Albert’s conduct was a severe blow to his parents. Rindskopf had written
to the elder Zorn and described the disgraceful scene to its minutest
detail. “I could see from the very first day,” wrote Rindskopf, “that
your son has no bent for business, but on your account I had endured him
as long as I possibly could.”
The father made a hurried trip to Frankfort and tried to reason with
Albert. He told him of the deplorable state of his finances and that
further schooling was out of the question; and there was nothing for him
to do at home.
The father had another friend in Frankfort, Veitel Scheps, who was a
wholesale grocer and an importer of fruits from Italy. Veitel was
willing to give the young man a chance to learn his trade.
Veitel was a little man, nothing but skin and bones, with a grizzly
little beard, the end of which he was in the habit of chewing wistfully.
Veitel seemed always absent-minded. There was a strange light in his big
brown eyes. He was nearly sixty, but there was the fire of youth in his
eyes. He received his friend’s son kindly and assigned to him the
easiest work in his warehouse. He also housed him in his own home, and
his wife, being childless, bestowed on Albert maternal tenderness.
For a short time everything went well. Albert liked Veitel and his place
of business. The warehouse was sunless, filled with bales of dried
fruits, casks of wine, boxes of oranges and lemons and dates, permeated
with the pleasant odors of figs and raisins and the delicacies of the
Italian soil. Albert’s task was to take down the numbers of the
shipments and the quantities that came in and went out.
He loved to lose himself in the rear of the large storehouse, where
there were narrow passages stacked with boxes and sacks and crates of
wafting fragrance. The scents were inspiring. He had just read Goethe’s
“_Briefe aus Italien_” and visualized the graphic descriptions of the
great master. At times he would move listlessly through those darkened
passages, conjuring visions of the land “_wo die Citronen blühen_.”
Meandering through these fruit-smelling passages he often imagined
himself under the blue skies of Italy. A spear of sunshine stealing in
through the crack of a dust-covered window pane enhanced the illusion.
That was the glorious light of Italian skies shining upon the sun-baked
lanes of Capri. It was not the creaking of the ungreased wheels of
Franz’s wheelbarrow—Franz was the peasant lad trundling heavy-laden
boxes—that he heard but the twittering of birds in the green foliage of
Sorrento. A horse was neighing outside. Albert’s breast heaved with
sensuous joy. For to his ears it was the braying of a donkey clambering
up the narrow cliff road to Salerno.
“Albert!—Albert!” someone was calling, but he only heard the distant
echoes from his wonderland. Leaning against a column of casks he paused
and wrote verses that had been running through his head for days—
“Albert—Albert Zorn!”
The voice became impatient, irritable, anger in the tone. It was the
voice of Veitel.
“Franz is waiting for the numbers!” he cried.
Albert tried hard to remember on which errand he had been sent.
Presently the agitated Veitel was before him. The wagon was outside and
had to be loaded for the boat sailing for Coblenz and Albert stood
there, staring at him like an idiot!
Veitel took a step back. The young man must have lost his wits. His wife
had told him the boy had been acting queerly, always as if in dreamland.
For a moment Veitel was baffled. Perhaps he ought to run back for help.
One could not tell what a maniac might do! The wife of a friend of his
had been stabbed by a maid servant under similar circumstances, he
recalled. She, too, had acted queerly—the maid servant had been
melancholy—and suddenly, while she was peeling potatoes, she stabbed
her mistress with her paring knife!
“Are you not feeling well, Albert?” Veitel’s tone was now soft,
sympathetic, cautious.
He was moving back step by step, coaxing the young maniac to follow him.
As soon as he emerged into the open Veitel gained courage.
“Where is the list?” he pleaded.
Albert shuddered. He could not free his mind from the illusion. He was
still under the blue skies of Italy.
“Where are the numbers?” Veitel demanded.
“The numbers—what numbers?” Albert’s voice was somnolent. “Just a
moment!”
He had not finished writing the last two verses and was afraid they
might escape his memory, so while Veitel scolded he put the sheet of
paper against a box nearby and scribbled the end of his ballad. He then
looked up with clearer vision in his eyes.
“Didn’t you take the numbers down for the Coblenz shipment? Franz is
waiting for them.”
“O, yes, the numbers;” and he rushed back to execute the order, Veitel
staring at large.
“No, the boy has no talent for business,” Veitel confirmed Rindskopf’s
opinion, and wrote a lengthy letter to his friend David Zorn.
This time the father made no trip to Frankfort. Instead he sent Albert
money for the homeward journey.