; "these are only our outposts, which must be given
up quickly. No barricade can be defended successfully in this straight,
wide street. The gross of the revolution is further back."
Thus they came to Broad street, near Mrs. Black's private hotel.
The hotel was a corner house, and a narrow by-street led past its side
into Brother street. In the narrow alley was the Dismal Hole. Here the
excitement was intense. From the great square, near the palace, platoon
firing was heard, and quite a cannonade; but no trace of barricades was
yet to be seen.
"Are these men mad?" cried Berger. "If they do not mean to throw up
fortifications here, where will they do it?"
On the steps of the hotel, surrounded by a crowd, stood a gentleman in
a white cravat who spoke eagerly to the people: "His majesty has been
pleased to receive the deputation." "Away with your majesty!" cried an
angry voice. "His majesty is pleased to shoot his faithful subjects and
to receive them with grapeshot!" cried another voice. "Gentlemen!"
shrieked the orator, "do not give way to feelings of hatred and
revenge. His majesty consents to withdraw the troops as soon as you lay
down your arms." "And as soon as we offer our throats to the knife!"
cried a tremendous voice, and a man suddenly stood by the side of the
orator in the white cravat.
It was Berger. His gray hair was hanging wildly around his uncovered
head; his eyes were burning as if the revolution itself had taken his
form and voice. "Will," he continued, "you hesitate, and fear, and
negotiate, while your brethren are murdered in the next street? Are you
ever going on trusting, you trusting, deceived, cheated people. You
will gain nothing but what you conquer, arms in hand; you will have no
liberty which you do not purchase with your blood. Do not chaffer and
bargain any longer, but give the high price--your life's blood!--for
the precious boon!--for liberty! To arms! To arms!"
"To arms! To arms!" It resounded with the voice of thunder on all
sides. "Victory or death! To arms!"
The unarmed hands rose, as if to swear.
Berger had hurried down the steps. They surrounded him; they pressed
his hands. Some asked him to "take the matter in hand;" a leader they
must have.
Berger looked around. Suddenly he rushed towards a tall, thin gentleman
who was pushing his way through the crowd.
"There is your man!" he cried, taking the tall stranger by the hand.
"He must be our leader. Step up there, Oldenburg, and speak to them
only a few words. You understand that better than anybody else!"
Oldenburg was on the porch.
"Gentlemen!" he said, raising his hat; "let us follow the fashion of
the day and build a barricade. I practiced the art a fortnight ago for
a little while in the streets of Paris. If you will make use of my
experience for want of a better man, I am heartily at your service. I
am ready to build with you, to fight with you, to conquer with you,
and, if it must be, to die with you!"
The iron ring in Oldenburg's voice, his manner of speaking easy and yet
so persuasive had a charm which the crowd could not resist. It flashed
like an electric shock through all hearts.
"You shall be our leader!" they cried on all sides. "Let the
black-beard be our captain!"
"Well, then," said Oldenburg, raising his voice; "every man to the
barricade!"
The magic word brought about incredible activity. The confused,
helpless mass suddenly came to order. In all minds but one thought
seemed to be uppermost--to build a barricade--and all hands were busy
at the one common work.
"We must be done in ten minutes!" said Oldenburg, "or we might just as
well not have commenced at all."
Oldenburg's marvellous coolness and quickness, his sharp eye and his
firm decision, did honor to his place as leader. He seemed to be
everywhere at once, and his clear, loud voice was heard at all points.
Here they tore up the pavement as he commanded; there they raised the
large slabs of the sidewalk to arm the sides of the upturned wagons,
which had to serve as bulwarks here, as well as in all places where
time is pressing. Doors taken from their hinges, planks bridging over
gutters, bags filled with sand, completed the strength of this
structure, which rose with a rapidity proportionate to the feverish
excitement that beat in all hearts. Every muscle, every sinew, was
strained to the utmost; boys were carrying loads which ordinarily a man
would have considered heavy; men who only knew how to use a pen
suddenly seemed to be endowed with muscles of steel. Above all,
however, a man in a worn-out velvet coat signalized himself by exploits
in comparison with which all the rest seemed to be but the work of
pigmies. Wherever anything was to be lifted or to be dragged which no
one could master, they called laughingly for "Hercules"--the popular
voice had given him the name after the first five minutes--and Hercules
ran up, stretched out his mighty arms, or leaned his broad shoulders
against it, and the immoveable mass seemed of a sudden to become a mere
trifle.
"Bravo, Mr. Schmenckel!" said Oldenburg, patting the giant on the back;
"but spare your strength; we shall need it all."
"Pshaw, your excellency, baron!" replied Mr. Schmenckel, wiping the
perspiration from his face with his sleeve; "that is not anything."
"Hercules, here!" some one called.
"Coming!" replied Mr. Schmenckel, and hurried to where he was wanted.
"Now we want the best!" murmured Oldenburg, looking at what had been
done and casting an inquiring glance at the roofs of the houses on both
sides of the barricade, where men were busy taking off the slates and
tiles as he had directed. "If Berger does not bring arms all our work
is for nothing."
Just then Berger came with five or six young men. Each of them had a
rifle. Others were dragging along a large bag filled with ammunition.
Berger, who had anticipated the revolution for several days and made
his preparations in his mind, knew all the gunsmiths and shops where
arms were kept in the whole neighborhood. He had taken possession of
the nearest. A shout of joy arose when the little troop reached the
barricade. Soon after an old fowling-piece and a rusty gun with an
old-fashioned flint-lock were brought up, and last of all four pistols
from the lodgings of a couple of officers which had been luckily
discovered. The arms were at once distributed, and every man had his
post assigned him. Every armed man had another man by him to load. In
the kitchen, in the basement of an adjoining house, bullets were cast
under the direction of an old one-eyed man who was an old soldier; and
boys, merry storm-petrels of every barricade-fight, were appointed to
carry the balls to the defenders.
The quarter of an hour which Oldenburg had allowed as the longest time
that could be given to the erection of the barricade was out, and the
very next moment showed how accurately he had calculated. The rifles
had but just been loaded and the men had taken their places when a
battalion of infantry came marching up the street. A major rode at the
head. He ordered "Halt!" at some distance from the barricade, and rode
up alone till within a few yards. He was an old, gray-haired soldier
with a good-natured face, who evidently did not like the duty he had to
fulfil. His voice sounded wavering, and trembled a little as he raised
it as high as he could, and said,
"You, there! I must get through here with my men; and if you do not
take that thing there out of my way willingly, I shall have to use
force. I should be sorry, for your sake, to have to do so."
Oldenburg appeared on the barricade.
"In the name of these men!" he said, raising his hat politely to the
major, "I declare that we are determined to stand by each other, and to
hold this barricade as long as we can!"
Oldenburg's appearance and his words evidently made an impression on
the old soldier.
"You are the leader of these men?"
"I have that honor."
"You seem to be an intelligent man. Then you must see that that thing
there is of no avail, and that your few charges cannot possibly do you
any good. Pull that thing down; it is all right."
"I am sorry I cannot comply with your request, and must adhere to my
resolution."
"Well, then," said the major, more annoyed than angry, "you will all go
to the devil."
With these words he turned his horse and galloped back to his men.
Oldenburg was glad when the conversation was at an end. His quick eye
had showed him that the kindly words of the major had not failed to
make an impression on the crowd, and that more than one looked
undecided and doubtful. In a mass of people enthusiasm effervesces
quickly. He turned round and said:
"If there is one among you who had rather live for country and liberty
than die for them, he had better say so now. It is time yet!"
The men stood motionless and silent. Many a heart no doubt beat
painfully, but every one felt that the die was cast, and that it would
be disgraceful treason to turn back now.
The drums beat on the opposite side, and the terrible summons drove
every hesitation out of their hearts.
Oldenburg cried, with a voice which drowned the rattling of the drums
like loud trumpet-sound: "Every man to his post! Not a shot before I
give the sign! Not a stone must move!"
Oldenburg remained standing on the top of the barricade and saw the
column approaching at quick-step; in the centre the drummers, and the
major, who commanded with his sepulchral voice,
"Battalion! Halt! Aim! Fire!"
The flash came; the balls hailed upon the barricade and the walls of
the houses.
"Shoulder arms! March!"
"Hurrah!" cried the men, rushing with charged bayonets upon the
barricade.
"Hurrah!" cried Oldenburg, still standing on the barricade and waving
his hat.
And the rifles of the little garrison gave fire, and the stones came
down rattling from the roofs upon the heads of the unlucky soldiers;
and when the smoke and the dust slowly blew away, the company which had
come up in military regularity was seen running away in wild flight,
and before them a riderless horse, and between them little groups of
three or four men who carried dead or wounded men on litters beyond the
reach of the barricade.
Of the men of the people only one had been wounded, and not by a
hostile ball; the old, rusty flint-lock had burst at the first
discharge, and a piece of it had struck the head of one of the
marksmen. This accident only increased the good humor of the company.
They cried hurrah! they congratulated each other, they laughed, they
joked, and everybody was in the best of humor.
There was perhaps but one man behind the barricade who did not share
the general joy, and this man was Oldenburg. He was as fully convinced
as any one that fight they must, but he doubted a happy issue. He had
been in Paris during the month of February; he had fought there; and he
could not but see the difference. There he had seen a people fully
conscious of the weakness of the government against which they rose,
and clearly understanding the whole situation; here he found nothing
but uncertainty, divided opinions, and doubts. But the genius of
mankind does not always require a clear, perfect understanding in its
defenders; a vague impulse, a dim perception even, leads often to
glorious deeds. These harmless men, knowing little of politics, and
quite willing to rest content with very small concessions, might be
fighting only against the brutal rule of a single caste, and not for
the free republic of the future; but great effects could not fail to be
obtained even here, and he who cuts off a diseased limb may by it save
the whole body.
Thus Oldenburg tried to console himself for the fears with which the
appearance of this revolution had inspired him. He had been on the
square near the palace when the fatal two shots fell which were
destined to be the signal for the explosion, and when the troops had
made their first attack _en masse_ against the unarmed multitude. He
and other good men had in vain tried to stop the shedding of blood;
they had pushed their way through the soldiers at the risk of their
lives in order to explain to the commanding officer the madness of such
a butchery. But all they had heard in reply was open scorn, and at best
rude orders to mind their own business. When Oldenburg saw that he
could not be of any use in this way, and that matters had come to a
crisis, he had tried to reach Melitta's lodgings in Broad street to
place her and the children in safety. But he had been compelled to make
a wide circuit, for the troops had already taken possession of all the
approaches from the side of the palace, and he barely escaped more than
once being arrested. Thus it happened that he reached the hotel only at
the moment when the people were deliberating whether they should offer
resistance or not Oldenburg took only time to inquire at the hotel
after Melitta, where he heard to his delight that she and the children
had already gone early in the morning to Doctor Braun's, who lived in a
remote suburb, to which the _émeute_ was not likely to extend. Then he
had thrown himself heart and soul into the torrent of the revolution.
And now he stood, after the first attack had been successfully
repulsed, with crossed arms on the barricade, in a sheltered position,
from which he could overlook at once the movements of the enemy and the
space behind the barricade, anxiously awaiting the return of Berger,
whom he had sent out with a patrol to procure if possible more
ammunition, and to establish a communication with the nearest
barricades. For so far the rising was without any organization; no
concerted plan to produce united efforts; every barricade was fighting
by itself. Besides, day-light began to fade away, and night, although
it might leave the troops in doubt as to the strength of the enemy,
also tended to increase the confusion on the side of the people, which
is always an element of weakness in popular risings. Berger returned
soon afterwards, bringing a few more guns but no comfort. The adjoining
streets, he reported, were also barricaded; but the barricades were
badly constructed, and held by too few men, especially the nearest one,
in Brother street.
"I do not think they can hold it long," he added, "and then we are
lost, because the troops can flank us here through this narrow
alley"--and he pointed to Gertrude street, which passed by the hotel
and led from Broad street into Brother street. "We must necessarily
stop up that street also and occupy it, which can easily be done. I
have directed Oswald and Schmenckel to do it at once."
"Whom?" inquired Oldenburg, who had no suspicion that Oswald could be
here, and thought he had misunderstood Berger.
But he had not time to wait for Berger's reply, for at that moment the
drums beat once more, and the second company came up to storm the
barricade. This time the major on his white horse was not there. The
old man, who had been dangerously wounded in the head by a ball, was on
his way to the hospital.
The second attack was more serious, although no more successful than
the first. The captain in command gave the order to fire three times in
rapid succession, and then rushed his men with great violence upon the
barricade. But as Oldenburg and his men had again reserved their fire
till the last moment, the loss was very great for the attacking party;
upon whom, moreover, such a storm of bullets, tiles, and stones rained
down from the adjoining houses that they once more retreated, carrying
their dead and wounded with them.
But this time the men of the people also had their losses. A young man
who had imprudently exposed himself was shot through the breast and
died instantly, while another had his arm shattered by a ricochet ball.
Thus the men of the barricade had had their blood baptism, and now only
they felt as if they were indissolubly bound to the cause of the
revolution. Men who had seen each other to-day for the first time shook
hands and pledged themselves not to leave each other till death should
part them forever. Women, who ordinarily went out of their way to avoid
meeting common people, now went about among the fighting men and
distributed bread and wine. Among these gentle Samaritans one was
especially remarkable by her stately appearance and her venerable gray
hairs. It was Mrs. Black, who found ample opportunity to-night to
gratify her passion for feeding the hungry and nursing the sick.
Oldenburg now suggested what he had learnt in Paris to be eminently
useful under such circumstances: that lights should be placed in all
the windows which looked upon the barricade, so as to improvise a
brilliant illumination, to which the full-moon, shining bright and
clear on the blue sky, contributed generously. It was a strange
contrast: the sacred peace high up in the heavenly regions, and down
here a city raging in the fever of revolution, where the howling of
alarm-bells and the thunder of cannon, the rattling of small arms and
the mad cries of the combatants, were horribly mingled with each other.
And to make the appalling scene still more so, low, hot clouds of smoke
came now floating slowly over the roofs of the houses. Fire had broken
out at several places at once; the city was threatened with a universal
conflagration! Who had time to-night to help and to save?
Oldenburg looked for Berger but could not see him anywhere. He wanted
to ask what he had meant when he spoke of Oswald, for he now
recollected having caught a glimpse of a man who had reminded him
somewhat of Oswald Stein. But just then loud cries were heard from
Gertrude street, and a few shots fell. Oldenburg, fearing the troops
might have taken the barricade in Brother street and were pushing on
through Gertrude street, rapidly collected a handful of men and with
them rushed down into that street. Here a surprise had been in
contemplation, and the danger had only been averted by Schmenckel's
giant strength and by the heroic bravery of Berger and Oswald.
Oswald had joined the barricade-builders in Gertrude street in order to
avoid Oldenburg, whom he had seen to his great surprise first on the
steps of the hotel in the midst of the excited crowd, and then as
captain on top of the barricade. He felt it impossible to meet just now
the man whom he had at one time revered as a superior being, and at
another time hated as his bitterest enemy. He did not wish to renew the
contest between such feelings in his own heart; he was so weary, weary
unto death! The excitement around him felt to him like a song rocking
him to sleep with his weary sick heart, and when he heard the first
bullets whistle around him during the attack upon the barricade where
he then was, his only thought was: Oh, that one of them were intended
for me!
He said so much to Berger, as they were sitting on the barricade in
Gertrude street to rest for a moment from their exhausting efforts.
"No," replied Berger; "that is not right. Death itself does not pay our
bills; it only tears them, without paying them, and throws the
fragments at the feet of the creditor. But death in the cause of
liberty!--it pays them all."
He seized Oswald's hand, looking around anxiously to see that no one
could hear them.
"I am afraid of life, Oswald! Death is a fearful asylum, in which one
may awake again! Suicide is such a death to me, Oswald. If that were
not so I should long since have died by my own hand. For it is easier
to die, in order to escape from ourselves, than to live for others. I
have found that out. I have drunk the bitter cup, and the dregs are
very bitter. Oswald! at first I had courage enough, and lived bravely;
but after six months of such life my courage is gone and my strength
exhausted. My nerves cannot bear it any longer. That is why I feel so
joyfully this day, on which the people have at last shaken off their
disgraceful apathy to rise in their might. If I could die to-day for
this people, whom now for the first time in my life I find not to be
contemptible any more--Oswald! it would be such good fortune as I had
never expected. And then," he continued, after a pause, "another piece
of good fortune has befallen me to-day. I have met again my oldest
enemy, whom I hated most bitterly, and my youngest and most beloved
friend."
He pressed Oswald's hand, who said, smiling:
"Found your oldest enemy? was that fortunate?"
Berger told Oswald in a few words of his meeting with Count Malikowsky
that morning, and that Schmenckel, who had helped them gloriously in
building up the barricade, was Prince Waldenberg's father. "The
low-born man the father of a prince, the prince the son of a low-born
man--that would make a nice novel," he said with a grim smile.
"Perhaps I can give you a companion-story to yours," answered Oswald;
and he informed Berger of the discoveries he had made that day with
regard to his own birth. "That is strange!" said Berger; "very strange!
And did you not tell me you loved Helen?"
"More than my life!"
"And you refused all that splendor to remain faithful to your old
flag?"
Oswald shook his head.
"No, Berger!" he said; "I am not good and great enough for that, as you
think in your goodness and greatness. She could never be mine. Too many
things had happened that could never be forgiven and forgotten. I had
preferred others to her, and she had preferred another man to me. That
Prince Waldenberg was her betrothed."
"Why do you say _was_?"
"Because I found them leaving town. She had recollected at the last
moment that she had a heart in her bosom whose longing not all the
riches of the world could satisfy."
"Strange! strange!" murmured Berger. "You, both of you: the baron's son
who makes common cause with the people, and the low-born man's son who
sits among princes, are rivals for the favor of the same lady! And she
rejects you because she has no suspicion of your noble birth, and she
accepts the prince because she thinks that the same blood flows in his
veins, of which he is so proud! What a pity the world does not know
this and must not know it! They might possibly find out then what the
difference is between noble blood and common blood!"
"You, at all events, do not seem to value the difference quite as much
as formerly. I can remember the time when you thought it morally
impossible to be the friend of a nobleman."
"You allude to my friendship with Oldenburg," said Berger, calmly. "I
tell you, Oswald, if there ever was a man who deserved to be loved and
honored, Oldenburg is that man. If any man could ever have reconciled
me with the world, Oldenburg would have been that man. If I ever could
humble myself before any man and acknowledge him to be my lord and
master, that man is Oldenburg. I know you hate him because the woman
whom you have forsaken thinks more of him than of the whole world. That
is not fair, Oswald. Oldenburg has also spoken of you like a friend. I
should be very happy, Oswald, if you could be reconciled with each
other before I leave you forever."
"My turn comes first!" said Oswald. "Do you know what you once told me
in Grunwald? 'You will die before me,' you said, 'for the Big Serpent
is tough of life, and you are too soft, far too gentle for this hard
world.'"
"That was long ago. This last year has made the Big Serpent dull and
feeble. But what is that?"
A noise, coming from a low restaurant with steps leading up from the
basement, made both men jump up from their seats. They seized their
arms and hurried, followed by other men of the same barricade, to the
place, where now several shots were fired. These were the same shots
which Oldenburg had heard when he was roused from his effort to seek
rest on his barricade in Broad street.
CHAPTER XVII.
Albert Timm had stopped, after his violent altercation with Oswald,
looking after his faithless friend and laughing so loud and so bitterly
that the passers-by had looked at him in surprise. Then he had hurried
away in another direction, murmuring violent words, gnashing his teeth,
and shaking his hands at imaginary enemies. Albert Timm was savage, and
from his point of view he had reason to be furious. He was in a
desperate position. The debts he had left behind him in Grunwald and
elsewhere were not particularly pressing--he was great in bearing such
burdens!--but the small sum he had brought with him to town was at an
end; and even if that could be borne, all his bright prospects for a
brilliant future had been suddenly blown to the winds and burst like a
many-colored soap bubble.
Cursing the world and himself, he had thus walked through several
streets before he reached that part of town where the rising was
general. He delighted in it not because he had any sympathy with the
cause of the people or liberty, but because he felt instinctively that
in such times, where all is turned upside down, he--the man without a
home, the adventurer--could lose nothing, and possibly gain much. This
thought restored to him his full elasticity. He hurrahed merrily with
the crowd, he chimed in with the cry: To arms! to arms! and had real
pleasure in finding the excitement growing apace as he came nearer the
place of his destination, the Dismal Hole. Thus he reached Broad street
just at the moment when Oswald and Berger approached it from the other
side. He noticed both, also Mr. Schmenckel, who had come by appointment
to have an interview with Berger. By no means desirous to be seen by
his enemies he slipped aside, and was about to creep into Gertrude
street when some one seized hold of his coat. When he looked around he
found himself face to face with his friend and patron, Jeremy
Goodheart.
"Well, how did matters go?" asked the detective, who had in the
meantime become Timm's friend, and was fully initiated in his
intrigues.
"All up!" sighed Timm, angrily. "Lost my labor and my trouble! All up!
I could roast the two rascals!" He pointed at Oswald and Schmenckel.
"Hem, hem!" said the policeman. "You must tell me that at leisure. Come
to Rose; but let us first hear what the mad professor has to say."
"Do you know him?" asked Timm.
"Hush! We know him. Deceived people!--all right! To arms!--excellent!
Just wait!--we'll catch you! And there comes the tall baron, who makes
such revolutionary speeches at the election meetings! Why, there is the
whole nest of them!--build barricades!--hurrah! Bravo!--hurrah! All men
to the barricades! Hurrah!" cried the detective, and waved his hat with
admirably feigned enthusiasm. Then he seized Timm by the arm and said:
"Now we must get away quickly or the fellows will shut us up here with
their barricade."
The two companions crept down Gertrude street and disappeared in the
Dismal Hole.
Mrs. Rose Pape received them with unusual cordiality.
"Well, darlings, do you come with full purses? Have you got it, eh?
"Hush!" said the detective, "and bring us beer; we can't stop."
"Without telling me how the----?" said the worthy matron indignantly,
and made with her thumb and her forefinger the motion of counting
money.
Mr. Timm shrugged his shoulders in reply, and pulled out the empty
pockets of his trousers.
Mrs. Pape was of choleric nature, and the failure of such magnificent
expectations filled her with just indignation, to which she gave vent
in a flood of oaths and vile invectives, some of which were aimed at
the detective. "But I will pay Schmenckel, with his big paunch," she
said. "Let him come here again and have no money to pay for his beer;
I'll show him home, the old rascal!"
At that moment the firing was heard as the troops charged the barricade
in Broad street; and almost immediately afterwards a great noise was
heard at the windows. They began building the barricade which was to
close up Gertrude street. The detective and Timm, who looked stealthily
out at the window, saw Oswald, Berger, Schmenckel, and other men, hard
at work. They withdrew, following their landlady to the remoter depths
of the basement.
"That is a charming trap," said the detective. "We are hemmed in on all
sides, and if they find us here the rascals will kill us."
"It is not quite so bad as that," said the woman. "I can get you out
safely. Come along."
She led the two men through the last room and a hidden door down a few
steps into a deep cellar, which was used as a store-room. On the wall a
thin little gas-flame was burning. The woman screwed it up.
"Now," she said, "you go through that door!"--she pointed out an iron
door on the opposite side; "then you get into a narrow court-yard; keep
to the left, and thus you can get through my brewer's house into
Brother street. Good-by!"
"Is it always open? asked Timm, when he found the iron door was not
locked.
"Only to-day," replied Rose; "we expect more beer that way. The fellows
are like sponges to-day."
When the two gentlemen had safely passed through the door, the little
court-yard, and the brewery, into the space above the barricade in
Brother street, they stopped and looked at each other. The same thought
was uppermost in the mind of both.
"What a mousetrap this would be!" said Timm.
"If you will lend a hand," said the detective, "you can make sure of
the president. We want people like you. I have already spoken about you
to the old man."
"And that would avenge us, too, on the rascals."
"The thing is not free from danger, though," said the policeman.
"Faint heart never won fair lady," said Timm. "I confess I like the
idea of catching my good friends in this funny way. If you do not
choose to undertake it I'll do it alone."
"Well, then, come!" said the detective. "We'll see if the military are
disposed to look at it as we do."
And the two men advanced boldly upon the colonel, who was waiting on
horseback at some little distance surrounded by his officers, and
furious at the obstinate resistance of the two barricades in Broad
street and Gertrude street, which he had been ordered to take by storm.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Rose had helped her friends out and returned to the public
rooms she found there Mr. Schmenckel, with ten or twelve other men from
the barricades, who wished to refresh themselves after their fatigue.
They were mostly old customers of the locality, the same men with long
beards and dishevelled locks who had been in the habit of meeting here
to condemn the "rotten condition of the state," the "hateful police,"
and the "brutalized soldiery." Mr. Schmenckel had always been highly
respected by these people, and now, when they had seen that he could
not only speak boldly but also act courageously, he became the hero of
the day.
Under these circumstances Mrs. Rose deemed it more prudent not to carry
out her resolution, and to leave the waiting upon the barricade men to
pretty Lisbeth while she herself took her accustomed seat at the bar.
Pretty Lisbeth was very fond of Mr. Schmenckel, whose gallantry was
universal. She had overheard part of the conversation between her
mistress, Timm, and Goodheart, and their leaving through the back-door
had roused her suspicions. She thought she ought to tell her admirer
what she had seen, especially as she liked to show him what a false
pussy-cat Mrs. Rose was--a fact of which she had often tried to
convince him in vain. Schmenckel at once appreciated the importance of
her communications. If there was a door in the basement which led into
Brother street, and if Timm and Goodheart, whom Schmenckel by no means
trusted, knew this door, then it was most assuredly very expedient to
see if that door was carefully locked.
Schmenckel let Lisbeth go, and told the men at his table what he had
heard. They all were of opinion that a reconnoissance ought to be made
at once. But at the very moment when the men took up their arms and
turned to the door which led into the store-room in question, the door
was opened from the other side and a troop of soldiers rushed in,
Albert Timm and the detective in their midst.
The sudden appearance of the shining helmets and guns, and the firing
which began instantly, though fortunately quite at random, filled some
of the barricade men with such terror that they rushed helter skelter
up the steps and fled into the street. Here they were met by Oswald and
Berger, who had been attracted by the firing, and now came to
Schmenckel's assistance, who had until now alone contended with the
soldiers.
Schmenckel had seized one of the guns which had just been fruitlessly
discharged, and attacked the invaders, first with the butt end, and
when this was broken with the iron barrel, so powerfully that two or
three were lying disabled on the floor, and the others were retiring
panic-struck through the back door. There, however, they met their
advancing comrades, and this caused a fearful confusion, especially as
Oswald, Berger, Schmenckel, and the other men, who had recovered from
their surprise, now also pressed down into the half-lighted rooms and
engaged in a terrible conflict.
The attacking party was perhaps half as strong again as their enemies,
and better armed; but these advantages were offset by Berger's and
Oswald's impetuous valor, and the gigantic strength of Schmenckel. The
powerful man wielded his terrible weapon indefatigably, and not a blow
fell in vain upon the heads of the unfortunate soldiers. Thus he cut
his way to the door which led into the court-yard, at which he met
several escaping soldiers, while others were eagerly crowding after
them. And now he had attained his end. Seizing with his irresistible
arms a few of the men hemmed in between the door and the door-frame,
and pulling them down into the store-room, he closed the heavy iron
door, pushed the strong iron bar across, leaned his broad back against
it, and cried, whirling his gun-barrel in a circle around him.
"Now we have gotten our sheep together, professor! No one can get out
or in any more. Caspar Schmenckel will see to that."
The horror had reached its crisis. In the narrow badly-lighted room,
under-ground and reeking with mould and blood, men fought like wild
beasts. The soldiers defended themselves desperately; but as their
friends could only thunder at the inner door without coming to their
assistance, the result was not long doubtful. The butchery, however,
might have continued for some time if Oldenburg had not come down with
part of his men from the barricade. He threatened to shoot down
instantly every man who should not at once lay down his arms. The
soldiers, deprived of all hope of succor, surrendered, and entered one
by one from the lower room into the drinking saloon, where they were
disarmed. The poor fellows presented a piteous sight There was not one
of them who was not seriously wounded. Their bright uniforms in rags,
out of breath, pale with fright and exhaustion, stained with blood and
dust and dirt--thus they stood there surrounded by the barricade men,
who likewise bore the marks of a severe conflict. But the low cellar
contained greater horrors than these. When lights were brought two
bodies were seen lying lifeless in their blood, a soldier and a
civilian. The soldier had in his wild flight thrown himself upon his
own bayonet, which pierced him through and through, and no doubt had
killed him instantly. The civilian had received a terrible cut across
the head. He was still groaning as they carried him up stairs, but he
also died in a few minutes. At first they thought it was one of the
barricade men, but no one knew him. Oswald also approached the table on
which he had been laid, and after having examined the distorted
countenance for a moment, he saw to his indescribable horror that the
stiff bleeding corpse was all that remained of the Merry Andrew, the
inexhaustible clown and punster, his boon companion of so many a wild
night, the same man from whom he had parted in anger and hatred a few
hours ago--Albert Timm.
CHAPTER XVIII.
During the next hour a pause occurred in the fight near the barricade
in Broad street. The regiment of the line, which had charged it five
times in vain, had been reinforced by several battalions of the Guards
who had been fighting in King street, and successfully taken several
barricades. These troops followed different tactics; they did not
advance in close columns, but in small detachments on both sides of the
street, as much as possible under cover, and keeping apart till they
could form once more close before the barricade. But if their losses
were smaller, their success was by no means greater. The besieged
systematically saved their fire till the last moment, and then fired so
coolly at the right moment, that the position seemed to be simply
impregnable. In fact the firing on the part of the troops had ceased
for some time, and the men behind the barricade could rest awhile.
They needed it sadly. Mostly entirely exhausted, blackened with powder,
all more or less dangerously wounded, they sat and lay about in small
groups, strangely lighted up by the red light of the watch-fires that
had been kindled in the middle of the street, by the white glare of the
candles in the windows, and the pale rays of the full moon, which was
still gliding gently and silently through the blue ether above. Amid
the groups of fighting men, women and girls were seen bringing
provisions from the neighboring houses. There was no lack of beer, and
wine even, and it looked as if here and there too much had been
distributed. At least every now and then sudden shouts and yells were
heard from one or the other group, after which the deep silence became
all the more oppressive. Upon a cask which formed part of the barricade
sat Oldenburg; his long legs were hanging down, and he blew thick
clouds of smoke from his cigar. His air was that of a man who has
assumed a serious responsibility and is determined to carry out what he
has undertaken. He did not doubt for a moment that the barricade would
be taken, and that he would fall at the head of his men; but this was
the last thing he thought of. To die in a good cause had no terrors for
him. Oldenburg actually fancied he felt a faint desire for death in his
heart. Had he not seen how the sweet hope of at last calling Melitta
his own had been recently put off once more, and further than ever? He
could not blame her that the memory of her fondness for Oswald was
weighing her down like an Alp, and made it impossible to her to raise
her eyes boldly to a better and more faithful man; but the very fact
that he could not but honor her for the feeling which parted them made
him so very hopeless and helpless. He had often and often repeated to
himself the word that Melitta spoke so touchingly whenever she saw him
sorrowful: Patience! But in vain! He was consumed by impatience, by his
inability to do anything else for his happiness than to fold his hands
in his lap and to wait with trusting heart for something vague and
uncertain.
Just then the revolution had broken out and Oldenburg breathed more
freely, as thousands with him. Every one had borne some intolerable
burden, which he now hoped to shake off. Oldenburg was glad that
Melitta was not present. He had at the very beginning sent her word
through old Baumann to stay at her safe place of refuge. When he sent
the old man to her he thought in his heart: We meet again happier or
never more! He now only wished for Oswald to fight by his side for
liberty and for Melitta. The issue might then be an ordeal, and Melitta
crown the victorious survivor.
And his wish was fulfilled. For an hour Oswald had been fighting by his
side like a man who prefers death to life. Wherever a defective part of
the barricade had to be repaired under the fire of the enemy, wherever
danger was most threatening, there Oswald was sure to be; and as
Oldenburg also chose the most exposed positions, the two men were
constantly side by side. But as soon as the danger was over Oswald
withdrew, and Oldenburg did not follow him as his withdrawing was
evidently intentional. And yet the noble man was anxious, now that
every hour might be their last, to tell his former friend that they
ought to forget the past and join the hands that were on both sides
engaged in a great and holy cause.
Oldenburg's eyes followed Oswald, as he went to his post, at some
little distance from him, and stood there, rifle in hand, near Berger,
by the watch-fire. In the changeful light their forms now stood forth
brightly, and now were lost in the dark shade. This lent them something
strange, almost supernatural. Oldenburg could not help thinking of the
spirits who beckon to the ferryman on the banks of the Acheron.
He rose and went up to them.
"What do you think, gentlemen," he said; "are we going to be left alone
long?"
"I believe," said Oswald, "they are either short of ammunition or they
have sent for reinforcements."
"I think that is more likely. What do you think, Berger?"
Berger had been standing there, his arms crossed, and his large eyes
fixed immoveably upon the flames. Suddenly he stretched out his hands
and said, in a hollow, spectre-like tone of voice,
"Listen! They are coming! The earth trembles beneath them! How they
whip their horses, who are tired dragging more and more weapons against
the people! Now they alight! And now they cram the iron mouths full to
bursting. We will----"
"Berger!" said Oldenburg, placing his hand on his arm.
Berger started like one who is suddenly roused from a heavy dream. He
looked around in confusion.
"What is it?" he asked, staring at Oldenburg.
"You are exhausted by excessive efforts, Berger. Lie down for an hour.
I will have you called when you are needed."
"Exhausted?" said Berger, relapsing into his dreamy state. "Yes;
exhausted unto death. But that is why an hour is not enough; when I go
to sleep, it must be an eternal sleep."
At that moment Schmenckel stepped up, who had been on guard upon the
barricade, and said,
"There is something very peculiar going on. I believe they are going to
give us artillery now."
Berger started up.
"Did I not tell you?" he cried. "The decisive hour has come. Up! up!
you brave men; all of you! One more merry dance with the weird fairies
of life, and then to unbroken rest in the cool night of death. Up! up!"
At this call some of the men rose from their resting-places near the
fire, seized their arms, and hastened with Berger to their posts.
Others remained where they were and laughed at the false alarm. But
they also were quickly enough upon their feet when an explosion came
which shook the houses to their foundations, and grape and canister
came rattling against the barricade and the faces of the houses.
"Now they are in earnest," said Oldenburg, turning to Oswald. But the
place where Oswald had been standing was empty.
"He avoids me," said Oldenburg, sadly, "and yet my conscience is quiet.
I have no reproach to make to myself as far as he is concerned."
He hastened to the barricade, where the captain's presence was more
needed than ever.
The first gun, which had opened the dance, was now joined by three
more, and the thunder came almost uninterruptedly, and with it the iron
hail. There was no doubt they wanted to make a break in the barricade,
and then charge once more with better result. Oldenburg, not wishing to
expose the lives of his men unnecessarily, had given orders that they
should keep as much as possible under cover, and not return the fire of
the enemy, but save every shot for the moment of the charge itself. He
had also doubled the number of men with stones on the house-tops.
Finally he chose from among the men who had shown most bravery a select
corps, which was to fall upon the attacking party and engage them till
the others should have had time to seek shelter behind the barricades
in the adjoining streets.
Oldenburg had just given his directions when battery opened a most
terrific fire and then suddenly became silent.
One moment all was perfectly still.
Perfectly still, and then the iron clang of twenty drums beating the
charge. And with every beat the column drew nearer, a living wall,
apparently irresistible in its approach.
Not a sound on the barricade. Up on the roofs stand men and boys, with
heavy stones in their hands; in the windows of the houses, and near the
openings in the barricade, the marksmen are watching, with their rifles
close to the eye.
And the drums beat and the living wall comes nearer. Already one can
distinguish the handsome uniform of the Guards; one can see the
beardless faces of the men, and the black-bearded countenance of the
gigantic officer who leads the attack. And now the officer gives a
command, drowned in the beating of the drums; and as he waves his
bright sword the men cheer, and with three hurrahs they rush forward.
But before they reach the barricade twenty rifles are discharged, and
hundreds of stones are hurled down from above upon the living wall, and
it wavers and trembles like a huge wave in the ocean which dashes its
foam-crested waters against a rocky coast.
Nevertheless it rolls on, and now it breaks against the barricade. The
officer pulls out huge pieces. Nothing, it seems, can resist his
gigantic strength. But suddenly a man in a worn-out velvet coat, who
wields as his only weapon a rifle-barrel without the stock, leaps down
and faces the officer. When the officer sees the man he starts back as
if struck by lightning, and roars to his men: "Halt! Halt!"
They halt.
The men of the barricade avail themselves of this pause and fire once
more. The officer falls dead, face foremost; with him half a dozen men
fall, more or less dangerously wounded. A panic seizes the troops. The
officers try in vain to lead them to the attack.
The barricade is safe once more; they cheer again and again; they
embrace each other with tears of joy in their eyes. But they have paid
dearly for their victory. While part of the men repair the barricade,
which is half destroyed, another part is busy with the dead and
wounded. The man in the velvet coat brings up the corpse of a man, who
has fought like a hero in the front rank, and who has fallen by his
side, pierced with the enemy's bayonets.
Oldenburg comes up to help them.
"Is he dead?"
"Yes."
They place him on the ground near one of the fires. The pale face is so
quiet, so peaceful, and a gentle, happy smile plays about the pale
lips.
Oldenburg looks over to Oswald, who is kneeling on the other side, of
the body. He is startled. The young man's countenance is as pale as
that of the dead man, and his eyes glare like those of a madman.
"Great God, Oswald! are you wounded?"
"I am afraid I am," replies Oswald, and sinks down by the side of
Berger's body.
CHAPTER XIX.
The sun has risen twice since the night of the barricades. A wondrously
beautiful spring day is shining upon the immense city. The splendid
palaces show their noble outlines clearly against the bright sky, while
their mighty columns and richly-adorned friezes are bathed in the
golden morning sun. And so there are bathing in the same golden morning
sun thousands and thousands of happy men who wander in endless crowds
through the city. All the pilgrims feel like pious pilgrims who have
long painfully wandered through desert wastes and over rough mountains
to the sacred image of Our Lady, and at last they behold the Holy One,
and she smiles upon them forgiveness of their sins, and peace and joy
and hearty confidence. Now they go back to their homes, silent and full
of emotion, or loud in pious songs, praising the Holy One who has done
wondrously for them....
"Poor, gullible people! As if all the saints of the almanac could help
you if you do not help yourself--as if the sins of a generation could
be atoned for in a single night--as if a diseased state could be cured
in a day! You are willing to forget and to forgive those who have
never, never forgiven you anything, and who will never forget that you
have sinned against them as they look upon it. Your houses still show
the traces of the fratricidal struggle. Your roofs, from which in your
despair you hurled stones upon the heads of your enemies, are still
uncovered. The pavements which you tore up to form a wall against
reckless tyranny, have not yet been replaced. The dead even, who shed
their blood for you, have not yet been buried. The wounded--the
mortally wounded, are still waiting on their sorrowful couch for the
hour of release----"
It was Oldenburg who spoke these words to himself as he stood in one of
the windows of the hotel, and looked down upon the people who now
merrily swarmed over the place where two days ago a huge barricade had
been erected; where men had fought with bitter hatred and gallant
bravery; where many a noble patriot had breathed his last.
Two of these victims were in the hotel.
Below, a few feet only above the pavement on which joyous crowds were
thronging, a pale man was lying in his coffin, from whose face a gray
beard was flowing in ample locks over a deep wound, from which night
before last his heart's blood has escaped.
And in the same room, on his bed of sorrow, lay a young man who had
been mortally wounded by the side of the gray-haired enthusiast, and
whose powerful, youthful strength had so far struggled fearfully with
pitiless death, causing him unspeakable suffering.
After the charge in which Berger fell and Oswald received his fatal
wound, the troops had not renewed the attack; partly because the
position was really held to be impregnable, partly because hesitation
prevailed among the ruling spirits, and partly because the death of
Prince Waldenberg, who had led the last charge with almost rapturous
bravery and had fallen in the attack, had disheartened the men, so that
the leaders dreaded a second failure. They had contented themselves
with an occasional fire at the barricade; and at last, towards five
o'clock, the last shot had been fired.
Oldenburg had stood by his post till he was certain that no new attack
was to be expected, and that the troops had received orders to retreat.
Only then he had called Schmenckel, who had stood by him like a true
squire through the whole fight, and they had left the partially
abandoned barricade the last of them all.
Schmenckel had told Oldenburg that same night, with big tears rolling
down his cheeks, that the officer who had fallen before their eyes, had
been his son. Oldenburg had been greatly surprised when he heard the
somewhat confused account which honest Caspar Schmenckel gave of his
life, and especially the events of the last days--the plot of poor
Albert Timm, whose body had been carried to the hospital--of brave
Jeremy Goodheart, who had led the surprise in the Dismal Hole, and who
had been the first to escape--the interviews between Count Malikowsky
and the Princess Letbus, and the manner in which Albert Timm had
boasted he could transform Oswald Stein at any moment into a Baron
Grenwitz.
Oldenburg knew the world, and especially the higher regions mentioned
in Schmenckel's story, too well to doubt for a moment that the events
he narrated were possible or even plausible.
Did Oswald know his own history? But after all that was now perfectly
immaterial. Death was not likely to make any difference between the son
of Baron Harald and the son of Mr. Stein, teacher of languages; and
Oswald was no longer his own, he belonged to death.
That had been ascertained an hour after he had been wounded. About that
time medical aid had been procured; Doctor Braun arrived in company
with Melitta. The latter had still been with Sophie when old Baumann
brought the news of the conflict and that Oldenburg was in command at
the barricade in Broad street. Melitta had at once decided to join
Oldenburg, and Sophie saw very well that Franz could not stay at home,
when so many thousands were risking their lives, and therefore said
nothing when he declared his intention to accompany Melitta. Old
Baumann and Bemperlein, who were also present, were to stay with Sophie
to guard her and the children.
Melitta and Franz found much difficulty in making their way, and it was
only after several hours wandering, and often at the peril of their
lives, that they reached Broad street.
To see his beloved there, was, however, ample compensation to Oldenburg
for all he had endured. Melitta embraced and kissed him amid tears, in
Braun's presence; she clung to his arm and could not let him go again.
She had trembled for his life, and was all joy now to find him again,
blackened with powder but in the full glory of his manhood, till he
whispered in her ear that Oswald was lying, mortally wounded, in one of
the rooms of the hotel. Then Melitta had withdrawn her arm from his,
and had said--pale and distressed, but not overcome--that she would
attend to the poor man, as it was her duty.
Since then a day and a night had passed--an eternity for those who
watched by the bedside of the patient. The wounded man suffered
indescribable agony. He would now rise madly, so that it required all
of Schmenckel's gigantic strength to put him back in his bed, and now
describe volubly all the fearful images which crowded his overwrought
brain. He who in life was so reserved, had thus revealed the secret of
his birth, a revelation which perfectly overwhelmed Mrs. Black, and
made her bitterly regret her long-continued longing for Marie, which
was so sadly gratified by the sight of Marie's son--on his death-bed.
The old lady, however, remitted none of her tender cares; she was ever
busy; and if for moments nothing could be done, she folded her hands
and prayed Heaven to save the son of her darling daughter.
But that had been from the beginning a hopeless wish. Franz had
immediately pronounced Oswald's wound fatal, and given him one or at
best two days' life. It is possible, however, he added, that he may
recover his consciousness once more before he dies.
Melitta looked forward to that moment with great sadness. She now knew
that she loved Oswald only as an unfortunate brother. Oswald had not
once mentioned her name in all his wanderings; he had only spoken of a
dear, sweet woman, against whom he had sinned grievously, and who could
never forgive him for what he had done. This recollection had each time
brought bitter tears to his eyes, and Melitta had wiped them from his
face and wished she could tell him that she had long since forgiven him
all.
Then the wounded man had groaned so loud that Oldenburg turned quickly
from the window and stepped up to the bed where Melitta was sitting.
But the groan had not been one of pain; it was the deep breathing of a
breath which had been relieved of an unbearable burden. What Franz had
foretold had happened now--the pain had left him, and with it the last
hope of life.
As long as the pain of the torn vitals had raged within him the mind of
the poor sufferer had been sunk in an abyss of horror, amid hideous
masks that stared at him through hollow eyes, amid monsters that tore
him with their sharp teeth, and dead men who glided by wrapped in their
winding sheets, and displaying as they turned some sweet faces that had
been dear to him. And the abyss had grown still darker--he had been
driven through narrow crevices, pursued by demoniac howls which
re-echoed fearfully from the bare rocky walls, and the hot breath of
hell all around him. Then he heard a voice calling, Oswald! Oswald! And
at the silvery sound of this dear soft voice all the masks and monsters
had vanished and the howling of demons had ceased. The hot, narrow
passages widened into lofty, airy halls which began to sway gently to
and fro, so that there were no longer arches of stone but the majestic
tops of venerable, giant trees, with merrily singing birds skipping
through the green foliage, and here and there golden rays of the sun.
And again the voice called Oswald! Oswald! and he flew towards the
sound, through the dark shady woods, over mossy ground, through which
silvery veins of water were playing. And it grew lighter and lighter
around him; his eye saw beyond the cool twilight, which felt so sweet
and pleasant to him, a land full of blooming life, of golden harvests,
and smiling sunshine. And as his eye eagerly drew in the unaccustomed
sight there came floating over the flowery fields and the ripening
wheat-fields two lofty, beautiful forms. At first he did not know them,
but as they came nearer he recognized both. They were Oldenburg and
Melitta; and he stretched out his arms towards them and said: "You dear
and good ones! can you forgive me?"
Then they bent over him, and he felt their kisses on his lips. He would
have wept aloud with blissful delight, but he could not. Sweet
weariness flowed through his limbs. He wanted to open his eyes, but a
dear warm hand softly closed them; the land of harvests and sunshine
faded away, the lofty forms floated back into soft mists, the woods
sounded louder, he was drawn back again into the cool twilight, and
then it was night aboriginal, eternal night.
* * * * *
And once more the spring sun has risen twice, and once more the immense
city wears a festive air; but the color of this solemnity is that of
mourning, for the feast they celebrate is the feast of the dead.
Black banners are waving from the towers and parapets of the royal
palace; mourning crape is floating from all the windows; crape is seen
on the bonnets of ladies and on the hats of men, on the arms of
countless numbers, who are all making their way towards the beautiful
open square in the heart of the city, where, amid temples bathed in the
rays of the noon-day sun, the coffins of all the victims of that night
of terror are standing on a huge platform. One hundred and eighty-seven
coffins, some containing women and children, innocent flowers, that
fell under the pitiless scythe when the grim mowers of the bloody
harvest were reaping the field on which the seed of liberty was to have
ripened.
And even this did not complete the bloody harvest. The hospitals, as
well as numberless private houses, had besides their wounded men, many
of whom were never to see the golden day of freedom.
And now the bells begin to toll solemnly on all the steeples--the same
bells which in the night of the barricade had rang the alarm.
The church ceremonies are ended. The procession is in motion. A
procession such as that city had never seen; such as the world's
history perhaps never recorded.
In endless length the coffins with their rich loads of flowers are
borne on the shoulders of citizens, and twenty thousand men of every
age and every rank form the escort. On every coffin is a paper with the
name of the deceased. Unmeaning names! Who was Oswald Stein? Who was
Eberhard Wolfgang Berger?
What is there in a name? What matters it who they were in life? what
they did and suffered, blundered and sinned, desired and failed to
achieve? All desires are crowned, all sins are expiated, by their dying
for freedom. This was felt by the hundred thousands who stood on both
sides of the streets through which the procession moved, reverently
baring their heads before every coffin.
And thus the endless procession moves slowly in silent, solemn
stillness to its destination, a high hill at one of the gates of the
city, where the men of the barricades have on the day before dug out an
immense square hole. The procession enters the cutting. The bearers
quietly set down the coffins and move on, and so the others, till the
whole procession has passed out again.
And the thousands are standing around in solemn silence. Guns are fired
and a whole nation prays at the graves of its martyrs.
For whom?
For the dead?
They need their pious wishes no longer in their cool resting places, in
their eternal sleep.
But the living?
Their lot is not worse, but harder. They must work and be useful in the
hot dust of every day's life, without rest or repose, for tyranny never
sleeps. They must work and watch, lest the night come once more in
which the brave feel sad and the wicked delight; that night full of
romantic masks and fantastic spectres; that night so poor in sound
strong men, and so rich in problematic characters; that long, wretched
night, out of which only the thunderstorm of revolution can lead
through bloody dawn to freedom and to light.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Through Night to Light, by Friedrich Spielhagen
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