His constant day-dreaming and the feeding of his imagination on poetry
and romance cost Albert much misery at the end of every semester. He
invariably failed in all studies except literature and philosophy.
On his arrival home one afternoon he found Father Schumacher engaged in
a serious conversation with his mother. Father Schumacher was a
picturesque figure, prematurely gray with a fine head set upon broad
shoulders and a pair of brown eyes that twinkled mirthfully. There was
something in his shrewd eyes that seemed to say, “I know all the
meanness and frailties of human nature, I know this earthly planet is no
paradise, but we are here and must make the best of it.” He was loved by
all regardless of creed. After the French had conquered the city and
reopened the Lyceum, he was named rector. The new ruler knew that Father
Schumacher could be trusted in spite of his German allegiance. He was
very learned and familiar with all the philosophies—from Socrates to
Kant—which he taught at the Lyceum without, however, interfering with
his loyalty to Rome.
The friendship between the former priest and Bessie Zorn ran back to the
time she was a little girl, when he was a classmate of her brother,
Joseph, and was almost a daily visitor at her father’s home. Since her
father’s death and her marriage to David, Father Schumacher was a
frequent visitor at the Zorn home, and of late Albert had been an added
attraction. The rector was very fond of the boy and often gave the
mother encouragement when her enthusiasm waned.
Albert was about to enter the living-room, where his mother and the
visitor were seated, when he overheard his mother saying, “Indeed, he is
quite a problem. If I could only keep him away from poetry and French
novels I could knock his poetic nonsense out of his head.”
“I’ve let him attend my class in philosophy,” the rector struck in.
“Perhaps that will put some reason into his head.”
“Yes, that might turn him into a Kantian,” laughed the mother, “and I
don’t know which is worse, a befogged Kantian or a beggarly rhymester.”
After the briefest pause she added, “I am going to get him a special
tutor for mathematics. He doesn’t seem to grasp any scientific
subject—I’d like him to study banking.”
“You’ll never make a banker of that boy,” he replied. “He isn’t cut out
for a mercantile career and you’ll but waste your efforts. Why don’t you
give him to the Church? I might be able to be of good service to you in
that direction. I know quite a few dignitaries in Rome.”
“I don’t think a priest’s robe would be becoming to Albert’s style of
beauty,” she said laughingly.
“Ah, you haven’t seen how chic the abbes in Rome wear their garb,” he
returned in a tone of levity.
“No, I am afraid this is out of the question.”
“It’s better to give him to Rome than to Greece,” the former priest
pressed his point symbolically. “It was the Church that saved the
Italian masters from idolatry. Don’t you think it would have been far
better for Voltaire, and mankind, if he had been won by the Church? I
know Albert, he needs the Church. He might carve for himself a glorious
career in Rome!”
“Personally I’d have him anything rather than a rhymester,” the mother
burst out passionately, without concealing her horror at such a
prospect.
“But with the present unrest what else is left for a gifted young man?”
proceeded the Jesuit. Then he added in a lower voice, “One day we are
Prussian, the next French, and we may be Russian some day, God only
knows. And while you know how free I am from prejudice, the boy’s faith
will be in his way. I hear that the Jews in Berlin have almost exhausted
the holy water of the baptismal font there.” He laughed indulgently as
he referred to the great number of conversions in the Prussian capital.
“No one knows better than you,” she presently said, “that you can’t make
a good Christian of a good Jew. The most you can do is to turn a bad Jew
into a worse Christian.”
They both laughed amicably.
“Honestly, I don’t believe Albert has a religious sense,” she added a
moment later. “Nothing is too sacred for him to make fun of.”
“That’s only the boy’s sense of humor,” he contradicted her. “He has
more religion than you think. Sentiments of any kind are impossible
without a religious sense, and Albert is full of sentiment—”
Albert’s entrance interrupted further conversation. Bowing, he walked up
to Father Schumacher and kissed his extended soft white hand.
The rector’s eyes now rested upon the boy’s face with renewed interest.
He was still thinking of his suggestion to the mother. Albert’s narrowed
eyes registered acute sensitiveness. The mother’s eyes also fell upon
her son as if she, too, had noticed the peculiar expression on his
countenance for the first time.
“What a pity he was not born a Catholic,” muttered the former priest as
Albert bowed out of the room.
When the rector was gone the mother took her son in hand. She did not
scold him—she never scolded him—she only tried to reason with him.
“Albert, dearest, what will become of you?” she pleaded.
He said nothing. He stood like an accused at the bar of justice, guilt
in his heart.
“How can you ever amount to anything unless you pass your
examinations—especially in mathematics?” she proceeded.
The unshed tears in the mother’s eyes overflowed. His eyes, too, began
to fill. He was not grieved because he had failed in mathematics but it
pained him to have his mother worried. He was silent. He had no words of
justification. Soon his chin began to quiver, his lips to twitch, and
his eyelashes trembled.
“Father’s business is going from bad to worse,” she resumed in a kind,
though plaintive, tone, “and what can one do without money? Everybody
thinks we are well-to-do, but we have hardly anything. If it weren’t for
Uncle Leopold we would have been on the point of starvation long before
this.”
Still not a word from Albert. Only hot tears burned his tender eyelids.
Suddenly, without a word, he flung his arms around his mother and kissed
her tear-stained cheeks. Indeed, henceforth he would apply himself to
mathematics and would study hard, day and night.
But before long he had again fallen from grace, despite his steadfast
efforts to please his mother. This realization did not dawn upon him
until toward the close of the following term. With a heart filled with
contrition he reviewed the past. Alas! he had spent most of his time on
poetry and novels and mythology but had scarcely given more than
fleeting glances to his other studies.
Conscious of guilt he sought to justify himself to himself. With such an
indulgent audience he had no difficulty in purging himself of all wrong.
What difference did it really make to him whether _a_ plus _b_ equaled
_x_ or sixteen? What was it to him that the sum of the interior angles
of a polygon equaled two right angles, taken as many times, less two, as
the figures had sides? Of what concern to him was the expedition of
Cyrus the Younger against his brother Artaxerxes thousands of years ago
when a greater expedition of a greater hero had so recently ended
disastrously! Why tax his brain with the Greek aorist and the Latin
grammar and the stilted speeches of Clearches? Ah, if he could only
become a great man without being compelled to learn these things!
But his mother had impressed upon him again and again that the road to
greatness lay through a labyrinth of angles and equations and
logarithms, with impediments consisting of irregular verbs of decayed
Romans, of dead Greeks, and of Hebrews who would not die!