CHAPTER XXIV.

The summer sun had set for some time behind the tall trees of the park;

dark shadows were falling upon the thick bosquets; here and there a

bird was still chirping, before he put his head under his wing for the

night; otherwise all had become silent in the garden, where just before

all had been noise and uproar. But it was all the louder inside the

house. The dazzling light of a hundred wax candles on lustres and

girandoles shone from the windows upon the great lawn before the garden

room. Music resounded through the opened folding-doors, and the

peasantry, who were standing around at a respectful distance, saw

through the open window the dancing couples float by one by one. In the

rooms adjoining the ball-room card-tables had been placed for the older

guests, and Count Grieben's screeching voice could continually be

heard, as Baron Grenwitz, who was a very indifferent player, missed a

trick, or, led away by his timidity, committed one of those blunders

which jar so painfully on the mind of an accomplished player. Baron

Barnewitz and his wife cut in, so that one of them could always be in

one or the other room, and no party was favored at the expense of the

other. At first, Hortense had intended to dance all the evening; but

after two or three dances she became so angry at the admiration which

her cousin excited, that she proposed this arrangement to her husband,

who was all the more willing to accede to it, as he was, in spite of

his corpulency, very fond of dancing. He not only danced very well

besides, but was a great admirer of married and unmarried ladies in

ball toilet. And such were not wanting. There was a bevy of beauties

there such as would have enchanted more thoughtful men than the baron

was. The most beautiful and most lovely of all was, in the judgment of

the gentlemen at least,--for the opinion of the ladies was very much

divided on the subject,--beyond all doubt, Melitta. Her cheeks,

generally rather pale, were slightly flushed from dancing, her eyes

beamed with light and life, her slender elastic form moved along with

marvellous grace in rhythmical change--thus she floated over the smooth

parquet of the ball-room like the very Muse of the Dance. By the side

of this dazzling apparition the pretty women of her age looked mere wax

dolls, and the younger girls very nice marionettes. Thus it seemed at

least to Oswald, as he saw her fly by him in the waltz or met her

halfway in the cotillon. A strange mixture of contradictory sensations

filled his heart. Since the moment when he had seen Baron Oldenburg's

portrait for the first time in Melitta's album, he had never been able

to get rid of the thought. What were their relations? But, often as

that question had been on his lips, he had never dared to utter it, and

the higher the sun of his love arose on the heavens, the paler became

the threatening shadow. But to-day his half-dormant doubts had been

cruelly aroused by Barnewitz's story, by the appearance of the man

himself, and by Melitta's conduct. Again the question arose on his

lips, and again he drove it back to its secret place in his heart. He

was angry with Melitta, that she should cause him such suffering; he

was angry with himself, that he had been persuaded by her to follow her

to this party, into this world of nobles, who, he knew, only tolerated

him; into this world of frivolous enjoyment and haughty conceit, this

noisy, blinding world, which contrasted so miserably with his romantic

love and seemed to scoff at the blissful, almost sublime solitude at

the forest cottage! It seemed to him an old, old fairy tale, that he

had held this wonderful woman in his arms--that he had pressed his lips

upon her rosy lips, alas! how often! she looked to him so changed, a

perfect stranger. He could not persuade himself that this was Melitta,

who was laughing with young Breesen and talking with Cloten, and

answering his foolish sallies so politely. And then again, when her

bright eye met his, when her hand in the cotillon pressed his so

sweetly, when on such an occasion a: Sweet love! you darling!--became

barely audible to him--then it was again Melitta, his Melitta! And once

more doubts, rising to insane anxiety, chased after certainty, which

filled him with unspeakable happiness, as dark shadow and bright

sunlight are chasing each other across a fair summer landscape; and in

order to escape this sweet anguish, this bitter delight, he sipped with

hasty, eager desire the intoxicating beverage, which consists of

dazzling light, joyous music, and voluptuous perfumes, and in a

ball-room excites and confuses so strangely the senses of all the

guests, till they approach Bacchanalian rapture.

Oswald laughed and talked as if in the best humor; here a reckless,

bold word, there a delicate compliment here a satirical sneer, there a

sentimental appeal. The ladies seemed entirely to have forgotten his

low birth: he was such a capital, indefatigable dancer; so handsome a

man, so skilful a flatterer. And if here and there an anxious mother

scolded her noble daughter for her intimacy with that young man. Doctor

Stein, the words fell, golden as they were, on sterile soil, and the

girl consoled herself, in her noble conscience, by saying to herself:

Well, it is only for to-night! There can be no doubt that Oswald's

success with the ladies on that evening deeply disgusted many a noble

soul; but the expressions of such hostility remained confined to an

occasional sneer, which never reached Oswald's ear, and to a few angry

looks, which, if he chanced to notice them, only increased his

enjoyment. He knew perfectly well how slippery the ground was; but the

presence of danger, which paralyzes weak minds, only steels strong

hearts; and the consciousness that he might be insulted by impertinence

at any moment, gave to his manner towards the great men present a

boldness, a security, which challenged their indignation, but also

warned them that the consequences would be serious. Besides, it must be

said to the honor of these young nobles, that among twelve or fourteen

there were at least two or three who were not so blinded with

prejudices that they should not have appreciated Oswald's chivalrous

manner. Such was Baron Langen, who took Oswald familiarly by the arm,

and during a pause between the dances, walked up and down with him

through the ball-room; such also young Breesen, the handsomest and

cleverest of the crowd, who asked Oswald to give him some lessons in

pistol-shooting, and who, when his sister had made a mistake in the

dance, and interrupted the tour, asked his pardon in her name, and

carried him up to her so that she might make her own apologies. Such

was, of course, also Baron Oldenburg, who praised Oswald's virtues as a

dancer and a marksman to many friends, although he left it undecided

whether he did so from sincere conviction or in order to annoy his

young companions.

He was not very courteous to others. When Baron Barnewitz had asked him

if he would like to take a hand, he had replied: Oh yes! if you will

play faro! and when Lisbeth von Meyen had wondered why he did not

dance, he had said: Ah, at this moment I regret, for the first time

in my life, that my dancing-master never succeeded in teaching me

the difference between the first and the second position, nor my

music-teacher to distinguish a waltz from an anthem. Thus he sauntered

about among the card-tables, and excited Count Grieben's ire by looking

into everybody's hands by turns, and then offering good, or rather bad

advice to them all. Now again he was seen in the ball-room, looking at

the dancing couples with the eyes of a good-natured tomcat who sees

black and white mice play merrily on the barn-floor before him. In this

pleasing occupation he was interrupted by Baron Barnewitz, who came

hurrying in and said:

"Oldenburg, as you have nothing to do----"

"Why, my dear friend, I have a great deal to do."

"Come with me in the dining-room and help me arrange the seats. Please

come!"

"Your confidence in my organizing capacity is highly honorable to me,

_mon ami_," said Oldenburg, and followed his host across the hall,

up the well-carpeted staircase, into the brilliantly illuminated

dining-room, where the servants were just finishing setting the tables.

"Here, Oldenburg, are the cards, all written; now tell me, shall

we----"

"Honored sir," said Oldenburg to a servant, "could you, perhaps, bring

me the useful and ingenious instrument by which this bottle might be

opened? There, thanks--_Festina lente!_ Barnewitz, that means: thou

shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn! Your health, my

boy! This young Cliquot is one of the more virtuous members of his

numerous race. Really drinkable," and he sipped one glass after

another. "Now, here I am at your service. Put the bottle on that

side-table, my man in the gold lace! there are some glasses

left--Countess Grieben--Baron Oldenburg--Baroness Nadelitz--are you

mad, Barnewitz? I to sit two hours hemmed in between the two mummies! I

had rather help to wait. No, we'll do it so. The whole of the old

people go to one end of the table, and Young Germany to the other. You

can go with your flock of he-goats and she-goats to the East, and I

will go to the West with my kids and little sheep."

"Well, I suppose that's the best," said Barnewitz. "Here are your

cards."

The servants had left the room; the two gentlemen, beginning at

opposite ends, began to put the cards on the napkins.

"Miss Klaus," said Oldenburg, holding up a card; "who, by all the

Olympic gods, is Miss Klaus?"

"Our governess. Have you not noticed her? A little thing, very pretty,

and with eyes bursting with high treason. We could not well leave her

in the nursery--Great heavens! Here is again husband and wife side by

side!--because we wanted her in the cotillons. You can give her to

Doctor Stein. Like and like, you know."

"Well!" said Oldenburg, and grinned.

"Who is to have the Berkow?"

"Oh, pray, leave me alone! You, for all I care."

"_Bon!_" said Oldenburg, and drank a glass of champagne.

After a short pause.

"Who is to have the honor of sitting by your wife?"

"Great heavens!--to be sure, that is important. You know, Oldenburg,

give her the most significant; no one can say anything to that!"

"All right," said Oldenburg, and looked among the cards till he had

found the right one. "I will pay you for your unauthenticated

fisherman's stories," he growled between his teeth.

"Have you done, Oldenburg?"

"Directly--now!"

"Well, baron, now let us do this: you go into the ballroom and tell

every gentleman what lady he is to take in, and I will do the same in

the card-room."

"_Ainsi soit-il!_" laughed Oldenburg, following his host

As he entered the ball-room, they were just arranging a cotillon.

Immediately after that they were to go to table.

"This is a good opportunity," he said, and, like a black-feathered,

long-legged bird who picks out frogs on a wet meadow, he walked up and

down with great gravity behind the line of the dancers and whispered to

each gentleman, as the opportunity offered, the name of his lady.

Oswald was dancing with the Baroness Barnewitz, who had taken the place

of Miss Klaus until the latter should have carried an important order

to the kitchen; their _vis-a-vis_ were Cloten and Melitta. Oldenburg

had informed all the gentlemen of their fate, which seemed to be

favorable to all, for they nodded with a well-contented air. At the

very last he slipped up to Cloten and whispered to him:

"Cloten, I have given you the Barnewitz."

Then to Oswald: "Doctor, you will take Frau von Berkow."

Then he went away hurriedly.

"Hortense," whispered Cloten, overjoyed, to his lady, "do you know who

is to take you in?"

"Not you, Arthur?" she asked, frightened.

"Yes, my angel."

"Impossible, Arthur. Go straight back to Oldenburg and tell him he must

give you another lady."

"But----"

"Hush, not so loud! You are mad. I tell you Barnewitz is very

suspicious. That would make him more so than ever."

"_Changez les dames!_"

"Melitta; I am to take you to table."

"Impossible, Oswald. You must try to have it changed."

"Why," whispered Oswald, and his brows met.

"Do not look so angry, darling. I will explain it to you."

Miss Klaus appeared in the adjoining room. As soon as Oldenburg saw her

he walked up to her, and reverently bowing to her, he said, in a tone

of unusual gentleness:

"Miss Klaus, I am to have the pleasure of taking you to supper."

The poor little thing was thunderstruck. Baron Oldenburg, the strange,

mysterious baron, to take her in!

She looked up to him with an air of serious doubt.

"I have arranged the seats myself, Miss Klaus; if you have any special

preference tell me so, and I shall be very happy to do what you like

best."

"Oh no, baron----"

"_Eh bien, nous voila d'accord!_ Will you give me your arm? I see they

are making ready."

At that moment Cloten came up, out of breath.

"One word, Oldenburg--pardon me, Miss Klaus--Oldenburg, you must get me

another lady. I cannot go with Hortense."

"_Pourquoi pas, mon cher?_"

"Because--oh, pshaw!--because----"

"_Je suis au desespoir, mon brave_; but Barnewitz has proposed you

himself!"

"Are you sure?"

"You may rely on it."

He hastened back to his lady, his face beaming with joy.

"Oswald," said Melitta, "I have reconsidered it. It is better so--there

is no prospect for the cotillon. Now come, give me your arm, and be

good again."

The older people had gone into the dining-room first, and were standing

behind their chairs; the company from the ball-room came now. Baron

Barnewitz came for a moment across to see that all was right. He looked

very black when he saw his wife on Cloten's arm, and Melitta standing

by Oswald, and still more so when Oldenburg himself entered, leading

his lady like a princess by the hand.

"Oldenburg, what a mess you have made!" whispered Barnewitz, furiously.

"I do not want Cloten to sit by my they are quite enough talked about

already."

"Well, my dear fellow, you told me to take the most insignificant; that

left me no doubt!"

"And Melitta with the doctor; you with Miss Klaus--that is too absurd."

"Well, Barnewitz, it's done now, and please do me the favor not to

interfere any more with my arrangements. Go quietly to your seat, the

Countess Grieben is looking for you with her big owl eyes!"

"I wash my hands of it," growled Barnewitz, hurrying away.

"And I drink a bottle of champagne in honor of my successful _coup

d'etat_," grinned Oldenburg, sitting down by the little governess, just

opposite Melitta and Oswald, and not far from Cloten and Hortense.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I hope you will join me in drinking,

silently but enthusiastically, the health of the man who has assigned

us all our places, and who, while he looked to the common welfare of

all, yet has known how to fulfil the wishes of every guest. I pray you

will bear in mind that a want of enthusiasm at this solemn moment would

deeply wound the feelings of that man, and at the same time

inexpressibly pain one of your neighbors, whom you are bound to love at

least as your neighbor. Ladies and gentlemen, drink with me the health

of your and my best friend, Adalbert Oldenburg!"

As a matter of course, no one within reach of the Baron's moderately

strong voice dared to refuse to join in this ironical toast. The

glasses clinked, and soon a lively conversation began all around the

table, like fire in a bundle of straw which has been set on fire on all

sides at once; that humming, chirping, chuckling, tittering, laughing

conversation, in which very soon the most brilliant witticism and the

most foolish remark have the same value.

"Mind your eyes, Oswald," said Melitta, in that rapid manner in which

speech can hardly be distinguished from mere breathing, and when yet

every syllable is distinctly heard--"Your sweet love-letters are caught

on the way by profane eyes, broken open, and read."

Cloten had in vain tried to convince Hortense that it had been her

husband's own wish that he should lead her to table.

"Don't be such a fool, Arthur," she said, "it is a trick of

Oldenburg's, you may rely on it. Have you ever talked with Oldenburg

about me?"

"Never, Hortense--_parole d'honneur_!"

"I am sure you have done it. You will ruin me with your foolish way of

talking."

"But, Hortense----"

"Hush, Oldenburg is watching us all the time."

"Cloten," said the Baron.

"What, baron?"

"Will you go with me to Italy next fall? You know in that matter?"

"Should like it furiously, baron; but, you know, a thousand reasons

against it; first, hunting season; secondly, races; thirdly, I hate

travelling; fourthly, I do not understand a word of Italian."

"Well, that is the least of all. What one has to know is only, _Si_,

_signore_, _anima mia dolce_, and all other things you learn by

examining boatmen."

Cloten blushed to the root of his hair, for, as Oldenburg said these

words he felt Hortense's foot on his own, and heard her whisper in a

voice half drowned by tears:

"There, you see, Arthur; did I not tell you?"

Melitta also, who had become quite silent ever since she found herself

sitting opposite Oldenburg, seemed to be particularly struck by this

remark. She suddenly cast down her long lashes, as if she wished to

conceal what was going on in her heart.

"I appeal to you to bear me witness," said Oldenburg to her. "Has your

Italian been of much use to you?"

"On the contrary," said Melitta, and her dark eyes flashed brightly.

"It only made me listen to many a false, untruthful word, which would

otherwise have remained unintelligible."

"Yes, yes, the Italians are great liars," laughed Oldenburg.

"Let us rather say, there is much lying done in Italy," replied

Melitta.

"Defeated again," murmured the baron. "That woman is still as beautiful

as an angel and as wise as a serpent. Yes, she is more beautiful than

ever. Her eyes are larger and more brilliant; her shoulders are

rounder; her voice is softer and sweeter--and all that for the sake of

the handsome fellow by her side! Hm!--Doctor, will you do me the honor

to take a glass of champagne with me? I thought I saw a cloud on your

forehead. Let us drive it away! You know: _Dulce est desipere in

loco._"

"What kind of a horrible lingo is that again, baron?" asked Cloten.

"Low-Bramaputric, _mon cher_. Your health, doctor!" The more the meal

approached its end, and the quicker the servants filled the ever-empty

champagne glasses, the noisier and coarser became the conversation, so

that it drowned even the voice of Count Grieben, which had heretofore

been heard as distinctly as the screeching of a parrot in a menagerie.

The thin varnish of outer culture, which constituted the whole

so-called refinement of this privileged class, began to give way under

the influence of streams of wine which were incessantly poured over it.

The sight was a frightful one; naked, wretched nature lay open. The

young men told the young ladies their adventures in hunting, at the

races, their heroic deeds while they were in the army, or they were

pleased to converse in a manner which they meant to be airy and witty,

but which was heavy and coarse in the eyes of every well-bred woman.

Unfortunately, however, the young ladies seemed to be but too well

accustomed to this kind of conversation to feel any unpleasant effect.

On the contrary, they allowed themselves to be forced to drink one

glass of champagne after another; they were dying with laughter at the

odd notions of some of the young men, and especially of young Count

Grieben, a very tall, very thin, and very blond youth, whose appearance

reminded one irresistibly of a giraffe. Oldenburg seemed himself to

worship Bacchus more zealously than usual, or at least to take special

pleasure in increasing the Bacchanalian tumult around him; he drank and

talked incessantly, and urged others continually to drink. He did this

especially with Cloten, who, at the beginning, frightened by Hortense's

reproaches, had kept very quiet and looked embarrassed, but who had no

sooner emptied a bottle than he forgot all the precaution which his

lady-love had impressed upon him as absolutely necessary, and now

replied to her reproachful looks with fiery glances, and to her

whispered: "But, Arthur, have a care what you are doing," with an

almost audible: "But, child, what do you mean; nobody sees us." The

young nobleman carried his imprudence so far that he once, when picking

up Hortense's napkin, kissed her hand, and at another time exchanged

her glass for his; in short, he took every means to let the world know

what they had heretofore but vaguely suspected.

"I am going immediately after this is over," said Melitta to Oswald,

who had for the last quarter of an hour spoken almost exclusively to

Emily von Breesen, his left-hand neighbor.

"I wish you had never come, or left me at home," said the young man,

bitterly.

"Scold me?" said Melitta, and her lips trembled with pain. "Ah, Oswald,

I wish you could come with me, and forever!"

"Perhaps Baron Oldenburg will permit us," replied Oswald, who had

noticed how the baron's gray eyes continually watched Melitta and

himself, while he seemed to devote himself altogether to little Miss

Klaus.

Melitta said nothing, but the tear which suddenly glittered in her long

eyelashes, and which she quickly wiped away with a quiet gesture, was

answer enough.

"Pardon me, Melitta," whispered Oswald, "but I am very unhappy."

"I am not less so--perhaps more so--and that is exactly why I wish you

at least were happy, and I could make you so."

"You can do it by a word."

"What is that, Oswald?"

"Tell me that you love me."

"Oswald, love does not ask so; that is jealousy."

"Is there any love without jealousy?"

"Yes, true love, that feareth nothing and believeth all things."

"Then my love is not true love. To be sure, we, who are not noble,

cannot lay claim to anything that is true, I suppose; our mothers and

sisters wear glass instead of diamonds; we ourselves have no true

honor, no true love, that is clear." ... If Oswald could have looked

into Melitta's heart as he was uttering these mad words, if he had but

cast a glance at her face, he would have died for shame. Melitta did

not answer; she did not cry; she only looked fixedly before her, as if

she could not comprehend the fearful thing, that the hand which she had

stooped to kiss had slapped her face, that the foot which she had knelt

to wash with ointment had repelled her cruelly ... How she had looked

forward to this evening; how happy she had fancied she would be in the

midst of the crowd, alone with the beloved one, listening to his words,

stealthily pressing his hand, and while beautiful women are slyly

coquetting with him on all sides, to read in his eyes: I love only you,

Melitta! And beyond this evening she had looked into a rosy future--a

land of hope--not in clear outlines, but full of peace and love and

sunshine ... And then her past had come up like a gray venomous mist,

and had covered the promised land with its thick veil ... and now the

face of the beloved one looked to her, through the foul mist, as if it

were disfigured by hatred, and his voice sounded strange to her ears.

Was that his face? Was that his voice which now said: "Baroness, they

are rising from table: may I offer you my arm?"

As they passed down the stairs Melitta said nothing; Oswald also was

silent. When they had reached the reception-room he bowed deep; and

when he raised his head, he looked for an instant into her face. He saw

that pain made her lips tremble; he saw a touching complaint dim her

eyes, but his heart was locked, and he turned to a group of young girls

and men who seemed to be disposed to continue the reckless table-talk

yet for a while. Melitta followed him with her looks for a moment, saw

how pretty Emily von Breesen turned to him eagerly, and how he met her

with a merry jest, how she replied as merrily and tapped his arm with

her fan. That was all she saw; when she came to herself again she found

herself seated in a corner of her carriage. The bright light of the

lamps fell upon the trees and hedges as they danced by the windows, but

Melitta saw it all through a dim veil of mist, for her heart and her

eyes were full of tears.

Part Second.

CHAPTER I.

With Melitta the good genius seemed to have left the company, and given

it up to the agency of demons. The violins sounded louder and louder,

the glances of the men became bolder, their words freer, and the

motions of the dancers more passionate and more energetic. And still

champagne was flowing in streams. New candles had been put into

chandeliers and candelabras throughout the house; It looked as if there

was to be no end to the enjoyment. The elderly people had returned to

their card-tables, and from a smaller room adjoining, to which five or

six gentlemen had retired some time ago, the rolling of gold-pieces

could be heard, and the hoarse cry: "_Faites votre Jeu, messieurs!_"

Oswald had at the beginning of the second ball, as they called it,

looked all around for Baron and Baroness Grenwitz, for he had not

noticed, and was told only now, that they had both left the house

before the company went to table, and that the carriage would be sent

back for him. He had thought to find Melitta, who had not reappeared in

the ball-room, in one of the other apartments. A servant, who passed

him with a waiter full of wine-glasses, answered his question if he had

seen Frau von Berkow: "The lady has just left. Lemonade or champagne?"

Oswald took a glass of wine and drained it at once. "Gone away without

farewell! Excellent!" He went back to the ball-room and the darkness

increased in his soul. Now he was no longer angry with himself for

having insulted her whom he loved, and for having let her go with that

feeling in her heart, but he was angry with her, that she had left

without giving him an opportunity to ask her pardon. He felt as a soul

may feel that has gone to hell for its sins, because it disdained to

receive the priest's absolution, and which now rages against itself and

against the priest. Mad thoughts floated in his excited brain--he would

have been delighted if one of these young noblemen had taken offence at

his haughtiness and insulted him mortally. He actually tried to provoke

a collision; he scoffed and scorned in the most reckless manner; but

either the half-drunk young men did not comprehend him, or they had

sense enough left to remember that a duel with a man whose ball never

misses was not an agreeable amusement. He tried to persuade himself

that among the other young ladies more than one was as beautiful and

lovely as Melitta--that it was folly to grieve for one, where there

were so many ready to give him comfort. Why should he not fall in love

with Emily von Breesen? Why not? She was a lady who in a day might

unfold into a magnificent rose. Why should he not watch the transition

and enjoy the first balmy fragrance as the full-blown flower opened to

new-born love? And was she not tall and lithe like a deer? And were her

rosy lips not half opened as if for a kiss? And did she not look up to

him with her dark-gray, half-shy, half-bold eyes, full of curiosity,

and yet so full also of intelligence, as he bent over the back of her

chair and chatted with her?

"You must call on us, Mr. Stein! I shall invite Lisbeth, and then we

can ride out together."

"You can leave Miss Lisbeth at home. I prefer duos to trios,

decidedly."

"Is that really so? But my cousin is very pretty. Don't you think so?"

"Miss Lisbeth is a charming creature, who has but one defect--that you

are her cousin, and who makes but one mistake--to stand too frequently

by your side."

"Come, come! I shall tell her."

"You would expose me to her hatred, and then you would owe me a

compensation."

"And can I afford you any compensation?"

"Yes; I see it in your eyes."

"Oh, you wicked man! Come, it is our turn now."

Oswald had sauntered about after his dance for some time. When he came

back to the ball-room he saw Emily nowhere. Partly looking for her, and

partly without any plan or purpose, he wandered through a suite of

rooms which connected with the ball-room on the other side of the

house, and in which he had not yet been. Here only a few lights were

still burning in a chandelier or before a pier-table, and showed him,

as in a bad dream, an old family portrait or his own pale face. The

chairs stood all about in disorder. The windows were curtained. Through

a crevice here and there the moon was shining in, and drew occasionally

a bright line across the carpets. Oswald went to one of the windows to

get a breath of fresh air. As he drew back the heavy, dark curtain, a

white figure, which had been sitting on a low chair in the deep

embrasure of the window, lost in thought, started up frightened and

uttered a low cry of surprise. Oswald was just about to let the curtain

drop again and to retire, when the form approached him and stretched

out a hand toward him.... And two soft arms encircled him, and a

swelling bosom rose passionately before him, and two burning lips

pressed on his, and a low voice breathed: "Oswald, oh my God, Oswald!"

A boy who in playing with his little sister wounds her seriously,

cannot be more thoroughly frightened at seeing her blood flow than

Oswald was when he felt the tears of the girl on his cheeks. His mad

intoxication of love and jealousy was gone in a moment. What had he

done? He had played the wicked part of the bird-catcher; he had lured

the poor little bird with flattering words and loving glances, until it

came fluttering up to him and sought peace on his bosom ...

"Miss Emily," he whispered, trying gently to raise the head of the

girl, who was now bitterly sobbing on his bosom, "Emily, my dear child,

for Heaven's sake, calm yourself. Consider, if anybody should see you

here, or hear you----"

"What do I care for the others? I love you," whispered the girl.

"My dear Miss Emily, I beseech you, collect yourself and make me not

wretched----"

"Then you do not love me?" said the passionate girl, raising herself

suddenly, "then you do not love me? Well, I am going----"

She took a step towards the curtain, but the storm of passion had

exhausted her strength. She uttered a loud sob, and would have fallen

down if Oswald had not caught her in his arms. His situation was

extremely painful. He feared every moment to hear voices in the room,

to see the curtain drawn back,--and yet, to leave the poor child

fainting there, especially as he could not well send anybody to her

assistance,--it was out of the question. And yet he must tear himself

away, for he felt that the fever in his senses, suppressed for a

moment, was returning with tenfold strength the longer this trying

situation continued ... Tender, affectionate, passionate words began to

mingle, he did not himself know how, with his low beseeching prayers;

an irresistible force made the youthful form cling closer to his arms,

and, ere he well knew what was done, their lips met, the soft hair

mingled with his ... But, more than any words could have done, the

contact, these signs of the love of a passionate child, brought him

back to his self-respect.

"Then you do love me, Oswald?" she whispered, clinging more closely

than ever to him.

"Yes, yes, sweet one; who could be cruel enough not to love you dearly.

But by your love I beseech you leave me now, before it is too late. I

shall see you again in the ballroom."

The girl put her small head once more to his bosom, as if she felt that

it was the first and the last time she should ever rest there, and

raised her rosy and willing lips once more, as if she knew that such

sweet stolen kisses would not be given to her again in this life ...

The lithe white form had disappeared, and only the pale moonlight fell

upon the dark red curtains which separated the window from the room.

And now, as Oswald put his hand on the curtain, in order to return by

some roundabout way to the ball-room, he heard the voices of two men,

who were just then entering the room.

CHAPTER II.

"Who on earth was that?" said one voice,--it was Baron Oldenburg,--"was

not that the pretty Emily? What has the little angler been fishing for

here in these troubled waters?--But now, Barnewitz, I ask with Hamlet:

Whither do you lead me? Speak, I will go no further. Twice I have

brought my baronial knees into unpleasant contact with coarse

chair-legs, thanks to the abominable _clair obscur_ which prevails in

these rooms. Heaven be thanked! here is a causeuse: _eh bien, mon ami;

que me voulez-vous?_"

"I pray you, Oldenburg, be serious for a moment," said Baron Barnewitz,

and his voice sounded strangely subdued--"I really do not feel in the

least like laughing."

"You are a strange creature! You and the like of you. You think an

honest fellow cannot utter a serious word without making a face like a

mute's. Humor is an unknown luxury here. Well then, my serious friend,

what is the matter?"

"Listen, Oldenburg----"

"Hush! Are you quite safe here? It seemed to me I heard a cat behind

the hangings."

"It was nothing."

"_Eh bien_; then announce to me your fatal tale in the fewest possible

words."

The voices of the speakers became lower, but not so low that Oswald

could not hear every word distinctly. He deplored his position, which

compelled him to listen, but he saw no chance of escaping. As Oldenburg

had recognized Emily von Breesen, he would have compromised her honor

if he had shown himself now. He tried to open the window, in order to

escape by a bold leap over the gooseberry bushes, which were right

underneath, into the garden, and from there through the open door back

again into the ball-room; but he abandoned the plan as too hazardous,

and tried to reconcile himself as well as he could, though not without

secretly cursing his evil star, to his half-ludicrous, half-painful

situation.

"Oldenburg," said Barnewitz, "did Cloten ask you to let him sit by my

wife, or was it a notion of your own?"

"Why do you ask that curious question?"

"Never mind. Just answer."

"Not before I know what you are aiming at."

"I want an answer and no subterfuge," said the furious nobleman.

"Your threats do not terrify me, Cassius," replied Oldenburg, in a

tone, the royal dignity of which contrasted strongly with the hoarse,

passionate voice of the other. "I tell you once more, Barnewitz, either

you tell me what you mean by that question, or I refuse to answer."

"Well then, the thing is briefly this: Cloten is in love with

Hortense!"

"Oh! and _vice versa_: is your wife in love with this lovely youth?"

"I wish he were where the pepper grows!"

"A very charitable wish, in which I join you with all my heart. Since

when has this comedy been played?"

"Since our return from Italy."

"And what evidences have you?"

"A thousand!"

"And what do you mean to do?"

"Great Heavens! Oldenburg. You ask me as if I had been playing whist! I

want to kill the rascal; I want to drive him from my place here with

the whip!"

"_Bon!_ And will you mention one of the thousand proofs?"

"Well, I should think to-night had given proof enough. First, she lets

him take her to table; then she coquets with him in the most impudent

manner----"

"Stop! Who told you all that?"

"Young Grieben."

"Then tell young Grieben that he might employ his sparrow-brains for a

better purpose than to invent such foolish stories, and to report them

to you. I sat nearer than he, and I am sure I observe as well as he,

and I tell you that your wife and Cloten have behaved just as well at

table, as,--well, as you can expect from a nobleman and a lady. And

then, please consider that the whole arrangement was only a notion,

and, as I now see, a bad notion of mine."

"I can rely upon that, Oldenburg?"

"I generally mean what I say."

"But it is nevertheless true," screamed Barnewitz.

"My dear friend, I have no opinion about that, and you would oblige me

very much indeed if you would leave me out of the matter entirely. But

if you want my friendly advice, I am quite at your service."

"What ought I to do?"

"Hang your horsewhip on its hook and avoid in every way making a

scandal, in which no one suffers more in the end than he at whose

expense the whole spectacle is performed, I mean the husband. Then I

advise you to remember that our _chronique scandaleuse_ is rich in such

stories, and that, if every king among us should in each such case use

his whip, there would soon not be saddlers enough in the country.

Thirdly, I beg leave to advise you: abolish half of your kennel and all

of your mistresses, if you have any. Let the hares eat their cabbages

in peace, and the young fellows in the village kiss the pretty girls

themselves; take some pains about Hortense, who, like all wives, asks

for nothing better than to be beloved, and who is far too sensible not

to appreciate your attractions at once, if she has any choice between

yourself and Cloten; and finally, let us go again among men, for this

philosophic controversy in this mystic twilight has nearly exhausted

me, and I long heartily for a glass of champagne."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the drunken host, who, as it generally happens to

simple men, fell from one extreme into the other; "yes, you are right,

I am a very different sort of a man from Cloten, a miserable

whippersnapper, and Hortense knows that pretty well. Ha, ha, ha! you

are right, I have lived rather fast of late. You see that journey to

Italy has demoralized me. Those wonderful women with their bright black

eyes--yes, and _a propos_ of bright eyes, I always wanted to ask you,

is it all over with yourself and the Berkow?"

"With me and Frau von Berkow? What a mad notion is that now! what is to

be over between us?"

"Why, Oldenburg, you don't want to persuade an old fox like myself that

you only looked at the sweet grapes from a distance?"

"Listen, my jewel," said Oldenburg, and his voice sounded like a

two-edged sword; "you know I take a joke like anybody, but he who dares

touch Melitta's honor, by the great God, he dies by my hand!"

"Well, now, you see how you flare up again!"

"I flare up! I am as cool as iced champagne.--Yes, as I told you,

Barnewitz; promise me not to do anything in this matter to-day, nor

to-morrow, nor at any time, till you have conferred with me; especially

don't let your wife see anything--you hear, Barnewitz, not the least

sign?"

"Well, your good advice comes too late," said Barnewitz. "I told

Hortense in passing a few words; she turned pale like a sheet. The

rascal."

"That was very wrong, and not very chivalrous, my good knight of the

sorrowful countenance," said Oldenburg; "old women talk, but men act.

Such scenes between a noisy husband and a weeping wife are beyond all

measure plebeian and vulgar, and if we know that we are right and

others are wrong, we should be doubly mild, delicate, and tolerant. To

be wrong and to have to confess it is punishment enough."

"Ah, Oldenburg, that is too refined for me; and then you don't know the

women, if you think they take such matters very much to heart. In at

one ear and out at the other. Come, Oldenburg, and convince yourself,

if you can see, that I told Hortense ten minutes ago I would break

every bone in Cloten's body if the abominable story was not instantly

brought to an end!"

"Yes, you are a genuine Othello! And I, in my stupid good-nature, must

try to wash this brutal Moor into a civilized European! _Quelle

betise!_"

When Oswald heard the voices of the two men no longer, and the music

sounding across from the ball-room indicated that dancing had begun

again, he came forth from his concealment. He expected that this suite

of rooms ended in a long passage, which he had noticed in going up to

the dining-room. He was not mistaken. There was a door into the passage

in the next room; from there he slipped into the hall, and thence,

unobserved, into the reception-room. Here and there they were still at

whist, but most of the players had gone to the ball-room, where the

German was to be danced. Oswald followed the crowd. His eyes sought and

soon found Emily von Breesen. He hardly trusted his eyes, she looked so

changed; the wild hoyden of just now had grown up into a young lady.

She appeared taller and more dignified; her face, rosy before, was pale

now, but her eyes shone with an unusual fire, and the jests of her

partners elicited not even a smile. As soon as she saw Oswald, a smile

flashed over her face. She turned towards him as he approached and

said:

"One word, doctor,"--and then in a low voice, "I shall dance the German

with you; I know you are not engaged. I have driven Count Grieben to

such despair, he is gone off with the old people. He thought, no doubt,

he would stun me--the fool! Pardon me, Baron Sylow, I am too tired yet.

Dance with my cousin, she will be glad--Heaven be thanked! He is

gone.--Oswald, you love me? love me really? I can hardly believe it. My

head swims; I could scream for joy. Oh, please don't look at me so, or

I must--I must fall on your neck and kiss you as just now. Are you

angry, Oswald? It was bad in me, very bad, I know. But you see I could

not help it. Why don't you talk, Oswald?"

"Because it is sweeter to listen to you."

"I am such a child, am I not? But why do you talk so formally?"

"Do you think we only love those we treat unceremoniously?"

"No, but we drop ceremony with those we love. Oh, I like that so much!

Heaven be thanked, the polka is over. Come, let us try and find a good

place; there by the window."

The gentlemen were busy obeying the ladies' orders and arranging the

chairs; the circle was almost formed, when all of a sudden, high above

the tuning of the obstinate instruments of the musicians and the

clinking of glasses on waiters and of cups in the hands of thirsty

people, voices were heard in an adjoining room which did not sound very

festive. There were loud voices, hoarse with wine and rage--threats

fell here and there--only a few words, but just enough to startle all

who were in the ball-room, for a moment, out of their forgetfulness of

the world. It was only for a moment, for a quarrel in coarse words was

by no means a rarity in this refined society, and often lasted much

longer than this time. Nor would this interruption have made any more

impression than many others on similar occasions, if a second

occurrence in the ball-room itself had not lent to the former a

peculiar significance, which was quite clear to the cleverer part of

the company. For hardly had the hoarse, threatening voices in the next

room been silenced by a third voice, which seemed to exercise an

undisputed authority over them, than Hortense, who was just about to

dance the German, seized the arm of her partner and fell fainting

on a chair, which the latter had just had time enough to draw up.

The consternation was, of course, very great. Although a dozen

smelling-bottles were at once ready, and cologne was poured on brow,

eyes, and temples of the fainting beauty, it still lasted several

minutes before she recovered enough to smile her thanks, with pallid

lips, and to beg them, more by looks than by words, to take her back to

the other room. This was done promptly, and those who remained behind

looked at each other as if they did not know what to make of the event.

"I suppose the ball is over now?" asked Adolph von Breesen, who was to

dance the German with Lisbeth, whom he adored, of Oswald, in an under

tone.

"I am afraid so," replied the latter.

"Are we going to dance?" asked a third.

"Impossible," replied Langen; "I have ordered my horses."

"What was the meaning of that affair between Barnewitz and Cloten just

now?" asked still another.

"Who knows? They had taken a glass too much. That is all," said Langen.

"I should be glad if that were all," said Breesen, "but I fear there is

more behind it. They tell me Cloten left the house on the spot."

Baron Barnewitz appeared by Oldenburg's side in the ball-room. The face

of the latter looked as calm as ever, but that of his host was purple

with excitement, anger, and overmuch wine; his eyes were swimming, and

his voice was unsteady, as he tried to persuade the gentlemen to go on

dancing.

"Go home?--nonsense--can't let you go--Halloh! Champagne

here--Home?--why? My wife faints at any time, for reasons and without

reasons--why? I couldn't see anybody if that--Music! Hi! Go on, music!"

But in spite of these hospitable words, the effect of which was

seriously impaired by the evident excitement of the speaker, and in

spite of the first notes of the orchestra, which began with a truly

fearful discord, very few only were disposed to continue the ball. All

the others discovered suddenly that it was quite late, that they had

been much longer at table than they imagined, and that it would be

unwarrantable to continue festivities in which the hostess herself

could take no part--and all the phrases of that kind with which people

try to excuse their retreat when they have once determined to leave.

One carriage after the other drove up to the door. Mothers looked for

their daughters; these for their shawls and fans; everybody was making

ready, saying good-by, dropping here a loud joke, there a malicious

remark, and at times a stealthy word of love.--Oswald hardly saw

anything else but the form of the pretty, impassioned child who had

become so dear to him in a few moments.--Love is such a very strange

thing that even the mere consciousness of having set loose the

supernatural power in others suffices to awaken in us a sensation,

which may not be love itself, but which resembles love most strikingly.

Love itself is a mirror which reflects our image beautified, so that

even the wisest and the most modest cannot help feeling gratified at

the sight. Love makes gods of us, and we would not be men, would not be

brothers of Phaeton and Ixion, if we did not all of us desire once upon

a time to play the god, or at least to dine for once at the table of

the gods. But what nectar can be as sweet as the kisses from the dewy

lips of a young, lovely creature? as the glances from the eyes of a

girl whose bosom swells, for the first time in her life, with loving

longing?--as her words, confused and yet so intelligible, like the

twittering of a young bird, who would like to break forth in full

melodies and still cannot find the right notes _as yet_.

And Oswald had felt the touch of such lips; Oswald saw such young,

beaming eyes rise to his full of bliss, and Oswald heard such low,

love-breathing words. Was it a wonder that he spent the last few

minutes of his interview with her in giving love for love; that he

looked forward to the moment of parting with hardly less dread than she

herself, who nearly broke out in tears when her carriage was announced?

Emily had availed herself of the opportunity, when Oswald led her back

to her aunt, to present him to this lady, who stood to her in her

mother's place. A few clever and complimentary words had quickly won

him the favor of the matron, who liked nothing better, thoroughly

kind-hearted as she was, than to laugh a little at other people's

expense. She also invited Oswald to come and see her very soon at

Candelin (the estate of Emil's father, who was laid up with the gout,

and could not go out).

"Yes, and then we'll have some pistol-shooting," said Adolphus, who

came up to tell the ladies that the carriage was ready; "I shall invite

a few other gentlemen, so that you won't be too badly bored at our

house."

"I have only a very modest talent for being bored, and besides, I think

the presence of these ladies, and your own, will be a better preventive

against that malady than the company of a hundred persons," said

Oswald, with a polite bow.

"You see, Adolphus," said the lively old lady, "Doctor Stein says

exactly what I have told you a thousand times: only slow people are

bored; you, for instance, and your sister, who are both dying a hundred

times a day for sheer _ennui_."

"I am never bored, dear aunt," said Miss Emily, eagerly.

"Child, you begin to talk wildly; it is high time you should get home.

Then _au revoir, monsieur_."

"I beg you will allow me to see you to your carriage," said Oswald,

offering the old lady his arm.

"_Vous etes bien aimable, monsieur_," she replied, accepting the

offered arm; "are you quite sure, Mr. Stein, you are not of noble

birth?"

"As sure as of my existence, madam. Why?"

"This: you have in your whole manner something chivalrous, that we do

not often see nowadays, and then only in our young men of the best

families. Adolphus has still much to learn in that direction. Do you

hear, Adolphus?"

"I always hear what you say, dear aunt," replied the young man, who

followed them with his sister, "even when I have heard your words once

or twice before. Emily, child, where are your eyes? That carriage was

on the point of driving over you."

The ladies had taken their seats; Adolphus gave the coachman on the box

some instructions about the road he was to take. Oswald was standing by

the still open door; the aunt had snugly ensconced herself in her

corner, and Emily was bending forward a little. The light of the

carriage lamps and those at the house door fell upon her face. Her eyes

were fixed upon Oswald; but she hardly saw him, for they were veiled by

tears; she dared not speak; her trembling lips were eloquent enough.

Her brother jumped into the carriage, and drew the door to. "All

right!" The horses pulled. A little hand in a white glove beckoned from

the window. That was the last sign. The next moment another carriage

was on the same spot.

Oswald returned into the house. The company was quite small now, and

among the few who were still there, waiting for their carriages and

wrapped up in cloaks and shawls, there was no one of those with whom

Oswald had come in contact during the day. Langen had been the first to

leave, after repeatedly asking his new friend to be sure and pay him

soon a visit. Oswald had inquired of the servants if the Grenwitz

carriage had come back for him, but they had seen nothing of it. The

smaller the company grew, the more embarrassing became his situation.

He saw himself already, in imagination, the very last of all the

guests, and had resolved rather to return on foot than to have to claim

the hospitality of Baron Barnewitz. Just then, however, Oldenburg came

from an adjoining room, and seemed to look for somebody. As soon as he

saw Oswald, he came up to him and said:

"What do you say, doctor, I think we had better go."

"I should have been gone long ago," replied Oswald, "but just now I am

without horses and carriage; I suppose the baron's coachman, who was to

come back for me, has fallen asleep on the way."

"I take special pleasure in offering you a seat in my carriage," said

the baron. "For the little _detour_ which I shall have to make, in

order to set you down at Grenwitz, I shall be amply compensated by the

pleasure of your company."

"I accept your kind offer very thankfully."

"_Eh bien, partons!_"

In the hall they met their host, who was evidently scarcely able any

longer to perform his duties as such. His eyes were bloodshot, his

voice had become most unpleasantly rough and hoarse. He talked of all

sorts of things incoherently, while he made an effort to dismiss every

one of his guests with a civil little speech, as he saw them to their

carriage. "Want to go already--well, stay at home well--John, your

carriage for your mistress--My respects to your husband! Ah!

Poggendorf! old boy! Had not seen you here at all! Don't let that wife

of yours go home alone! Glass champagne? Eh?--Oldenburg, doctor, not

already? Nonsense! Glad to make your acquaintance--shoot devilish

well--all right that you put down that Cloten--all right--famous

fellow, doctor (tender embrace)--you are my bosom friend (sobbing)--my

best friend (another embrace)--you ought to have killed him--the

blackguard."

"Come, Barnewitz, I have to tell you something," said Oldenburg,

slapping his host vigorously on the shoulder, and leading him a few

steps aside from the carriage; "Excuse me a moment, doctor; Charles!

make room, so the other carriages can come up!"

The two men walked up and down for some time in eager conversation, now

disappearing in the dark part of the courtyard, and now visible again

in the illuminated semicircle before the door. Oswald could readily

imagine the subject of their conversation. Several times Barnewitz

raised his voice, but he lowered it instantly upon a 'St! or a Hush! as

a wild beast in a menagerie breaks out in a howl or a growl, and is

instantly hushed by the look or the whip of the keeper. "That man has a

magic power over others," said Oswald to himself, as he watched the

tall, grim form of the baron walking alongside of Barnewitz, who was a

head shorter, like Conscience in person by the side of a poor sinner.

"I feel something of his dominion myself. There is a demon in that man,

a demon which one must either love or hate, or rather love and hate at

once; for I feel disposed to hate that man and I cannot do it. And what

is he to me after all? If he still loves Melitta, as I think he does, I

am more of an enemy to him than he to me. But why did Melitta never

tell me how she stands with regard to that long ghost there? I would

not have offended her to-day. Poor Melitta! How she looked at me--and

what would she say if she had witnessed the scene in the window? Oh,

that sweet, charming girl! And her eyes, too, were full of tears, as

she sat in the carriage and looked at me so fixedly! Oh! who can be

cruel enough to refuse the love of such a heart? And yet

'All this blending of heart with heart

Brings but pain to us from the start.'

Ah, Goethe! Goethe! What have you not to answer for? You also did not

disdain the lily because the rose was so fair, and that is why they

surround your head so often with a wreath of lilies and roses. You too

would have accepted Emily's great heart, and you would have smoothed

her brown hair and kissed her tenderly on her tender eyes! Oh, ye

everlasting stars, how lovely the child was at that moment! For, all in

all, she is but a child, and to-morrow she will awake in her soft

little bed and think she has dreamt the scene in the bay-window during

her sleep."

Thus Oswald tried to silence the voice of his conscience--for the

moment he was successful.

"Will you get in now, doctor?" the baron said, as he came up with his

host. "You understand, Barnewitz?"

"Rely upon it, I'll do what I promised," said the latter, who seemed to

be very much benefited by the conversation with his Mentor and the cool

night air. "Rely upon it, I give you my word of honor, that I----"

"Hush! Are you comfortable, doctor? Good-by, Barnewitz! All right,

Charles!"

CHAPTER III.

The horses started; the light wagon rattled over the rough road across

the court-yard. In an instant the chateau, with its still brilliantly

lighted windows, the dark barns and stables, and the little cottages

all lay behind them, and they were far off between waving grain-fields

and mist-covered meadows. The short summer night was already waning. In

the East a faint streak of light announced the new day; the early dawn

covered the whole landscape as with a thin veil. From the North,

however, came sheet lightning, and rent from time to time the thick

fog. All was silent yet in the fields; even the lark, the herald of

day, was still asleep. Oswald was leaning back in his corner and looked

dreamily into the twilight; only at times, when the smoke from the

baron's cigar floated by him, he looked at the latter, who seemed to be

lost in thought as he sat there, with his hat pushed back a little, the

collar of his coat drawn up, and his long legs stretched out to their

full length. They might have been sitting thus for a quarter of an

hour, when the baron suddenly said:

"You don't smoke?"

"No."

"May I offer you a cigar?"

"Thanks! I never smoke."

"That is strange."

"Why so?"

"Because I cannot understand it, how a man can endure this nineteenth

century of ours without smoking tobacco or opium, without eating

hasheesh, or trying in some other way to deaden the desperate disgust

with which this age fills our hearts. And I understand this least of

all in your case."

"Why just in my case?"

"Because, if I am not totally mistaken, you are affected with the

poet's deadly disease--the longing after the Blue Flower--and will die

one of these days of your unsatisfied longing. You recollect the

beautiful story in Novalis' works? The Blue Flower, after which the

great Minnesinger was longing? The Blue Flower! Do you know what that

is? That is the flower which mortal eye has never yet seen, and the

fragrance of which fills the whole world. Not every creature is

delicately enough made to be able to perceive the perfume; but the

nightingale is intoxicated with it when it sings and sobs and sighs in

the moonlight or at early daybreak; and all foolish men have been and

are drunk with it when they cry in prose and in poetry to heaven,

pouring out their sorrow and their grief; and all the countless

millions to whom the gift was denied to utter what they suffer, and who

in their speechless sorrow look up to merciless Heaven. Ah! and there

is no cure for that malady! No cure but death! He who has once breathed

the perfume of the Blue Flower, has no more peace and quiet in this

life. As if he were an accursed murderer, as if the angel with the

flaming sword were after him, he is driven on and on, although his sore

feet pain him and he yearns to lay down his weary head to rest. He

asks, in his torments of thirst, for a drink at this or that cottage

door, but he returns the emptied cup without thanks, for there was a

fly in the water, or the cup was not quite clean, or--well, well, he

was not refreshed by the drink. Refreshed! Where is the eye which

satisfies us so that we would never like to look into another again,

more brilliant, more fiery than the first? Where is the bosom on which

we have once rested, which keeps us from desiring to listen to the

beating of another heart, more ardent, more burning with love? Where? I

ask you where?"

The baron paused: Oswald was strangely moved. What the eccentric man by

his side had been saying, more to himself than to be heard, in an

almost elegiac tone, which contrasted strikingly with his ordinarily

sharp, strident voice--it was his own thoughts, which he had had often

and often, from early boyhood up, so that he was almost frightened by

the close resemblance of his Double. He had no answer for the baron's

question, which he seemed to have propounded to himself.

"I have always been thinking about the necessity," continued the baron,

"which forces men first to forget their own existence more or less,

before they reach the condition which we call happiness, for want of a

better word, and that they are the happier, the more fully they can

forget it. 'The best of life is but intoxication,' says Byron. Yes

indeed! The love of Romeo and Juliet, for which we face death as

readily, as we go to a feast, is also but intoxication. 'To sleep is

better than to be awake,' says the wisdom of the East; but the best of

all is death."

"And yet comparatively few men kill themselves," said Oswald.

"Yes, and that is remarkable enough," replied the baron; "especially in

our day, when most people are not afraid any more even of Hamlet-dreams

that might trouble us in our eternal sleep."

"Might not that be a proof that, after all, the much talked of

unhappiness of such people is not so very great?"

"Perhaps so; but perhaps, also, it only proves that man is very

reluctant to abandon his last hope. Why does the wanderer who has lost

his way drag himself forward through the deep snow? Why does the poor

shipwrecked mariner strain his eyes for half a century gazing over the

wild waste of waters? Why does the criminal condemned for life not dash

his brains out against his prison walls? Why does the poor fellow who

is to be hanged on the morrow not hang himself the night before? Before

their unhappiness is not so very great? Pshaw! You do not believe that.

Simply because a faint glimmer of hope still shines through the hell of

their suffering, like the pale streak there in the east. If that faint

gleam too should fade away, then, yes, then old Mother Night would have

to take back her poor lost child, the mild, good, loving Night of

Death."

After a short pause, during which the baron had been puffing great

clouds of smoke from his cigar, he continued in a somewhat calmer

tone:--

"I am several years older than you, and Fate has allowed me to see in a

short time more of life than is commonly given to man. I have that, of

which Goethe's friend in gray wished him the greatest possible amount:

Experience. I might have learnt, and I ought to have learnt, therefore,

that there is no hope in life for me and people like me; but, although

I say: I have no more hope! I still go on hoping in secret that some

happiness will come, as the consumptive ever hopes to be cured. Take

for instance a party like that which we have just left. I know how

hollow the joys of these people are; how many care-worn faces, how many

guilty blushes are hid behind the smiling company-masks; I know that

this pretty girl will be, ten years hence, an unhappy wife, if she is

not an idiot; that this handsome fellow, who carries his head so high,

and looks as if he could perform the twelve labors of Hercules in a

single day, will be a coarse country bumpkin, who ill-treats his

tenants and strikes his wife; I know that, and I know more than that,

and I have seen it a thousand and ten thousand times in life, and yet I

am not blase for all that. This treacherous Fata Morgana has yet charms

for me; every budding girl-flower awakens the hope in me, I might

really for once love and be loved; every fine manly fellow makes me

believe once more in friendship. Would you have believed me such a

fool?"

"I should not have thought you could think and feel thus."

"And you were perfectly right," said the baron. "I only think and feel

so when I am dead drunk, as now.--What was that?"

A loud cry came from a little distance through the silent morning--and

once more, louder, desperate, as if a woman, for it was a woman's

voice, sees the murderer's knife raised in his hand. Before them lay a

piece of woodland; the road went around it; the cry must have come from

the other side, which was hid from them by a few detached oak-trees and

thick underwood.

"Go on, Charles, faster!" cried the baron.

The coachman whipped his horses. The noble creatures, as if amazed at

such undeserved treatment, rushed headlong forward, so that the two men

in the carriage began to tremble. In an instant they were at the

corner. As soon as they could see the other side they beheld a strange

sight--A strangely dressed, dark-complexioned woman, with a piece of

red stuff twisted like a turban around her bluish-black hair, ran

shrieking after three horsemen, who spurred their horses to make their

best speed, and instantly disappeared behind another turn in the road.

As the baron's carriage came thundering up, the woman jumped aside and

cried, with screaming voice, lifting her hands as if in prayer: "My

child--my child! they have robbed me of my child!"

The coachman found it hard to stop the horses. Oswald, who had at once

recognized the Brown Countess in the woman, had jumped down from the

carriage.

"Save my child, sir, save my child!" cried the gypsy, throwing herself

down before him and embracing his knees.

The baron laughed.

"A very romantic situation, doctor," he said from the wagon. "Morning

dawning, woods whispering, gypsy, the king's highway--really, quite a

novel! In the mean time, while you console the bereft mother I will

pursue the robbers, who are probably only sheep in wolf's clothing, a

couple of empty-headed gentlemen of our neighborhood, who look upon the

whole as capital fun."

"The one on the gray horse was Baron Nadelitz," said the coachman, who

could hardly hold his horses, turning half around.

"Drive on!" said the baron. "We'll give them a lesson."

The carriage went off thundering.

The gypsy had raised herself again. She looked after the carriage,

which flew with mad speed over the rough forest road and now

disappeared behind some trees. A strange smile passed over her face as

she stood there, listening in breathless excitement. Then, as her ear

ceased to hear the rolling of the wheels, she crossed her bare arms on

her full bosom, the restless heaving of which alone spoke of the

violent storm which had just shaken her whole system, and stared

rigidly before her. Suddenly she raised her head and said, fixing her

glittering eyes on Oswald:

"Do you know the dark man who brings me my Czika back?"

"Yes, Isabel."

"Is he your friend?"

"No."

"But he will be?"

"Perhaps."

"Is he a good man?"

"I think so."

"Do you remember the evening on the edge of the water, sir?"

"Yes, Isabel."

"Could you find the place again?"

"I believe I could. Why?"

"Will you bring the dark man to that place when the full moon stands in

the heavens as it does now? Oh say yes! I beseech you by your love to

the beautiful, kind lady, by the bones of your mother, say yes!"

The gypsy was kneeling once more before Oswald, and looked, with folded

hands, imploringly up to him.

"Get up, Isabel," said the young man, "I will do what you wish, if I

can."

The gypsy seized his hands, as he stretched them out to help her get

up, and kissed them with passionate gratitude. Then she started up,

hastened across the road toward the forest, and had the next moment

disappeared in the dense underwood, through which she sped with the

strength and the swiftness of a deer.

Before Oswald could recover from the speechless astonishment which the

conduct of the Brown Countess had caused him, he heard the rolling of

the carriage, which returned as swiftly as it had left. But before the

wagon had reached the trees, behind which it had before disappeared, it

suddenly stopped, and the baron appeared, bareheaded, and carrying

little Czika on his arm.

"We have hunted, we have caught," he called out from afar. "The

cowardly wolves let the fair booty go as soon as they saw us in

pursuit, and escaped in haste.--There, little Ganymede, now see if your

feet will carry you again."

The baron let the child glide down. "But what has become of the mother,

or whoever that brown woman was?" he asked, surprised to find Oswald

alone.

Oswald told him, in a few words, what had happened during his absence.

"Well, that is not so bad," said the baron; "the thing becomes more and

more romantic. Full moon, edge of lake, gypsy women, cunning of Egypt,

and two simple German boys, who are cheated! What are we to do with

little Czika, as you call the little princess?--for I am sure she is a

king's daughter, stolen from the cradle----"

"If we do not wish to leave her on the high-road, we shall have to take

her with us, I suppose."

"But will the child go with us? Listen, little Czika, will you go with

me?"

"Yes, sir!" said the child, who had so far shown no sign of

apprehension, fear, or anxiety.

"Hm!" said the baron, "here I have an adopted child without asking for

it!"

He had become very serious of a sudden. He stroked Czika's bluish-black

curls and her fine brow, and looked at her steadily.

"How beautiful the child is," he murmured, "how very beautiful! And how

it has grown!--Come with me, little Czika, you shall be happy at my

house, very happy; I will love you more than your mother, who has left

you so basely, has ever loved you."

"Mother has not left Czika," said the child, quietly looking up at the

baron; "mother is where Czika is; mother is everywhere."

Turning away from the two gentlemen, she put her little hands to her

mouth, and sent a cry into the silent forest exactly like the call of a

hungry young falcon.

The child inclined her head on one side and listened; the baron and

Oswald instinctively held their breath.

There came from the forest, but evidently from a great distance, the

answer; the clear, wild cry of the old falcon when he has spied out his

quarry far down below him.

"You see, sir," said the child, "mother does not leave Czika; if you

wish to take Czika with you, Czika will go with you."

"Well, then, come, young falcon," said the baron, taking the child by

the hand. "Come, doctor! I believe Charles has mended the strap which

broke just around the corner. There he is. All right again, Charles?"

"Yes, sir."

The gentlemen got in and took the child between them.

"Go on," said the baron. "Let them trot out."

They soon came upon the wide heath which extends from Fashwitz to

Grenwitz, the same heath on which Oswald had met the old woman from the

village. It wanted yet half an hour to sunrise. On the eastern sky a

series of purple streaks rose one above the other. The air came cool

from the sea across the damp moor.

The little Czika had come up close to the baron and was fast asleep.

"How thinly the child is dressed," said the latter; "it will take cold

in the fresh morning air!"

He rose, pulled off his overcoat, wrapped it around the little one,

took her in his lap, and rested her head on his bosom.

"So, so!" he said, kindly! and then to Oswald, who had been silent,

meditating on the enigmatical character of the man by his side:

"I look to you a little crazy, doctor, eh?"

"No," said the other, looking up, "not in the least."

"That is because you suffer of the same disease as I do; what makes

others speechless with amazement appears to us perfectly natural; and

what the good people and bad musicians consider a matter of course,

seems to us nothing less than fabulous. You will, for instance, readily

believe that I have met this same child now for the third time in my

life, and that I am superstitious enough to see in this threefold

meeting much more than a mere accident. Besides, like Wallenstein, I

believe in no accident."

"And where and when do you think you have seen Czika?"

"The first time, four years ago, in England. I was riding with a couple

of English friends in a distant part of Hyde Park. As we turned round a

corner at full speed, a child was standing before us--a brown child,

with big black eyes, raising its tiny hands imploringly. I scarcely

noticed it, being engaged in an animated conversation. After we had

gone on perhaps a hundred yards, I felt suddenly as if spirits were

drawing me back. I cannot describe the sensation. I felt, however, as

if my riding past the sweet, helpless creature had been a crime, which

made me perfectly wretched. I turned round; I raced back to the place

like a madman. The child was gone. I called after her; I searched the

shrubbery all around; my friends aided me, in spite of my madness, as

they called it; but all in vain.

"The next time, I saw the child in Egypt. It is now two years. We--I

mean a small caravan of Nile travellers, who had met by accident,--were

riding on our little donkeys through the narrow winding streets of

Asqut. By the side of an open door, through which we could look into

the silent shady court of a mosque, stood, in a niche in the wall, a

child, older than that in Hyde Park, and younger than that here in my

arms, but the same brown child, with the bluish-black curls, and the

bright gazelle eyes. Again she stretched out her little hands towards

the passers-by, and called the cry you hear everywhere in Egypt:

Bakshish! howadjee, bakshish! I saw the child, and yet I did not see

it; for I was in those desperate fits of humor which occasionally

overcome me, when eyes and ears are wide open, and yet neither see nor

hear. As we turned round the next corner, I felt precisely the same

sensation as in Hyde Park. I left my donkey; I ran back as fast as I

could.--The niche was empty. The door leading to the mosque was open,

as I said. The yard had on the other side a second door, which was also

open, and which led upon one of the main streets, where, at this

hour,--it was towards sunset,--men, camels, and donkeys were closely

crowded together. The child was gone, and I returned to my companions

with a heavy heart; as usual, they had explained my sudden

disappearance by assuming a fit of madness.--Do you think it possible

that this child, which I first saw amid English mists, and next under

the bright sky of Egypt, should cross my path a third time in a German

beechwood?"

"And even if it were not the same child,--and, to tell the truth, I

consider it highly improbable that it is the same,"--replied Oswald,

"it would be the same to you. I believe in an eternal, ever-changing,

ever-constant world-spirit. I believe that that lark which there rises

from the heath, and wings its way singing to the sky, is the same lark

which I followed, enchanted, as a boy, until it was lost in the blue

ether even to my sharp eyes. I believe that all heroes are brethren,

and that every sufferer is that neighbor whom heart and reason alike

command us to love like unto ourselves.--It matters little whether this

child is the same which you have twice sought in vain, it matters only

that the appeals of the poor forlorn creature every time pierced

through the triple brass around your bosom into your very heart.... You

will pardon, I am sure, such language in a man who is so far inferior

in experience and intelligence, and who draws courage to speak them

only from the regard he feels for you, almost instinctively. And allow

me to add one word: if you could make up your mind to love this child,

it would be a gift to you more precious than Aladdin's marvellous lamp.

Love is everywhere except in hell, says a deep word of one of the

Minnesingers; it means, where there is no love, there is hell. Love is

the fragrance of that Blue Flower, which, as you said just now, fills

the whole world, and you will find the Blue Flower, which you have

sought in vain all your life long, in every being which you love with

all your heart." A strange melancholy smile played around the baron's

lips as Oswald spoke these words.

"You cannot solve the riddle," he said sadly, in a low voice; "for this

very condition, that we must love with all our heart, if we wish to get

rid of the torment which makes life a hell, is the impossible thing.

Which of us can love with all his heart? We are all so driven, so

weary, that we have no longer the strength nor the courage which true,

real love requires. I mean that love which knows neither rest nor

repose till it has made its own every thought of our mind, every

sentiment of our heart, and every drop of our blood. If you are still

young and ingenuous enough for such a love, I congratulate you! For my

part, I can only repeat: I have given it up to find the Blue Flower,

that wondrous flower which blooms only for the happy one who is still

able to love with all his heart.--But here we are at the gates of

Grenwitz, and must break off a conversation which I trust we shall very

soon continue. Farewell, and come and inquire as soon as you can after

the well-being of the little creature who is your protegee almost more

than mine."

The carriage rolled off. Oswald followed it long with his eyes; then he

crossed the bridge, bowing his head, and went up to the chateau. The

sun had risen, and was flooding the gray walls with rosy lights; in the

dewy garden the birds were singing their carols--but Oswald saw a dark

gray veil drawn over the charming morning, for in his ear sounded yet

the baron's words: Which of us is still able to love with all his

heart? Which of us has yet a whole heart?

CHAPTER IV.

"Do you fell refreshed by your nap, dear Grenwitz?" asked the baroness.

"I thank you, dear Anna Maria, very much!" replied the old baron. It

was the afternoon after the eventful ball at Barnewitz; the speakers

were in the same room, looking out upon the garden, in which, a week

before, the conversation between Melitta and the baroness had taken

place. The baroness was again sitting, as then, near the open

glass-doors which led upon the great lawn, on which Melitta's eyes had

for the first time fallen upon Oswald, and again the admirable lady was

sewing industriously, as if she had to earn her daily bread by her

needle. The baron sat opposite to her, in the same rocking-chair which

Melitta had occupied. He was just awaking from an afternoon nap, and

looked, with his old glazed eyes, through the open door upon the lawn,

where his pet, the peacock, displayed his gorgeous plumage in the

bright sunlight.

"Very much," he repeated, stretching his limbs.

"But you look very tired yet," said the baroness, fixing her cold gray

eyes searchingly upon the baron's faded features; "these pretentious,

noisy parties are real poison for you, and I have reproached myself,

while you were sleeping, that I did not make you go home sooner

yesterday."

"But I assure you, my dear Anna Maria, I am very well; I mean, not

worse than usually; not much worse," said the good old man, timidly;

for he was too well trained ever to contradict his Anna Maria, whom he

loved and honored above all things.

"But you must take particularly good care of yourself these days," said

the latter, sewing busily; "we must start at least in a week from

to-day, and you will need all your strength to bear the fatigue of such

a journey. Would to God we were all safely back again! I really am very

reluctant to go! Your feeble health--the dangers of a sea-voyage--and

then: will Heligoland really benefit you? Doctor Braun says so, to be

sure, but who can trust all physicians? If their advice brings success,

they are triumphant; if not, why, it is not their fault, but the

patient's, who has not done all he ought to have done. And what does it

matter for the doctor, whether you come back sick or well, whether you

live or die--but I, but we--oh Grenwitz, what would become of us if you

should be taken from us!"

The baroness looked up from her work, and in her eyes appeared

something which in other women would have been a tear.

The old baron rose from his chair, approached his wife, and kissed her

tenderly on her forehead.

"You must not give way to such thoughts, dear Anna Maria," he said most

kindly. "God will not let me die so very soon; I pray every morning,

and thank Him for every additional day which He grants me, not for my

sake--for I am an old man and we must all of us die--but for your sake,

because I know how much my death would grieve you, and also because I

should like to see your and Helen's future secured before I die."

The old man had resumed his seat, and taken a pinch from a gold

snuff-box, which was standing near him on a small round table, in order

the better to overcome the emotion into which he had talked himself;

the baroness quietly resumed her work.

"You are so kind," she said, "much too kind; for you are so even to

those who do not deserve your kindness, and thus you prepare for

yourself much trouble, which you might easily avoid by a little more--I

will not say egotism, for I hate the word, but--discretion. Now you are

concerned for my future and Helen's future--and justly so. This concern

you would be relieved of if you had not leased your estates, when you

fell heir to the entail twenty-four years ago, to people who have grown

rich at your expense, and crown their impudence by accusing us of

avarice, because we are unwilling to renew the leases on the same

terms. And if you had not then assumed Harald's enormous debts--a thing

I never understood, and never will understand--you would not have had

to use for their payment all that we could save with the utmost

economy."

The old baron did not seem to relish the subject his wife had entered

upon; he took one pinch after another while she was speaking, and at

last he said, not without some animation:

"I cannot say, dear Anna Maria, that you are altogether wrong, nor yet

that you are altogether right. The old leases are very favorable to the

tenants, that is true; but then the times were different in those days.

Money was very scarce after the war, land was quite low, and our

estates had been thoroughly neglected in consequence of Harald's mode

of life. The tenants, surely, found it at first no easy task, and if

they have since become rich and impudent, that is not exactly my fault.

I meant it well, God knows. But as to my conduct with regard to

Harald's creditors, I really do not know, even to-day, how I could have

acted otherwise. The honor of my family made it my duty to assume his

debts, for the creditors knew very well that they had lent their money,

not to Baron Harald Grenwitz, who could never break the entail, and

consequently never pay them, but to the great Grenwitz family, who

would never permit any member to be dishonored. And besides, I was

under obligations to my cousin. When he and I were young officers

together in the same regiment, and later in life, he had always behaved

like a brother to me. It is true I have never abused his kindness, and

for every hundred dollars of my debts which he paid then, I have paid a

thousand of his debts afterwards; but I am sure he would have helped me

under all circumstances, for his generosity knew no bounds."

"You excite yourself without necessity, dear Grenwitz, quite without

necessity," said the baroness, calmly, as the old man sank back into

his chair, exhausted by his unusually long and lively speech; "I do not

dream of reproaching you. You know how little I value riches for

myself, how modest my wants are, and that, if I do care for the future,

it is not for my sake, but for my children's sake."

"I know that, dear Anna Maria," said the baron, "I know that; I did not

mean to hurt your feelings, and I ask your pardon if I was excited."

During the pause which followed, the baroness sewed more industriously

than ever; the baron had put on spectacles, taken a newspaper, which

the servant had brought an hour ago from the office, and began to

plunge into its perusal, moving his lips slightly--for reading and

writing had never been the forte of the old man.

"Army personalities," he murmured. "Colonel--Major--all old

acquaintances. Young Grieben First Lieutenant? Rapid advancement.

Second Lieutenant Felix Baron Grenwitz--resignation accepted--why, what

is that? I thought Felix was to ask for leave of absence, and here I

read he has resigned."

"Indeed!" said the baroness, reading the paragraph which her husband

pointed out to her; "well, I am glad of it, very glad. I must tell you,

Grenwitz, I advised Felix to do that, and made his resignation one of

the conditions for his obtaining Helen's hand."

"But why that?" asked the baron, in surprise.

"Why?" answered the baroness. "Well, I should think, dear Grenwitz, the

reason was clear enough. I think it is high time Felix should begin

another kind of life, and as long as he remains in those circles in

which he now moves, we can hardly expect such a change; I see from the

step he has taken--for I did not think he would act so promptly--that

he must really be in earnest about Helen, and therefore I say again I

am glad of it, very glad indeed."

"But, dearest Anna Maria," said the baron, rubbing his nose almost

angrily, "we thus assume a responsibility which we may not be able to

discharge. If our child, if Helen----"

"Should not agree, you mean," interrupted him the baroness, rising in

her chair and contracting her eyebrows; "oh, I think she will agree; I

think she will have learned that a child owes some obedience to its

parents."

"But if she cannot love Felix?" said the old man, concerned.

"Why, Grenwitz! I do not understand you," replied the baroness: "this

match has for a long time been our favorite plan. Helen has no fortune,

aside from the few thousand dollars which we have saved, and what else

we may yet be able to save; for Stantow and Baerwalde do not belong to

us as yet, but, thanks to the generosity of Baron Harald--to any

adventurer who may have the impudence to present a few forged documents

and to claim the farms. Felix's estates are, to be sure, heavily

mortgaged; but he can retrieve his fortunes, I am sure, if he is in

earnest, and if we help him a little. And if Malte should--God forbid

it! but in such things we must think of everything, even the worst--if

Malte should die before his time, Felix becomes master of Grenwitz, and

I should imagine you would be pleased to think that your daughter

would, as it were, thus step into Malte's place."

At that moment the door opened slowly, a face with spectacles looked

cautiously in, and a squeaking voice asked:

"May I enter, madam?"

"Ah, see there! Our pastor!" said the baron, advancing towards the

new-comer; "heartily welcome! Will you sit down?"

"Pray, pray, baron--don't trouble yourself--I can find a seat--a

thousand thanks," said the reverend gentleman. "I did not intend to

detain you--thank you--prefer this chair--I only wished to inquire how

you and the baroness were, for I was told this morning that you had

both honored the brilliant festivities at Barnewitz with your presence.

No bad effects, I hope! Not very well! Ah! the baroness really looks a

little tired;" and the minister looked with an expression of deep

commiseration at the great lady, inclining his head, like a sick

parrot, towards the right shoulder.

"I am tolerably well," said the latter, resuming her work, which had

rested for a moment; "but Grenwitz seems to have paid more dearly for

the enjoyment."

"Oh, indeed!" said the minister, quickly inclining his head on the left

shoulder. "May I offer you my drops, baron? from six to twelve on a

lump of sugar."

"You are a true physician for body and soul," said the baroness, while

the minister, after the baron's refusal, wrapped up his phial again in

a newspaper and put it in his pocket.

"Yes, yes, _mens sana in corpore sano_, a sound, that is, a pious body

in a sound, pious soul--I learnt that as a boy at school and I now try

to practise it as a man. But where are the dear boys? Still at school?

Yes, Dr. Stein seems to be a very industrious, ambitious young man by

whose instruction the two young gentlemen will soon make great

progress, with help from on High."

The reverend gentleman thought that by praising Oswald he would please

the baron and even more the baroness. Oswald's calm, self-possessed

manner had made a great impression on his cowardly soul; Primula Veris,

whose opinions on men and things were gospel to him, had been singing

for a week the praise of her new friend, who had paid her more

compliments in an hour than she ordinarily received in a year; and this

morning a lady of the neighborhood had called on Mrs. Jager to bring

her a full report of the ball that had taken place the night before.

This lady, who had grown-up daughters, but liked to be considered quite

youthful yet, was delighted with Oswald, who had assured her solemnly

that she might safely pass for the youngest of the daughters. She told

Primula, who listened, all eagerness, what a sensation Oswald's skill

in pistol-shooting had produced among the men; what an impression his

fine figure and his good manners had made upon the ladies; how he had

danced with Hortense, taken Frau von Berkow to table, and, in fine, how

he had been the lion of the evening. The mere fact that Oswald had been

invited to a party given to such an exclusive set of people was, in the

eyes of the minister, who knew them well, a remarkable sign, full of

deep meaning. And, in addition to all this, there was another

circumstance which made the minister desire the favor and friendship of

Doctor Stein. The holy man was not without ambition. He felt he was

intended for better things than to preach the gospel to the boors of

Fashwitz. He did not wish to have ruined his eyesight in vain in

searching old manuscripts at Grunwald, nor to have published in vain a

most learned dissertation on the long-forgotten fragments of a

long-forgotten father of the Church. He was a doctor, and wanted to

become a professor--professor in the same University town through whose

streets he had crept fifteen years ago as a poor forlorn student of

divinity.

He wished it all the more eagerly as Primula wished it; Primula, who

was heartily tired of the fields, in which her "Cornflowers" had

bloomed forth, and who saw herself, in imagination, preside at an

aesthetic tea-table of the seat of the Muses, the congenial wife of a

famous professor. In order to attain this lofty end, Professor Berger

could be of infinite use to him; for his vote was decisive in the

appointing board. It is true he thoroughly detested him in his heart,

as an avowed adherent of Voltaire and Spinoza, a declared atheist;

nevertheless he had more than once made great efforts to obtain his

patronage. A recommendation from Oswald was worth more than a learned

dissertation--consequently, Oswald's friendship a "consummation most

devoutly to be wished for," and an occasional eulogy, which might come

to his ears, "no bad theology."

Thus the minister thought and calculated.

What was therefore his surprise, when the baroness answered his

gracious phrase in a tone of voice which promised nothing good:

"Tell me sincerely, Mr. Jager, what do you think of the young man?"

To hear the pupil of Berger, the favorite of Primula, the lion of the

party of last night, called simply a "young man!" He did not trust his

own ears. He looked over his round glasses at the baroness, to see if

her face furnished him perhaps a commentary on the enigmatical

question. As he saw himself disappointed in his hope, and was

absolutely uncertain what he ought to reply, he resorted to his usual

remedy in such critical cases: he raised his shoulders and his eyebrows

as much as he could, and he drew down the corners of his mouth to their

full extent, leaving the indiscreet questioner to interpret his gesture

in any way _she_ chose.

"You hesitate to answer," said the baroness; "I admit it is not very

easy to understand Doctor Stein. He certainly has some very estimable

qualities, and his manners are surprisingly good for a man of such

humble birth. Only yesterday Countess Grieben thought I was trying to

mystify her, when I told her that the young man who came with us was

our tutor. But, unfortunately, a tolerable carriage, clever speeches

and such things are not all, and I am not quite sure yet whether we

have really made a good acquisition in the young man."

"But, dearest Anna Maria," said the baron, "why not rely on Professor

Berger, who----"

"Dear Grenwitz, I rely on no one but myself. The professor may have

been won over by Stein's pleasant manners, as well as you and others,

and suppose even that his literary qualifications are really

satisfactory----"

"Well, that is, I think, settled, madam," said the minister, who wished

to be safe on that side at least, even though he saw he would have to

sacrifice Oswald; "it cannot be presumed for a moment that the

professor should have allowed himself to be imposed upon by an

ignoramus, with whom he has been so intimate. We may think what we

choose of his unchristian, or at least unchurchlike views, but his

sagacity and his erudition are undisputed."

"I assume no judgment in literary matters," said the baroness; "and I

believe readily that Doctor Stein may have found time for strictly

scientific studies, as well as for pistol-shooting, in which I am told

he excels; but no one can have good manners, and learning into the

bargain, and yet be an immoral man."

"But, dearest Anna Maria," said the old baron, quite frightened, while

the minister was drawing down the corners of his mouth and nodded

assent.

"I repeat it, an immoral man. If I had known, what I have unfortunately

learnt too late, that the professor, with all his far-famed erudition,

is looked upon by many as an atheist and democrat,--I do not know which

of the two is the worst, for he who does not honor God cannot honor the

king, and _vice versa_--I say, if I had known that the professor is a

freethinker and a man of revolutionary ideas, I should never have

allowed him a voice in the choice of an instructor for my son."

"But, dearest Anna Maria," said the baron, "it is quite possible after

all that your fears with regard to Doctor Stein may be unfounded. I

never have heard a word from him, as far as I can remember, which would

confirm your terrible suspicion."

"Well, Mr. Jager," said the baroness, "are you also firmly convinced of

the young man's innocence?"

"I should not honor the truth," said the latter, with an air of deep

regret, "if I were to deny that I have heard him say things which

approach to frivolity, I might almost say, to sacrilege; they pained me

deeply. But I consoled myself with the thought that the best of wines

is apt to be tasteless and muddy in the time of fermentation, and

relied on the goodness of Him who changed Saul into Paul."

"That is very fine and very Christian," said the baroness, "but it does

not comfort me at all. If my child's _soul_ is poisoned, then it

matters very little to me whether the poisoner repents his crime or

not, and I confess that the events of last night have almost convinced

me of the suspicions which, I can safely say, I have cherished against

Stein from the very first moment."

"Did anything special occur, madam?" asked the minister, drawing his

chair half an inch nearer to her.

"I do not like to speak of it," replied the baroness; "and if I do it

now, it is only because I know you as an old friend of our house, and

can rely on your discretion."

"My sacred duty, madam," said the minister, bowing deep and putting his

hand on his heart.

"You know Baron Oldenburg?" continued the baroness.

"Not personally, madam; only what I heard you and the baron say when I

have been kindly permitted to listen to your conversation."

"Then you know what his sad reputation is! You know that we have to

endure the sorrow of seeing the last scion of one of our oldest and

noblest families running with open eyes--for the baron is a remarkably

gifted man--into his own destruction."

"But, dearest Anna Maria," said the baron, who was nervously moving

about on his chair, "I should not think the subject of this

conversation was exactly suited----"

"I know what I owe to my rank," said the baroness, "and I shall act

accordingly. The baron's apostasy from the faith of his ancestors is

unfortunately so notorious that I am sure I need not use any reserve on

that subject with a friend of the nobility (the minister bowed twice),

and a friend of our house (the reverend gentleman placed his hand on

his heart). You know, Mr. Jager, that the baron avoids our society in

order to frequent that of all kinds of people whom we generally try to

escape; that he is constantly talking of friends of the truth and

lovers of the people, and that to be distinguished by him is almost

equivalent to being a lost man, if his favor falls upon one whose

social position is so very far below his own. Now, last night, the

baron distinguished Mr. Stein in a most striking, not to say offensive

manner; he not only did his best to introduce him to everybody, but he

also treated him as his own and as our equal, and to crown his conduct,

which I do not care to designate more accurately, he took him in his

own carriage, because the Grenwitz carriage had not had time to come

back for him. He actually brought him as far as the gates, thus making

a detour of at least two miles!"

"But, dearest Anna Maria, anybody would----"

"Pardon me, dear Grenwitz; anybody else would not have done so, and

least of all the baron, whose rough, unpleasant manner, even to men of

his own rank, has become proverbial, if he had not found in Mr. Stein a

man of his own way of thinking, an atheist, and an enthusiast for

so-called Liberty, _enfin_, an immoral man, to repeat the word which

excited your indignation, and which I hope you will now concede is not

ill-applied in Mr. Stein's case."

The baroness paused, proudly conscious of having victoriously defended

her view; the minister remained silent, in order not to interrupt his

noble patroness in her enjoyment, and the baron said nothing, because

he had nothing at all to say. This compound silence was suddenly

interrupted by a noise from the hall, upon which the door opened, the

mewing of a cat, and immediately afterwards the angry bark of a dog.

Such a noise was unheard of at Castle Grenwitz, where neither cats nor

dogs were admitted, and hence all three looked amazed.

"What can that be?" asked the baron, rising and opening the door.

"Ah! I see you, baron!" a clear loud voice sang out.

"It is Mr. Timm!" said the latter, turning round to his ends in the

room, and then to the person outside.

"Will you come in, Mr. Timm?"

CHAPTER V.

The invitation was immediately accepted by a young man of perhaps

twenty-five, although the fresh complexion of a perfectly beardless

face made him at first sight appear several years younger. The

well-shaped head was covered with smooth blond hair, long enough to be

brushed back, and to leave the very white forehead free, which rose

boldly above his light-blue eyes; at least such appeared to be their

color, as seen through the glasses which he wore. His figure was of

medium size, but broad in the shoulders, and his compact muscular frame

seemed to be made to bear fatigue easily. The young man seemed to care

little for his appearance. His costume consisted of a light summer-coat

of doubtful color, which seemed to have been exposed to many a tempest,

and of trousers of the same material, color, and quality. His linen had

evidently been whiter when it left the hands of the laundress. His

carriage corresponded with his appearance: it was less elegant than

easy, and agreed in this point also, that Mr. Timm might easily have

improved it if he had chosen.

"Beg ten thousand pardons," he said, laughing, as he made a very

informal bow to the baroness and gave a familiar nod to the minister,

"if I have interrupted an interesting conversation by my lyric

Intermezzo; but I really did not know what else to do, as I have not

the honor, madam, to know your servants by name, and in vain looked for

a bell in this part of the house. I had peeped into several doors

already, and if I could have suspected that the fifth, which I had not

even noticed before, should have been opened by the baron himself, I

should have saved myself my musical performance, which was intended

solely for the less sensitive ear of some serving spirit--How are you,

madam? Fatigued by the heat? Shouldn't wonder--eighty-five in the

shade--real hot-house temperature.--I bring you much love from your

wife, Mr. Jager; saw her an hour ago in Fashwitz. She'll come towards

evening with the one-horse chaise, to fetch you home. I have surveyed

the whole of Sassitz, baron. If you agree, we'll draw up the plats at

once, if the baroness will have the kindness to give me a room in the

chateau."

Mr. Timm paused, and put his hand in his pocket to take out his

handkerchief and to wipe his forehead, on which the perspiration stood

in big drops. But as he recollected in time that this very useful part

of his toilet was by no means in a fit condition to be exhibited in

such company, he left it where it was, passed his hand over his

forehead and his hair, and looked as cheerful and happy as if he was

the sole and legitimate heir to the Grenwitz estates, which he had to

survey in the sweat of his face.

"Certainly," said the baroness, who liked Mr. Timm on account of his

unpretending manner, and who, imperious as she was, or rather because

she was so imperious, instinctively appreciated a man who was afraid of

no one and whom nothing could disconcert for a moment; "certainly, Mr.

Timm. You know you are always welcome. You will be better able to work

here, where nothing interrupts you, than in town, and it is our mutual

advantage to have the work done as soon as possible. You have brought

your things, I hope?"

"Is all in the hall, where the rustic youth, who guided the ponies

which brought me here in a fair dog-trot, has put them down," said Mr.

Timm, whose "things" consisted of a small trunk of melancholy

appearance, filled with some clean and not much soiled linen, a few

articles of a wardrobe which no one could call extravagant, and a large

portfolio with drawings, surveys, etc. "I only need the guidance of one

of your serving-spirits to show me the room you may have kindly

appropriated to my use, and I shall at once establish my domestic

altars there."

"Will you have the kindness to pull that bell-rope twice?" said Anna

Maria, with a gracious smile.

"With pleasure," said Mr. Timm; "this instrumental method of conjuring

up the spirits of the deep is more convenient than my vocal method, and

also more efficient, as I see."

The servant who entered received his orders to show Mr. Timm his room.

"It has been ready for you several weeks, Mr. Timm," said the baroness.

"You are kind and provident, like providence itself, madam," said Mr.

Timm, rising, and unceremoniously kissing the baroness' hand; "_au

revoir_, gentlemen, till supper, at which I hope to see you in the same

frame in which I shall appear--I mean in good-humor and with still

better appetite," and then he briskly followed the servant.

"Really a nice man, this Mr. Timm," said the baroness; "so harmless, so

unpretending, so perfectly aware of his position in society, and never

assuming any airs, like certain other people."

"Yes indeed!" affirmed the minister; "a very nice, modest young man. He

really deserves encouragement, both on account of his talents, which

are quite eminent, and on account of the good family to which he

belongs.

"Gustava knows his family and all about them very well; I also

recollect, from my time in Grunwald, his father, a distinguished

lawyer, who lost his large fortune, shortly before his death, by some

unlucky speculation. His relations are still in very good places. One

of his uncles is a major in the army. Mr. Timm himself was intended for

the army, and, I believe, actually served as ensign; but his father's

losses compelled him to abandon that career and to become an engineer

or surveyor. He is very desirous to attend lectures at the Institute at

the capital, but unfortunately he lacks----" the minister here made a

sign with his thumb and forefinger as if he were counting money.

"Why, what a pity!" said the baroness. "I wish we could help the poor

fellow. Could not his uncle the major lend him a few hundred dollars?

But, to be sure, these gentlemen in the army have generally hard enough

work themselves.--_Ah! mademoiselle, vous arrivez bien a propos!

Veuillez avoir la bonte!_"

The baroness had risen to give her instructions to Mademoiselle

Marguerite.

"Would you like to see my beehives, Mr. Jager?" said the baron.

"With the greatest pleasure," replied the latter, taking his hat and

cane.

"Don't stay away too long," said the baroness, "we shall have a little

supper.--_Que voulais-je dire? Ah oui! Du chocolat, mais pas si

enormement sucre que la derniere fois et prenez garde_, ..."

The evening had come, and with it Mrs. Jager, in the one-horse chaise.

Primula wore the same dress of raw silk in which she had appeared to

Oswald last Sunday, and, fatigued as she was by the great heat of the

day, she looked more than ever like a sick canary-bird. Her husband had

taken the first opportunity, after the long-winded greeting between her

and the baroness was finished, to whisper to her, that it would be

better not to appear too enthusiastic about her new friend. He told her

that the young man seemed by no means to enjoy the favor of the baron

and the baroness in a very high degree--a piece of news which so

astounded the "dweller in higher regions," that she was hardly able to

return Oswald's salutation when he appeared in the parlor, shortly

before supper was announced.

Oswald's good-humor would have probably been excited by this strange

conduct of his enthusiastic hostess of the Sunday before, if he had

only become aware of it. But unfortunately he was in that state of mind

in which, as Oldenburg said, we have eyes and ears wide open without

seeing or hearing anything. The shadow of the events of the last day

and last night were still lying on his soul and on his brow. His usual

vivacity had given way to melancholy calmness; he looked pale and

thoughtful, but so very handsome and distinguished, that Primula's

delicate soul began once more to feel the charm which the young

stranger had exercised on his first meeting with her. She forgot, thus,

the warning of her husband all the more completely, as she noticed the

particular courtesy with which the baroness and her husband treated the

man who had just now been denounced to her as a fallen greatness. She

was in her heart preparing a sermon which she was to deliver to Mr.

Jager on their return journey, because he had, as usually, not seen

"the forest amid so many trees." The worthy minister was himself, at

first, not a little disconcerted by the contrast between the words and

the actions of the baroness. But he knew better than anybody else that

men do not always appear such as they really are, and that they are not

always what they seem to be; he thought it best, therefore, faithfully

to imitate the manner of his patroness, an effort which was not

difficult for such a master in the noble art of hypocrisy.

Nevertheless, the conversation at the supper-table would probably have

been very far from lively, in spite of the apparent concord and harmony

of the company, if Mr. Timm had possessed the happy gift of assuming

the color of the company in which he found himself; this was, however,

not at all the fact.

Mr. Timm had fully come up to his promise to appear at table in

good-humor and with a better appetite. He found the chocolate, which

was by no means _enormement sucre_ excellent, the bread excellent, the

butter excellent, everything excellent; and what a delightful idea to

have the table set just on that part of the terrace from which one had

such a charming view of the garden! How wonderfully fine those lights

and shades were on the tall trees beyond the lawn! Really, a genuine

Claude Lorraine! "Really, baron, if I were not Diogenes I should like

to be Alexander! But then we cannot all dwell in marble palaces; there

must be dwellers in tubs also, and happy the man whose tub is to him a

castle! You ought to immortalize that thought in an epigram, Mrs.

Jager! You have such a decided talent for that branch of poetry; even

in your best lyric poems I have often found an epigrammatic turn. Thus

in the charming little poem on the May Bug. How was the last line, 'The

false image of May?' or like that? That is in itself already an

epigram. Do you know that in Grunwald they have never yet got over your

desertion? Only quite lately Professor Shylight, whom I met at Dean

Black's, said: It is unwarrantable that a certain great scholar, whom I

will not name, should bury the great wealth of his erudition in the

solitude of a village. I replied that it was still more unwarrantable

in the author of the 'Cornflowers' to live forever among cornflowers."

Thus he rattled on with great alacrity, and yet all that Timm said

seemed to drop accidentally from his lips, as if he had not the

slightest idea of being clever or witty. One listened to him as to a

merry canary-bird, too loud perhaps in his merriment, but who sees the

sun come into his cage, and takes it into its little head to pour

out all its songs and melodies for once. Oswald, however, could not

help thinking at times that Timm's humor was, after all, not always

quite as natural as it seemed to be. He fancied Timm was playing his

well-studied and well-calculated part in a perfectly natural manner, to

be sure, but so as to ridicule and chaff the whole company, while he

seemed to be a good-natured _bon vivant_ and an ingenuous child of

nature. He was confirmed in his suspicions by the fact that Timm always

assumed an entirely different tone whenever he spoke to him, as if he

meant: I must not venture upon such tricks with you; but they do not

find me out so easily.

None of the others, however, seemed to share this suspicion, which

suggested itself all the more naturally to Oswald, as he himself

frequently amused himself thus at the expense of the company, for whom

he felt such thorough contempt. Perhaps Bruno might have thought

something like it. He was sitting by his side, more sombre and reserved

than usual, and never moving a muscle to smile, even when everybody

around him--Oswald included--was laughing aloud, especially towards the

end of the supper, when Mr. Albert Timm began a conversation with his

neighbor, Mademoiselle Marguerite, in which he mingled French and

German in the most ludicrous manner. The pretty bashful Genevese girl

had taken great pains to follow Mr. Timm in all his odd sayings during

the conversation, turning continually with a sudden: _Que veut dire

cela?_ to her neighbor on the other side; but Malte answered these

questions but rarely, as he himself did not understand more than half

of what the inexhaustible talker had said till the latter commenced the

amusing jargon with her, breaking off, however, with great tact as soon

as he saw that the pretty girl was embarrassed by the laughter of the

others.

It had become quite dark, when the baroness rose and invited Mr. and

Mrs. Jager, who were thanking her in many words for the delightful

evening they had spent, before taking formal leave, to stay and play an

old-fashioned game of whist with the baron and herself, "such a staid

old game, you know, Mr. Jager, as suits staid old people like

ourselves."

Malte had gone to bed. Oswald and Bruno, Albert and Mademoiselle

Marguerite were walking in pairs around the lawn and in the nearest

garden-walks.

"You never told me yet, Oswald," said Bruno--he now called his friend,

when they were alone, always Oswald simply--"whether you saw Aunt

Berkow yesterday?"

"Yes, Bruno."

"Did she look pretty?"

"As ever."

"Did she send me her love?"

"Of course."

"Do you know, Oswald, I think Aunt Berkow is quite fond of you?"

"Why, little fool?"

"She was always looking at you so the other evening--so very

kindly--and I don't know how--but her eyes looked brighter--and she

sometimes looks at me so, when she strokes my hair, and still it was

not quite the same way."

"Ah, Bruno, you do not know what you are saying."

"I know it very well, but I cannot express it as well as you big,

clever people. I was quite jealous of you that evening, for before that

she was almost most kind to me. I should not know how Aunt Berkow looks

when she is fond of somebody! I know it perfectly well!" said Bruno,

defiantly.

"And I know more than that," he continued, after a pause. "I ought not

to tell, because aunt warned me against letting anybody know; but now I

think she was not in earnest when she said so."

"What was that?" asked Oswald, with assumed indifference.

"I will tell you," said Bruno. "Last Saturday, in the afternoon, when

you were writing letters, I had gone into the forest towards Berkow,

because that is my favorite walk. Suddenly aunt comes riding up, quite

alone, not even Bonc[oe]ur with her. She rode Brownlock, whom she

always takes when she wants to go fast, and she must have been riding

fast then, for Brownlock's neck and chest, and even her riding-habit,

were all covered with white foam. Why, Bruno! she said, offering me her

hand, where are you going to? Nowhere, aunt, as usually, said I, but

where are you going to!--Nowhere, like yourself, she answered,

laughing; so we can continue on our way together.--If you will walk

your horse, I said, not otherwise. And thus we went for half an hour or

more through the forest, and the whole time we talked of nothing but of

yourself, and aunt asked me if I was fond of you, to which I replied,

of course, No! How you looked and if you were cheerful? Whether you

studied much? and a hundred other things, which I have forgotten. At

last she charged me to give you her regards, and to ask you if you

still had the engravings you had been speaking of, and if you would not

send them to her--and then she called me back, and said I had better

not remind you of them, and not tell you that she had spoken of

you--but, as I told you, now I do not think she meant exactly what she

said."

"Why not now, Bruno?"

"Because----" the boy was silent; suddenly he said in a low tone, as

if he feared the dark bushes would hear it:

"Tell me, Oswald, how is it, when people are in love?"

"How do you mean?" asked Oswald, not a little embarrassed by the boy's

question.

"I mean, what kind of love is that of which the books have so much to

say? I love you, love you very much, but I think there must be some

other kind of love. Thus I never understood why we should not love

anybody we choose to love. Now, I love my Aunt Berkow above all things.

I could do anything for her! I sometimes wish she would fall into the

water and I could jump after her; or, as it happened the other day,

Brownlock would be rearing and I would seize the reins and struggle

with him, and not let him go again, although he should trample upon me

with his hoofs.--Now, such wishes never occur to me when I am near you,

Oswald, or when I think of you at a distance."

"Because I am a man, Bruno, and you know that I could and would help

myself, without aid from others. But the love we feel for a woman

partakes of the consciousness that we must protect her who cannot

defend herself with our superior strength and courage, and that makes

our love deeper, and fuller of sympathy. And then there is still

another feeling mixed up with it, of which I can only tell you that it

is pure as nature itself, but also as chaste, and which therefore must

not be awakened before the right time, if it is not to become as fatal

to rash man as the boldness of the youth, whom the thirst for knowledge

drove to Sais and to the temple where she dwelt, hid in close veils,

Isis, the chaste, holy goddess of nature."

"I do not quite understand you, Oswald."

"The world and life are full of riddles, Bruno. Life is a Sphinx and we

are [Oe]dipus. And it is the curse of [Oe]dipus that he must solve the

enigma, although the solution makes him unhappy."

"You are not angry with me, Oswald?"

"I angry, darling! Why should _I_?"

"Because I trouble you with such absurd questions."

"You ought to ask me, Bruno; ask me about everything which causes you

doubt or trouble. Your soul ought to lie open before me like a book,

which I may peruse over and over again. Would to God I could write

nothing but what is wise and good on its white pages."

"You are always kind, so very kind towards me, Oswald, and I return

only ingratitude and obstinacy!"

"No, you do not do that--and then, are we not brothers? Brothers must

love, and bear, and support each other, and have no right to keep their

troubles apart. Bruno, if I could cherish the pious faith of many, that

the spirits of the departed hover around the beloved ones whom they

have left behind upon earth, I would say: From yonder, in the bright

starry sky, our mothers are looking down upon us, and rejoice at our

union and our love. Let us stand by each other in this wild strife of

life, for defence and offence. It will not be long before you are a man

like myself, and would to God a better man than I am. Then the last

difference, the difference of years, which I do not feel even now, will

have disappeared. It may be that then I will look up to you, as you now

look up to me; then you will repay me a hundred-fold what I may be able

to do for you now; then I shall be--oh, so willingly!--your debtor!"

"Ah, that will never be!" said Bruno. "You will always be unattainably

far ahead of me. I shall never be what you are even now."

"You little fool!" said Oswald, and affectionately caressed Bruno's

hair. "Now you are sitting in the pit before the stage of life, and the

pasteboard roll looks to your enthusiastic eye a huge mountain, and all

the tinsel genuine gold. When you are on the stage yourself, the sweet

rosy veil of illusion will drop from before your eyes, and you will see

your mistake. But be it so! After your first painful disappointment,

you will soon understand that it cannot be otherwise; you will not

despise your brother, because you now see that his proud knightly

cloak is of faded silk, and sadly patched, and his spurs nothing but

brass--but hush! here comes Mr. Timm and mademoiselle! It seems Mr.

Timm improves the opportunity to cultivate his French. We will not

disturb him in his praiseworthy purposes. Let us turn off here."