with Mademoiselle Marguerite, speaking eagerly, but carefully softening
his clear, loud voice. He had indeed known how to improve the
"opportunity," though in another sense than that to which Oswald
alluded. The young man attached very little importance to his
pronunciation of French, but very much to the evident advantages he
might derive from the good-will of the young lady, who seemed to
preside over the interior of the household. As he would probably spend
several weeks at the chateau, this was a matter of great interest to
him, and he had taken prompt measures to secure the favor of the little
Frenchwoman, which might in many ways mitigate the monotony of country
life. During the delightful, cosey little _tete-a-tete_, the
conversation had been carried on in German, with an occasional use of
French, as mademoiselle spoke German quite fluently and Mr. Timm spoke
French very badly, and the harmless, innocent, and truth-loving young
man hated nothing more than the possibility of being understood
imperfectly, or, worse than that, of being misunderstood.
"And you have been here long?" he asked.
"Three years."
"Is it possible? And you did not die of _ennui_! You must have a famous
constitution."
"_Plait-il?_
"I mean, it is desperately tiresome to live year after year in this
hole, and, moreover, to live here in such very charming society. But I
suppose you have much to do?"
"_Enormement!_ I have to work like a _forcat_."
"Like what?"
"_Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un forcat?_"
"No--never mind. We'll say, like a horse; that will do, I dare say. You
say then, they make you work like a _forcat_?"
"_Justement!_ I have to open and to lock all doors----"
"That's not so bad," remarked Timm.
"I must hear all the day: Mademoiselle, do this! Mademoiselle, do that!
And the evening, when I am tired that I cannot keep open the eyes, I
must read the stupid old books till madam has the kindness to say:
_C'est assez!--Non, madame, ce n'est pas assez; c'est trop--mille fois
trop!_" said the lively little lady, and stamped with the foot.
"You seem to have a lively temper," said Mr. Timm. "But that is all
right; relieve yourself--that makes the heart lighter--but if the
baroness has so much confidence in you, I suppose you are in high favor
with her?"
"_Au contraire!_ She me uses, because she me needs. She would give me
my _conge_ rather to-day than to-morrow. She me likes, because I not
need much sleep and I eat little."
"Well, then, I shall never be in favor with her," said Mr. Timm. "But
you, poor child, are in a horrible position here. Much work and no
thanks; early rising, and, in return, late retiring; all day threshing
corn, like the good-natured beast in the Bible, but no privileges
granted, as there recorded--who can stand that? You ought to get
married, mademoiselle?"
Marguerite shrugged her shoulders. "Who will marry me? _Je suis si
pauvre et si laide!_"
"What is that?"
"I say: I am poor and I am ugly!"
"I grant the former," said Mr. Timm; "the other is vile slander. You
ugly? _Au contraire_: you are pretty, mademoiselle, _tres_ pretty, very
_belle_----"
"_Vouz plaisantez, monsieur_."
"No jest," said Mr. Timm. "You are a strikingly handsome girl. In the
first place, you have a charming figure----"
"_Trop petite_," said Marguerite.
"Not a bit," replied Mr. Timm; "secondly, you have prodigiously fine
brown eyes, a charming hand, an enchanting little foot----"
"_Mais, monsieur!_"
"Well, what? It is true, and we can say what is true. I bet _monsieur
le docteur_ Stein is of my opinion. Do you love the doctor?"
"I him love?" said the little Frenchwoman, with much animation. "I him
love? I him 'ate!"
"Come, come!" laughed Mr. Timm; "why should you? He is a fine-looking
man."
"_C'est un bel homme, mais c'est un fat_."
"_Un_ what?"
"He is one fool, _oui_, one fool, _qui est monstrueusement amoureux de
lui-meme; mais avec toute sa fierte je me moque de lui, je me moque de
sa fierte, oui, je m'en moque, moi._"
"Pray, don't get excited, and above all speak German, if you wish me to
understand you. What harm has the unfortunate man done you?"
"_Lui malheureux? Il n'est pas malheureux, ce monsieur la! Tout le
monde le flatte, le cajole_----"
"But for Heaven's sake speak German, I say!"
"Do you believe that he has ever spoken ten words to me since that he
is here?"
"That is abominable, to be sure. Ugh! there, I have hurt my foot once
more against a miserable root. I am as blind in the dark as a mole. You
would really do a work of charity if you would take my arm and help me
a little."
"_Tres volontiers, monsieur_."
"Ah, a vain man is this Doctor Stein," said Mr. Timm, holding pretty
Marguerite's arm very close and firm, probably because he was so very
near-sighted; "well, who would have thought so! Do you know, dear
Marguerite--what a pretty name that is: Marguerite!--I may call you
Marguerite, may I?--well, as I was going to say: Don't trouble yourself
about the foolish man, dear Marguerite! If he does not speak to you,
that is his own loss, and if he does not think you pretty, other
people think very differently. I, for instance, although I am very
near-sighted, especially in this dark avenue, where one can hardly see
the hand before one's eyes.--Are you afraid, little Marguerite? No? Why
does your heart beat so? Or could you really, by mere chance, be a
little fond of me? Are you a little fond of me, dear Marguerite? Don't
hesitate; I am an easy kind of man. People say anything to me. Or,
rather, say nothing and give me a kiss.--You won't?--Well, that is
sensible; you French people, and especially you Frenchwomen, are a
charming nation. But why do you cry, little simpleton? Is it high
treason with you to give a man a kiss, and that in the dark?--Pshaw!
There comes that fool, the doctor, with his monkey.... _Bon soir_,
gentlemen, we can play at hide and seek here."
"Or blindman's buff," said Oswald, "and that without bandages. I
suppose we had better go in. If I mistake not, the baroness has been
inquiring for mademoiselle."
Mr. and Mrs. Jager had taken leave with many protestations of their
respect and their gratitude, in order to return in the one-horse chaise
to "their lowly roof" in Fashwitz; Bruno had retired some time before,
and Timm and Oswald were walking up the broad staircase which led to
their rooms.
"This is your room, I think, Mr. Timm," said Oswald, stopping at one of
the many doors which opened upon the passage. The latter led, sometimes
rising a few steps, sometimes descending, in many windings, through the
whole of the older part of the chateau in which Oswald and Mr. Timm
were quartered, and in which several of the less elegant guest-chambers
were situated.
"And where is your tent, doctor?"
"A few doors further on."
"Are you very sleepy?"
"Not particularly so."
"Well, then, permit me to go with you to your room for a few minutes. I
feel the very natural desire to smoke a good cigar in sensible company
after all the nonsense which I have heard talked and which I have
talked myself."
"Well, come," said Oswald, who would much rather have been alone, but
who had too high an idea of the duty of hospitality to refuse so direct
a request. "I am doubtful, however, whether my cigars will be good
enough and my company sensible enough."
"For Heaven's sake! No more compliments for to-day," cried Mr. Timm. "I
have had more than enough, I assure you. Pray, show me the way----"
"A charming tent," said Mr. Timm, as they entered the room. Oswald
lighted the lamp on the table before the sofa and took a box of cigars
from his bureau. "A very nice tub for a cynic who occasionally attends
lectures with the Sybarites; really famous, too comfortable for my
taste. That big arm-chair in the window, from which one can look so
cosily on one side into the garden, and on the other, 'still and deeply
moved,' upon that beautiful Apollo there; nature and art _vis-a-vis_
and one's self between, as the aeronaut said when he fell from his
balloon.--This cigar is superb, genuine Habana, and no stinkador--do
you smoke? no? and you keep such a weed for your friends and
acquaintances!--Most noble of men! Saint Crispin is a highwayman in
comparison with you! What is that in the very suspicious-looking bottle
up there on the book-shelf? I verily believe it is Cognac----"
"And very good old Cognac," said Oswald. "At least my friend Mr.
Wrampe, the steward, says so, who has almost forced me to accept this
bottle,--probably smugglers' ware----"
"And never yet opened! _Me Hercule!_ We must really see if the steward
has told the truth. Do you ever drink grog?"
"Never! But don't let that keep you," said Oswald, good-naturedly
taking down the bottle and drawing the cork. "I'll make you hot water
in an instant."
"No indeed! Why such ceremonies? Cold water answers just as well,
especially in small quantities,--this is a charming evening," said Mr.
Timm, rubbing his hands joyfully. "Now please sit down in that corner
there, on the sofa, so that I feel you are comfortable, if one who does
not smoke and does not drink ever can be comfortable. I will move this
big chair up,--what a weight the fellow has! And now let us have a
chat, as two good people ought to talk, who laugh at all the absurdity
of the so-called great world and good society."
With these words Mr. Timm drew up with his foot another light chair, to
rest his legs upon, and then stretched himself out comfortably, bending
his head back a little, to be able to look the longer at the smoke of
his cigar.
The light of the lamp fell full upon his face, and Oswald now noticed,
for the first time, that Mr. Timm's features were really surprisingly
handsome and interesting, especially seen in profile, when the bold,
clear-cut outlines were fully seen. This discovery was by no means a
matter of indifference to Oswald. He went a step farther than Voltaire,
thinking that the _genre ennuyeux_ was the worst not only of books, but
of men also; and as his sense of the beautiful in forms was very keenly
alive, he allowed himself so very largely to be governed by his love
for all that was picturesque or statuesque, that his sense for the True
and the Good frequently suffered. It was so in this case. Mr. Timm's
unceremonious manner and his thinly veiled materialism had offended him
more than once in the course of the evening, and he had half and half
determined to limit his intercourse with the impudent fellow to the
absolutely necessary meetings; but as he now followed with his eye and
his mind the outlines of the handsome face, he forgot quickly his
resolution.
"Will you please keep still for a few minutes," he said, instinctively
seizing his pencil, in order to sketch Albert's profile on the first
piece of paper which he found on the table amid books and papers.
"Half an hour, if you wish it," replied the other; "I am perfectly
comfortable as I am; only let me smoke, talk, and occasionally take a
sip of this earth-born nectar."
"That will not interfere in the least," said Oswald, drawing busily.
"This old castle is after all a strange old box," said Albert,
dreamily. "I do not think I have any mind for romance, and yet I have
only to put my foot on the winding staircase which leads up this wing,
and I feel all the horrors of the middle ages. Even my language
changes, and I begin to talk, as you hear, like a novel-writer. What
walls! we would make a dozen of them now! If there were people in those
days, as I presume, who could storm doors and walls, what thick skulls
they must have had!"
"Would you be good enough to take off your spectacles," said Oswald?
"With pleasure. If I had lived in the middle ages I should not have
ruined my eyes by reading dusty old books. If the middle ages really
had any advantages over ours, it was this, that people were not
compelled to learn so much. Just imagine: no schools, no Cornelius
Nepos, no history of the middle ages, no examinations, only a few
sparring lessons with an old soldier who had served a number of masters
and knew how to tell a good story of every one of them, and then if a
man wanted to be very highly cultivated, a few lessons on the lute from
a strolling minstrel--a merry, boisterous fellow, who was full of
pretty songs and gay tricks, who had sung under a thousand windows and
kissed a thousand girls,--what a life it must have been! And above all,
this facility of changing your residence; this perfect freedom to move
about at will, limited at most by a couple of stout fellows, who
knocked your brains out in a hollow lane, if they pleased. Georges Sand
has said a pretty thing in one of her novels, the only one I remember,
probably because it was spoken as from my soul: 'What is there finer
than a highroad?' Is not that well said? I could kiss the woman for
that sentence, though she is a blue-stocking, and I hate blue-stockings
like poison. I won't say like the devil, because he is after all but an
unappreciated man of genius, and therefore deserves the sympathy of
every educated man. But if a man of our day is pursued by the devil's
own knaves, his creditors, where can he flee to? Then in those good old
times a man would pack his knapsack some fine morning, or, if he had
none, pack himself and march out of the city gate, and after a quarter
of an hour, when he was outside the corporation, he was safe, and
before evening came he had passed through so many adventures already
that he had long since forgotten the old city and the pretty nut-brown
maid, for whom but yesterday he vowed to live and die. Have you done?
Well, let us see! Hm! You draw like some great painters, the face not
as nature has made it, but as nature ought to have made it, if she had
not unfortunately been blind at the proper moment. Very pretty, indeed,
but I prefer the original. And you are a poet, too, as I see!"
"How so?"
"Well, the other side of this paper, I see, is covered with verses, and
above all, sonnets, which I love passionately. May I read them?"
"They are not worth reading," said Oswald, visibly embarrassed by
Albert's question.--The verses were addressed to Melitta; they had been
written in memory of their first meeting in the forest cottage! He
thought he had put the papers carefully away in his writing-desk, and
now bitterly repented his imprudence, which had placed them now in the
hand of his impertinent guest, whom he had every reason to fear was by
no means discreet. Fortunately, Melitta's name was not mentioned.
"Not worth reading?" said Albert; "we'll see that directly. Poets have
no clear idea of their productions. Think for a moment that I had
written these verses and felt impelled to read them to you? Listen!
'She loves me.' The beginning is as original as truthful. But you must
admit that so old a subject cannot well be treated in a novel manner in
our day. Albert read the two sonnets which he found in the paper
clearly and intelligently, almost with a certain air of feeling. Oswald
was grateful to him. He had been afraid the impudent fellow would have
profaned his poems, which he only valued, after all, as true
expressions of what he had really felt. He was glad to get off so
cheap.
"Do you never make verses?" he asked, taking the paper, and adding it
to some others, which seemed likewise to contain poetry.
"I?" said Mr. Timm, refreshing himself heartily from his glass, "Heaven
save me! I am much too practical. Practical and poetical views of the
world agree like cat and dog. When the little kitten Poetry mews in her
tenderest tones, the dog Prose begins to bark furiously and the little
enthusiast is silenced. Why would you, for instance, die instantly, 'if
Fate should deny you such wondrous bliss?' That is as unpractical as it
can be. Why should you poets anyways insist upon purposely spoiling all
the little pleasure that is left us on this melancholy planet? But, to
be sure, I talk as the blind man talks of colors. Perhaps you are,
after all, better off in your home in the clouds than we on this dark
earth, where one has to suffer much of corns and other earthly
sensations which are unknown to you airy dwellers on high. I have
often wished I had a decided talent for one or the other arts: poetry,
music, operations on corns, painting, grimacing, sculpture,
prestidigitation--anything, any notion, which might console me when the
waves of life wash over my head. I remember I once saw a badger at a
fair, who showed me what a blessing such a talent is in misfortune. All
the other brutes, without talents, were running about like mad in their
cages, or roared from hunger and rage, or at best resigned themselves
to their fate in despair. But Master Badger, true to his artistic
instinct, worked indefatigably at the imaginary den in his cage,
scratching, scratching, all the time scratching, from morn till
evening. This evidently made him forget hunger and cold, even his
captivity; he found perfect happiness in the exercise of his talent,
even under such desperately unfavorable circumstances. I wish I were a
badger!--That Cognac is really capital! You ought to take a glass too,
doctor, to drive away those clouds on your Apollo brow. When I was a
boy people looked upon me as a marvel because I could imitate
everything, precisely as the magpie whistles what others play. That boy
will be a great genius, said the foolish people, whenever I astounded
them by some _tour de force_ of my memory, which retained good things
and bad things equally well. I wish I had been forced to sit still and
to study, like the other poor boys whose compositions I then wrote, and
who are now great men, while I am little better than a vagabond. But
_vive la joie! vive la bagatelle!_ There must be vagabonds also in the
world, simply because otherwise there would be no staid, respectable
people. Vagabonds are the salt of the earth, or at least the seeds
flying about which scatter vegetation over the whole earth, instead of
letting it be confined to a few spots. Vagabonds founded Carthage,
vagabonds founded Rome. An honest fellow, born in Europe without a
cigar in his mouth--gold spoons are out of fashion, I believe--can do
nothing better than to emigrate to America, if he feels an earnest
desire to smoke a really good cigar and does not choose to steal it, or
if he has not the good luck to stumble over a nice young man like
yourself, who keeps cigars and Cognac for his friends, and listens to
their idle talk till his eyes droop with sleepiness. Upon my word! I
have diminished the contents of that bottle by a third! How swiftly all
here below passes away! _Buona notte, Don Oswaldo!_ Sleep well and
dream _dolcemente_ of the _begli occhi della donna bella, amata,
immaculata_ of your sonnets. I for my part will follow Hamlet's example
and go to my prayers, for unfortunately I have not even a talent for
sleeping, much less for dreaming. Good-night, _dottore!_"
"Good-night!" said Oswald, rising half asleep from his sofa and
accompanying Mr. Timm to the door.
"Not a step farther, _dottore_," said the latter. "Everything with
moderation!" and when the door had closed behind him he remained
standing there a moment, put the thumb of his right hand to his nose,
quickly moving the other four fingers--a gesture which was less
complimentary to Oswald than expressive of the childlike, ingenuous
mind of Mr. Timm.
CHAPTER VI.
The oppressive heat which had prevailed of late was followed by a few
cool, rainy days.
On such days Castle Grenwitz looked more grim and lonely even than
ordinarily. On other days, if no one else came there, the light of the
sun at least entered in at the windows, and penetrated into all the
rooms, even those locked-up staterooms in the upper stories, with their
costly though faded brocade furniture, and greeted here and there a
portrait which it knew now for a hundred years or more. On other days,
if no one else was merry, the sparrows at least twittered, who had made
their nests in the crevices of the old tower and the stucco-ornaments
of the new addition, and who quarrelled as unconcernedly about their
private affairs as if the baronial mansion was a common cottage or a
miserable barn. And if you felt, in spite of all that, too lonely and
deserted in the chateau, you could go down into the garden, where the
flowers shone in much fairer and brighter colors than the tapestry and
the chairs and the sofas in the staterooms, where gay butterflies
hovered over the gay flowers, where the birds were caroling, the bees
humming busily, and everywhere rich, active life was going on, full of
joy and brightness for him who had eyes to see and ears to hear.
On rainy days all that was changed. Then the portraits on the wall
could tell each other undisturbed old, old stories, to their hearts'
content, and the curious sunlight would never so much as see them
blush; then even the sparrows were at peace for a time, or fought at
least in silence for the best and the driest places, and in the garden
the flowers hung their rain-washed heads, and all the rich, gay life
looked as if it had died out. In the wet walks and over the parterres
cold winds played with each other, and mercilessly tore pretty,
delicate flowers to pieces, and upset tall beanpoles, and swept up the
trees to shake the branches, and make an infinite ado.
This melancholy weather harmonized with Oswald's state of mind. Since
the day he had passed at Barnewitz a great change had taken place in
him, which he could hardly explain himself. He felt as if suddenly a
close veil had fallen on his eyes, which made everything look to him
discolored and unattractive; he felt as if a hostile hand had mixed a
drop of wormwood with his cup of life, from which he had recently drunk
so eagerly. Even the image of the beautiful lady who was enthroned in
the holiest of his heart seemed to have lost its magic power. Where was
now all the happiness he used to feel when he recalled her and the
sunny hours he had spent with her? Where the restless longing to see
her face, to hear her voice? Where the feverish impatience with which
he followed the course of the sun and wished for the night, so he might
steal down the narrow stairs that led from his room into the garden and
hasten to the forest, to spend hours and hours watching around the
forest chapel? And yet he knew that she was mourning for him now in her
solitude; that she had long since forgiven his boyish defiance and his
childish impatience; that not a word of reproach, not a glance of
reproof would receive him if he should return; that she would open her
arms wide, and welcome him to her loving heart! Alas! It was not she
whom he doubted, nor her love; it was himself and his own love that he
doubted! Oldenburg's last words: Who of us is still able to love with
all his heart? Who of us still has a whole heart? fell again and again
upon his ear like the low tolling of a bell, like the song at the
grave. And a voice which he could not silence whispered to him,
wherever he went and stood, by night and by day: Not you! Not you!--Is
it not written in the lines of your hand? Did not the brown woman in
the forest see it at the first glance? Not you! Not you!--And when you
fell at Melitta's feet, and when you stammered the vow of love and
faithfulness, did she not hastily and anxiously close your lips, as if
she wished to save you from the crime of perjury: Oh, do not swear! I
may swear to you love now and evermore, but not you! not you!
Rainy weather! How the wind drives the big drops against the panes, so
that they become dim, like eyes that have wept too much! How heavy and
low the clouds are drifting, the gray mourning cloaks, as if they must
touch the tops of the poplar trees on the castle wall with their hems!
Ah! that I was lying out there beneath the wet black soil, relieved of
all anguish of doubt or repentance! Ah! that I could partake of the
deep peace of Nature! Be one with the elements! Rush along with the
wind, flare up to heaven with the flame, pass away with the water of
the stream in the ocean!
Are the wise men of the East right when they say that the whole life of
man is but one great mistake? Are we all of us lost sons, who have
forsaken our good old father's house to feed upon the husks? And is it
true that we may return to him at any time, if we only wish to do so
with all our heart? Who of us has still a whole heart for living or for
dying? Not you! Not you!
Self-confidence is like the cloud sent by the gods, which surrounds us,
and then we are enabled to walk unhurt through all the troubles of
life, and when we fall to fall like heroes, with the death-wound on our
brow or in our brave hearts. Doubt of ourselves is like a sudden
vertigo, which seizes us on a steep height, which chills our blood,
loosens the strength of our sinews, and at last hurls us irretrievably
into the abyss.
In such painful moments man is apt to join any one who wanders merrily
along the path of life, defying the perils of the road, as a lost child
in the woods runs up to the first one it meets.
Such a bold wanderer Oswald thought his new acquaintance, and thus it
came about that he sought in these evil days most industriously the
company of Albert Timm, who was ever ready to laugh and to joke and to
play tricks. This readiness surprised him all the more, as he was
generally most fastidious in the choice of his friends.
Albert needed as little time to make himself perfectly at home in a new
place as the Arab needs to pitch his tent. Arrangements he had none to
make. He left it to his things, which were not many in number, to seek
their place in his room. If one boot preferred standing bolt upright
on top of a chair, and the other liked to lie on the floor, heel
upwards--he did not object. If his dress-coat, the only really
respectable garment he owned, preferred to forget its existence, rolled
up in a little ball and put away between sorted linen in a corner of
his melancholy little portmanteau, he did not disturb its enjoyment.
And he himself, the happy owner of all these treasures, was standing
there in his shirt-sleeves, in spite of the cool weather, bending over
his drawing-board, whistling, drawing, singing, and laughing at Oswald,
who came to visit him on account of what he called his mute's look.
"Dottore, dottore!" he said, "you look as if you suffered excruciating
pain from the grog which I have drunk last night. Upon my word, you
disgrace the weather! Did you ever sit, as a boy, in a garret window,
sending from a short clay pipe beautiful soap-bubbles into the bright
air, while down stairs among the leaden soldiers a half-finished
exercise was lying, which was to earn you, a few hours later, a sound
whipping on the part of your teacher? You see, that is a picture of
life. Our knowledge is a half-finished exercise, and our best exercises
remain fragments; the most brilliant soap-bubbles will burst, and the
hardest whipping is forgotten in an hour or two. All is vanity, but
especially our regret that all is vanity! Why? I did not make the
world, and, as far as I know, you did not make it Why, then, should we
two rack our brains about it? I rack my brains about nothing, for
instance, not even about this line, which I have evidently made too
short, and which I must now at random extend gracefully till it meets
this angle--by the by, a most romantic corner of the wood, where I met
a most charming little red-cheeked peasant girl, who, no doubt, is the
cause of my mistake. Well, no matter! The account does not always
tally, why else should we have fractions, and the Grenwitz entail
remains, for all that, a very beautiful invention, especially for that
poor boy Malte. Is the boy really as stupid as he looks?"
"By no means," replied Oswald, who shared the little sofa in the room
with a tin box for dried plants, from which a stocking of blue yarn was
bashfully peeping forth. "Malte can count up to five, and considerably
beyond. He has a decided talent for many things, especially for
arithmetic, while Bruno, who lacks that talent, remains a long way
behind him."
"Yes, Providence is wise," said Albert, preparing his sepia within a
little porcelain vessel; "it gives to him who is to eat turtle-soup in
life, a gold spoon at his birth, and he to whom she doles out the
ship-biscuit of poverty receives kindly a number of hollow teeth, so
that he need not be long annoyed by his hard fare. I, for my part,
received by mistake a set of excellent teeth, and thus I relish my
hard-tack prodigiously,--so much, in fact, that I can never feel very
angry at these empty-headed, thick-bellied children of my step-mother
Nature, who are eating turtle-soup with gold spoons, and are thoroughly
spoilt in the bargain. But one thing I should like, and that is, if
there should turn up a claimant to the codicil in the last will of
Baron Harald, who died in delirium tremens, and no doubt now sleeps in
the bosom of Father Abraham."
"Then you know the sad story?" asked Oswald.
"Who does not know it?" replied Albert, lighting a cigar and seating
himself on the back of his chair so that his feet rested on the seat of
the chair. "Do they not publish it every year, to the infinite dismay
of the haughty Anna Maria, who is as miserly as she is haughty? Still,
I hardly think it has been done these last years!"
"I am only astonished," said Oswald, "that I never heard a word of the
whole story till I came here, and never read anything about it in the
papers."
"You know nobody reads court advertisements, proclamations, and the
like, as long as he has nothing to hope and nothing to fear from such
advertisements. Nor would I, in all probability, know anything more of
the original idea of this defunct baron, if my father had not felt a
lawyer's interest in the matter, and, I believe, himself had something
to do with it. Perhaps he was engaged in forming the codicil to the
testament, or in writing the latter. The proclamation was, besides,
expressed in very vague terms, and amounted to little more than this:
The young lady in question, or her child, male or female, if one had
been born within a certain period, I do not exactly remember when, were
called upon to present their claims--of course, duly authenticated in
all formality since a considerable legacy had been left to them by
Baron Harald, who had been 'gathered to his fathers,' probably a set of
men not much better than their profligate descendant. The amount of the
legacy was not mentioned. I, however, know, as many other people also
know, that it amounts to nothing less than the two magnificent estates
of Stantow and Baerwalde, situated on this very island. I know them
very well, since I surveyed them only last summer."
"It would indeed be a charming surprise for our amiable family here if
such a claimant should present himself," said Oswald.
"I should think so," replied Albert "Unfortunately there is very little
prospect for it, as the bequest only continues valid twenty-five years,
and then relapses into the family. Of these twenty-five years, at least
twenty-two or three must have elapsed, for I am now twenty-six, and I
recollect I always used to regret that I had not the prescribed age."
"Why?"
"I might have indulged at least in the charming uncertainty, whether I
might not by chance be the Ivanhoe who wanders about on earth, unknown
and driven from his paternal inheritance; who has to make friends with
swine-herds in spite of his knightly descent, and to borrow money from
dirty old Jews, until he can at last drop his incognito and lead the
beautiful Rowena home as his wife, although I would, for my part,
attach less importance to the last-mentioned event."
"Did you ever communicate this wish to your father, when you conversed
with him about this mysterious affair? It would have been so peculiarly
complimentary to him."
"I do not remember; but if I ever did it, my father was liberal enough
to think such a childish idea perfectly natural. We cannot help
ourselves in that respect: we must have a father, although this wise
institution is at times highly inconvenient, as, for instance, when we
have done a foolish thing, or mean to do one; and therefore I do not
see why I should not prefer a father who leaves me two magnificent
farms, to another father who sends me into the wide world as the
crocodile pitches its young into the water, I mean, with two rows of
excellent teeth and nothing to bite withal. It matters very little to
me, I am sure, if the former has adopted in his life oriental
Mahommedan views with regard to certain usages, which are differently
interpreted in Christian countries."
"That is a matter of taste," said Oswald.
"Certainly," replied Albert, "although I am persuaded that if you give
one hundred men the alternative, not as a problem, but in tangible
reality, ninety-nine would confess to share my views--perhaps with a
blush of modesty--or they might claim to hold your view, but they would
seize the bequest, nevertheless, if they could. Did not even the great
Goethe feel such a temptation, although his tall size made him
naturally look for golden apples higher up, and suggested to him an
emperor as father, while I would be content with a baron!"
"The great Goethe was, at the time when he felt thus tempted, very
small Goethe, and had, like other children, childish notions."
"Well, I do not know whether the old Excellency would not have bid the
two estates welcome, too; for in certain matters, for instance, in a
preference of roasted apples over raw potatoes, we all of us remain
children, even at the age of Methuselah. But let that be. If you are
specially bent upon being your father's son, I would do wrong to
interfere with your enjoyment. What do you say, doctor; shall we
continue our philosophic conversation as peripatetics in the open air?
The sky looks, to be sure, still like a wet rag, but it has ceased
raining, at least for the moment, and I, for my part, prefer swimming
about in a deluge to sitting all day in Noah's ark, even if I should be
compelled to stay there, if we may believe the record thereof, without
the corresponding representative of the fair sex. You know how to
swim?"
"Oh yes!" said Oswald, laughing.
"Well, then, put on your cap and let us go; the boys are busy down
stairs, and can dispense with their Mentor for an hour, I am sure."
The two new friends went down the narrow staircase, which led close to
Oswald's room, through the immensely thick wall into the garden. It had
ceased raining; the wind also did not blow any more, but the sky was
still covered with heavy lowering clouds, which seemed to sink lower
every moment. The raindrops were standing in the flowers like bright
tears in overflowing children's eyes. Now and then a wailing sound was
heard in the broad branches of the trees, where little birds sat
shivering; all else was silent like the grave.
Inexpressible sadness filled Oswald's heart. Life seemed to him nothing
but a heavy, harassing dream, through which beloved forms were gliding
with veiled faces. He thought of Melitta as if she were dead.
Albert also had become silent in the quiet garden. "Let us go on," he
said; "this is like a graveyard."
They went out of the decayed gates, across the drawbridge, into the
forest, on the way to Berkow, the same road under the tall, solemn
pine-trees on which Oswald had come in the carriage the first evening
of his arrival at Grenwitz, and which he had since seen so often again
with very different sensations.
That evening had made a division in his life, the importance of which
he only now began to feel. Since that evening the wide world beyond the
silent woods had disappeared for him, and a new world had arisen, a
paradisiac world, full of love and happiness. And now he felt as if
this world also were disappearing, and the old world outside, beyond
those silent woods, was lying beyond his reach. Should he ever return
into that world with fresh, bold mind? Would he not ever yearn to
return to the Blue Flower, which had here bloomed near to him, nearer
than ever, so near that the fragrance had entered his very heart? What
had become of the high notions which he had formerly loved to dwell
upon? What of the great plans he had cherished? Was it all over? And
over for the sake of a woman whom he loved, and who yet could never be
his own?
No! A thousand times No! He must tear himself away from this
intoxicating magic world, and should it break his heart? What mattered
it to any one? He had no whole heart to lose besides. But she? What was
to become of her?
"I believe your melancholy is contagious, dottore," said Albert, after
they had walked for some time silently by each other. "How can a man of
your cleverness allow himself to be thus influenced by the weather, or
whatever else it may be! You melancholy men are, after all, odd
creatures! You are always going from one extreme to the other. Horace's
_aurea mediocritas_ has been preached to you in vain. You will not
listen to it, because your pride is offended at being taught to be
mediocre, and yet you ought to see that we mediocre children of nature
are ten thousand times happier than you. Really, dottore, your
portrait, taken at this moment, might be hung up among the family
portraits of the Grenwitz up stairs; no one would doubt your being a
member. They all look so miserably melancholy. It seems to me the whole
race shows that every one of them must go to the dogs, one way or
another, and surely they have done it, as far as I know, without
exception so far. The faces--I examined them to-day after dinner, one
by one--would make admirable illustrations for terrible robber and
murder stories. They speak of a thousand evil deeds, of nights of hard
drinking, and, above all, of many, many fair women who have kissed them
till they died of them. For such faces must be perfectly irresistible
for women, especially when they belong, as in this case, to rich
barons. I was especially struck by Harald, the veritable rat-catcher of
Hameln. He is not as handsome as his cousin Oscar, whom you resemble,
by the way, strikingly when you look so dismal as just now,--but he
looks the very type of this grandly noble and greatly dangerous race,
with his large, seductive blue eyes, and his delicate and yet so
voluptuous lips."
"You really do me undeserved honor, if you couple me thus
unceremoniously with this noble set," said Oswald.
"No, jesting aside," replied Albert, "you really have in your face the
fatal feature of the Grenwitz race. I do not mean that as a compliment,
for others, for instance I myself, prefer decidedly not to have it. I
go even farther than that, I bet my plats against the estate, that if
you came in possession of the entail, you would lead the very same life
which has heretofore been the hereditary manner of life with the main
line. The side branch, which is now in possession, has sadly
degenerated."
"You really overwhelm me with your benevolence, and the good opinion
you seem to have of my talents and my inclinations."
"You may be as ironical as you choose. I insist upon it, you would do
just as these mad barons have done before, in spite of your pretended
aversion, which you perhaps only cherish like the dog that is put into
traces to pull a wheelbarrow, and snarls at the dog that is running
about free."
"But what in heaven's name makes you think so? What justifies your
presumption?"
"My profound though superficial studies of physiognomy," replied
Albert. "I have been an adept in that science from my boyhood, perhaps
even a martyr, for my excessive zeal in pursuing that study often
earned me a terrible whipping at school. Instead of listening
attentively, I used to draw the cleverest caricatures of the sparrows,
the monkeys, sheep, and other heads all around me; for I need not tell
you that the best way to find out the character of a face or a figure
is to try to caricature it. Now, if I bring out the melancholy feature
in your face with special emphasis, it becomes the veritable face of a
Grenwitz, sad, and yet irresistibly sensual,--the very face which a
poor innocent maiden would lose her soul for. I will be hanged if you
are not going to be the luckiest man alive, as far as women are
concerned--unless you have been so already."
"And if I assure you of the contrary?"
"Then Baron Harald was not the rat-catcher of Hameln, but a
night-watchman, and he did not die from his excessive fondness of wine
and women, but from over-study; then little Marguerite--who is by the
way a really charming girl, and not unnaturally reserved--told me a
story when she said she hated you, which in our language means: I am
desperately in love with him; then report has lied when it couples your
name with that of another lady, fairer and of far higher pretensions
than poor little Marguerite."
"What do you mean?" asked Oswald, feeling that the blood was rushing to
his face.
"Nothing, _mon prince_, nothing," replied Albert, laughing; "is it
absolutely necessary always to mean something when we say something? I
was only to beat the bush to see if the birds would fly out. For one
needs no glasses such as I have to wear, nor the knowledge of a
Lavater, to see that the weather is not alone to be blamed for your
melancholy. Whenever one of us is melancholy, a pair of black or blue
eyes is invariably at the bottom of it. Now I do not ascribe it to Miss
Marguerite's pretty black eyes, for I have seen the sovereign
indifference with which you treat the poor child; so it must be another
pair of eyes, and consequently, if that is so, these eyes must belong
to somebody, and if that is so----"
"Enough, enough!" said Oswald, laughing at the merry jingling talk of
his companion in spite of his melancholy state of mind; "you will
presently prove that I am the man in the moon, and about to plunge head
over heels into the great ether from love for a fair princess who lives
on the star Sirius."
"Why not?" asked Albert "I am the wise Merlin; I know all the whims a
man can have in his head; I hear a report, which I may have started
myself, long before it comes near me, and I prophesy that if we do not
reach some shelter before five minutes have passed, we shall be washed
clean as we never were before."
The two men were on an open field between the forest and the tenants'
cottages belonging to Grenwitz. Albert's prophecy seemed to be on the
point of being fulfilled. The dark heavy masses sank lower and lower,
so that it looked almost like night at the early afternoon hour; a few
big drops came pattering down.
"_Sauve qui peut_," cried Albert. "What do you say, dottore, shall we
have a little race to that cottage?"
"Well!" said Oswald.
"Ah! That was in the nick of time," said Albert, when they were safe
under the projecting roof of the hut, and shook himself like a dog. "My
coat might have been benefited by the washing, but I prefer being here.
How it rains! Shall we go in and see the interior of this palazzo,
dottore, or do you think the old woman there, who is looking at us from
the little window, is the same old witch who has conjured up this
abominable weather?"
"Good-day, Mother Claus," said Oswald, recognizing his old friend whom
he had met on his way to church.
"Many thanks, young master," said Mother Claus, and nodded kindly. "I
expected you. Just come in, and the other one too, if he is your
friend."
"Well, now--what does that mean?" asked Albert, surprised.
"Just follow me," replied Oswald. "You shall make the acquaintance of a
remarkable old woman."
And, not without stooping low, they entered through the door into the
hut.
CHAPTER VII.
"Walk in here," said Mother Claus, seizing Oswald by the hand and
drawing him from the dark passage into a little room with one window,
opposite to the larger room on the other side, into which Oswald, aided
by the steward, had carried the sick servant the other day. She did not
trouble herself about Albert, as if she knew that the young man
possessed a talent for finding his way in the dark. "I have looked for
you; for I know from of old that you love to run about in such weather,
to cool your hot youthful blood. Are you quite wet through again, as
usually? Well, not so badly this time! There, sit down in the
easy-chair. None of you have ever sat there since the day on which
Baron Oscar died in it, forty-three years ago."
"Not a particular recommendation for superstitious minds," said Albert,
seating himself on a large wooden chest in the background of the room,
while the old woman was pushing Oswald into the easy-chair and sat down
at his feet on a footstool; "but honor to whom honor is due. You look
quite grand, doctor, on that single gala-piece of furniture in this
otherwise very plain room, especially in the Rembrandt light that falls
on you, and with the old woman, Murillo fashion, at your feet, like a
banished king who seeks shelter with an old fairy in the forest, while
his faithful squire sits modestly in the background. I really believe
our race has tired me, and I could sleep a few moments. Wake me,
dottore, when it stops raining--" and Albert stretched himself full
length on the old chest, put his hands under his head, and, in spite of
the uncomfortable position, he seemed to have fallen asleep after a few
minutes, while the monotonous ticking of the old cuckoo clock in the
corner, and the dripping of the falling rain, alone interrupted the
profound silence in the little room.
Mother Claus had taken up her knitting and was at work as busily as the
other day at a tiny child's sock, busily, busily, that the needles
clinked merrily. Only from time to time she would look up at Oswald and
nod kindly, as if she was glad that he was sitting so comfortably in
the soft old armchair, here in the cosey room, while the rain came down
pitilessly outside.
"Is it not a good chair, young master?" she said, laying down her
knitting for a moment, and putting her right hand on Oswald's knee.
"The baroness gave it to me after the baron died. She could not bear to
look at it, she said; for it reminded her always of the moment when
they brought him in, after he had fallen with Wodan, and put him into
that chair; and Harald came running in and cried, when he saw his
father so pale and disfigured, and she, too, was running about in the
room and wringing her hands, and I stood by the baron and wiped the
cold sweat from his forehead. I had no time for crying then, but I knew
I would have time enough afterwards."
"And how old was Baron Harald when his father died?" asked Oswald.
"Ten years," answered Mother Claus, "and it would have been better for
him if he had died too--for him and many others."
The old woman had taken up her knitting again, which had been lying
idle in her lap, and was knitting more busily than ever, as if she
wanted to make up for lost time.
"Yes, yes," she said; "it would have been better. Then he was a
beautiful, innocent boy, with rosy cheeks and violet eyes, and when he
died----"
The old woman paused--the needles clinked and the rain beat against the
panes.
"Well," said Oswald, "and when he died----"
"Then he was a bad man, and it was a bad death. I alone know it, for I
alone was with the poor man when death seized him with the iron hand.
Then they struggled with each other, strong Harald and strong Death,
and it was a horrible sight, so horrible that all the others ran away;
but I would not abandon him in his last hour, for he was, after all,
Oscar's son, and I had borne him in my arms when he was an innocent
babe, and rocked him on my knees. So I held on and prayed, while he
swore and cursed God, till Death struck him on the heart, and he cried
out aloud and fell back on his pillow. Then it was all over with him,
and his poor soul was at rest."
"And had the baron no friend who might have stood by him in his last
hour?"
"Friends enough, and men among them who were not afraid of a death-bed;
but they were afraid of Harald; he would have strangled and torn to
pieces any one who would have come to him at that hour. I only wish
they had come, one after the other; there was not one among them but
deserved to have his neck twisted."
"And who were these sad friends?"
"First, Baron Barnewitz, not the one at Sullitz, who is still
alive,--he is a good man and harms no one,--but he at Smittow, who
afterwards lost all his money at play to Baron Berkow, and then sold
him his daughter to pay his debts."
"Melitta!" groaned Oswald, and his hands seized nervously the back of
his chair.
"What ails you, young master?" asked the old woman.
"Nothing, nothing," murmured Oswald, with a supernatural effort to
overcome a mingled feeling of horror, pity, hatred, and revenge, which
arose in his heart when he saw the image of his beloved one thus
dragged through the mire of vulgar passions.--Melitta sold, sold by her
own father, to a man who did not love her, whom she only married to
save her father from disgrace! Oswald felt that such a thought would
madden him if he followed it out, and at the same time he was afraid
that cunning Mr. Timm, of whose profound slumbers he was by no means
quite convinced, in spite of an occasional snore from the great chest,
might notice his emotion. He forced himself, therefore, to sit still
and to ask, with apparent calmness:
"Was Baron Berkow one of Harald's friends? Was he not too young at that
time?"
"He was the youngest," said Mother Claus, "and the best too. He did
what he saw the others did, without thinking whether it was right or
wrong. He was not as powerful as the others. When he drank one bottle,
Harald drank three, and yet Harald remained master of himself and
Berkow fell under the table."
"Was he a handsome man?" asked Oswald.
"Not as handsome as Harald, and far less so than you are, young master.
He was smaller and weaklier than either of you, and Harald could have
mastered six like him. But then there was far and near no one as bold
and as strong as Harald. He could stop the wildest horse running at
full speed, and make it as gentle and obedient as a dog, and he always
jumped in the saddle without touching the stirrup. They told wonderful
stories of his gigantic strength, but it was just as I tell you. When
he was angry--and he was very often angry--he would break a heavy oaken
chair or table as if it were glass. Then the veins on his forehead
would swell like thick branches, and white foam would froth at his
mouth, so that it was a horrible sight; but when he laughed and was in
good humor, you could not help loving him again. Then he could be so
sweet, and say such nice things; no one would have thought him such a
bad man. For bad he was, after all; whatever pleased him he must have,
cost what it might, and if everything else should perish."
"Were you all that time up at the castle?"
"Why do you speak so politely to me, young master? You never did it
before, I am sure. Yes, I was up at the castle. You know my husband was
dead, and the boys were dead, and the girls, and I was the only one who
looked a little after things up there since the death of the baroness.
I did not like to stay there, Heaven knows, for Castle Grenwitz was no
better than Sodom and Gomorrah. Every day came friends, and often half
a dozen other visitors besides, and then playing and drinking till late
in the morning."
"Did ladies ever come to the castle?"
"No, even the boldest were afraid of these wild men. And most of them
were not married then, like Baron Berkow; or their wives had died, like
Baron Barnewitz, and thus they could carry it on undisturbed. There
never were any women there I would speak of, except one, except
one----"
"And who was that one?"
"The last one--a beautiful, innocent angel, who might have converted
devils even; but Harald and his companions were worse than devils."
"What was her name? Where did she come from?"
"We called her Miss Marie; where she came from I never heard, nor where
she went to."
"Then she did not take her own life, as people say?"
"No--she was too good and too pious to do that; she would have borne
her cross to Golgotha. Oh! she was so young and fair, and so gentle and
so sweet; my eyes have never seen anything like it before or after. If
I had known they meant her when Baron Harald, over the wine, betted
Baron Barnewitz I do not know how many thousand dollars that the girl
should follow him, of her own free will, to Castle Grenwitz--I would
have poisoned them all in their wine, like a nest of vile rats."
"And how did Baron Harald go about to win his wager?"
"That is a long story, young master, and I will tell you. I tell you,
if all the drops that are now falling out there were tears, and all
were wept for the sake of the poor child--I would say they were not
nearly enough.
"When Harald made that terrible wager with Baron Barnewitz, they had
just been absent together for two or three weeks; I know not where, but
I believe they had gone to a large city, far away, and there, I think,
they had seen the poor child. Soon afterwards he left again, and this
time he stayed two months. At last he wrote he would come back, but not
alone. His Aunt Grenwitz, he wrote, would come too, and I was to air
the rooms of the late baroness and let the furniture be attended to,
and prepare everything for her reception. Now I knew the baron had a
great-aunt, his grandfather's sister, but she must be eighty years and
more; she had never in her life been at Grenwitz, and had never
troubled herself about Harald, nor he about her. I was, therefore, not
a little surprised at the strange idea to undertake such a journey at
her time of life, for she lived many, many miles from here; but I did
as I was ordered. They arrived on the appointed day; I received them
and wondered how active the old lady was, though she walked with a
crutch and had silver-gray hair and eyebrows. Harald was full of
respect for her; he led her on his arm through all the rooms of the
castle, and showed her everything very carefully, especially the family
portraits in the gallery, where her own was hanging, as a girl of
eighteen.--They stopped before it and laughed immoderately, and the old
lady began to cough, and Harald slapped her on the back. I did not know
why they laughed so--I thought it was because the pretty girl had
become such an ugly woman, for then I did not suspect anything of the
disgraceful plot.
"Early the next day the baron sent for his carriage and he and the aunt
drove off. 'We shall be back to-night,' he said, 'though perhaps very
late. We shall bring a young lady home, a young companion for Aunt
Grenwitz. She is to have the room next door, do you hear?'--'But,
master,' I said, 'the baroness died in the red-room, and everything is
left there exactly as it was on the day of her death.'--'Then let
everything be cleared out,' he said; 'do you hear, everything, and have
it put in another room. Put some furniture in it. The young lady must
sleep near Aunt Grenwitz.'--'What do you say, dear Harald?' asked the
aunt, who was deaf in one ear and did not hear particularly well in the
other ear, so that she could never understand me, even when I spoke
ever so loud. 'Nothing, nothing, dear aunt,' said the baron, 'all
right, Jake!'
"It was late in the night when they returned. I had sent all the
servants to bed except the new valet, which the master had brought home
with him from his travels. The young lady was in the carriage. When
they entered the hall and the light of the candles, which the man--his
name was Baptiste--carried in his hand, fell upon the rosy face of the
young lady, his features grinned most unpleasantly. But I saw Harald
frown and make a sign with his eyes, and at once Baptiste was all
submission and zeal again.
"'Show the ladies to their rooms, old one,' said Harald to me, and then
he bowed gracefully and wished the ladies a good-night.
"'Will you give me your arm, dear Marie?' said the aunt, as I was
showing the way with the light in my hand; 'my limbs are a little
fatigued after the long ride to-day.'--'How shall I ever thank you for
your kindness?' said the girl, with a voice so soft and sweet, that I
could not help turning round and looking at her. The old woman and the
girl were standing on the landing of the steps. There were three
candles in the branches which I held, and the light fell bright upon
the two, and I shall never forget the sight, if I were to live another
eighty years. The aunt had never looked so hideously ugly to me, and in
all my life I had never seen anything half as fair and sweet as the
young lady. 'You know best, dear child,' said the old lady, making a
good-natured grimace, which made her look still uglier, if that was
possible. 'I have only one wish upon earth; it lies with you to see it
fulfilled or not.' The girl did not answer, but great tears started in
her eyes, and then she bent her tall, slim figure quite low and kissed
the old witch's hand. 'Well, well,' she said, 'you are a good child;
we shall agree, I doubt not, and my Harald, my pet, will be happy
yet.--Tell them to give you your candle, dear Marie; I know the home of
my ancestors well enough, although I have not seen it for more than
sixty years now. You can go to bed, Claus; I do not like to trouble the
servants unnecessarily.'
"And that was true. We heard her bell very rarely. She dressed herself
and undressed herself; it took her several hours, it is true, but none
of us was allowed to render her the slightest assistance; once, when
one of the maids had come into her chamber while she was dressing, she
was very angry, and ever after locked herself in. She had strange ways
about her, the old lady. Thus she never was tired at night, and I have
seen her wander about in her room till early dawn; but then she slept
till late in the afternoon. At table she never had any appetite, but in
her room she could eat and drink without end; sometimes she had two,
and sometimes three bottles of wine sent up stairs. But the most
remarkable thing was this: to-day she looked fifty, and tomorrow she
looked eighty; at one time she was stone deaf, and at another time she
could hear a mouse slip across the room; now she scarcely could drag
herself along with her crutch, and then she came down the steps faster
than I, although I was only sixty then, and quite active yet. I felt
very uncomfortable about the old lady, and was glad when I could keep
out of her way."
"And what was Miss Marie doing in the mean time?"
"She was almost always with Harald. I saw them together early in the
morning, wandering among the dewy flowers in the garden, arm in arm;
she with bashfully cast-down eyes, he talking eagerly to her. I saw
them in the afternoon, sitting in the cool rooms which face the park;
he reading aloud from a book, or more frequently his arm leaning on the
back of her chair, and she looking up at him very happy, whereupon he
would cast burning glances at her, and smooth from time to time her
silken brown hair. I saw them in the evening, wandering once more in
the garden, or slowly walking up and down in the brilliantly lighted
rooms, while Aunt Grenwitz was sitting on the sofa, reading, or
pretending to read. Ah! those were glorious times for the poor child,
and she always looked so perfectly happy that I feared and trembled how
it all was to end; and when she met me she always had a kind word for
me: 'How are you, dear Mrs. Claus?' or, 'Can I help you, dear Mrs.
Claus? You work too hard. I am ashamed to be so idle here.'
"One afternoon I met her in the garden. It was a hot, sunny day; she
wore a white dress, and a broad-brimmed straw hat was hanging on her
fair round arm. The baron was out riding, the first time for a long
while, and the aunt still asleep. I had long determined to speak to the
girl at the first opportunity, and to open her eyes. I gathered
courage, therefore, as she was about to pass by me with a 'Good-day,
Mother Claus, how are you?' and said: 'Many thanks. Miss Marie, have
you a moment's time? I should like to say a few words to you.'--'What
is the matter?' she said, and as she looked into my face, which was
probably quite sad and sober, she cried: 'For heaven's sake, I hope
nothing bad has happened?'--'No, Miss Marie,' I said, 'but that might
easily come about if you do not look about you; and I should be
heartily sorry for that, for you are so young and good, and you look so
chaste and good, and as innocent as an angel.'--'What do you mean?'
said the poor child, and turned deep red. 'Come this way, Miss Marie,'
I said, and drew her into the beech avenue, where we could not be seen
from the castle; 'I will tell you everything I have on my conscience. I
am an old woman and you are a young girl who knows little how the world
goes, and how things go here in Grenwitz!' And then I described to her
the life at the castle as it had been before she came, and what a wild,
sad man Harald was, and how he was as false and as cruel as a tiger.
She turned to me with glowing cheeks, never once raising her long
silken eyelashes to look at me with her beautiful blue eyes, and
without interrupting me once; then she said, in a low voice: 'I thank
you, Mrs. Claus--but what you tell me I have long known.' I was
thunderstruck. 'You knew it, and yet you accompanied the old lady here?
You know it, and you remain here. You know it, and you are not afraid
to stay alone with the baron for hours and days? Oh, child, child! what
must I think of you?'--'Think nothing that is bad of me,' she said,
placing her hand on my shoulder, 'and think a little better of the
baron. He will never again be as wild and as bad as he has been.'--'How
do you know, Miss Marie?' 'Because he has promised me.'--'And you think
he will keep his promise?'--'Oh, certainly.'--'Why?'--'Because he loves
me!'--'Oh, child! child!' I cried, 'for heaven's sake, it is high time:
flee, or you are surely lost. Poor child! to believe his vows! He
shoots the horse that he likes no longer, and he breaks the vow that
becomes a burden to him. What he has promised you is an old song; he
sings it as a bird whistles his air, without thinking what he does.
What he has promised you he has promised a hundred others, who perhaps
were no better than he is.'--'Stop,' said Miss Marie, vehemently, 'I
cannot and must not listen to you any longer.' And then she added,
smiling: 'You will soon see, my good woman, how you have wronged my
Harald--how you have wronged Baron Harald.'--'Your Harald?' I said,
'poor child! He'll never be your Harald. He takes whatever chance
throws in his way, and as you happen to be here----' 'And if I should
not happen to be here,' she said, laughing merrily; 'if I should not be
here for the sake of the baroness, but the baroness for my sake, and if
I should not go away again, but remain here forever?----' At that
moment Harald came suddenly into the avenue in which we were walking up
and down. He started when he saw me alone with the girl. 'Miss Marie,'
he said, 'I believe my aunt wants you.' And when the girl had left us,
he came up to me and said, hissing the words through his white teeth:
'What did you tell her, old one?'--'That you cheat her, Harald.'--'I
shall twist your neck for that,' he said, and the vein swelled on his
forehead. 'Better that than to break the poor thing's heart.'--'Listen,
old one,' he said, 'what if I meant it in good earnest this time? What
if I am really tired of this wild life, which must, after all, lead me
sooner or later to the devil? What if I want to marry the girl?'--'Is
she of noble birth?' said I, Harald laughed: 'She is a tailor's
daughter. I shall have to put a goose and the shears in my coat of
arms.'--'If she is not of noble birth,' I said, 'you will never marry
her, and at best it would only be one cruel act more. The poor creature
would die amid the gibes of your friends, like a hunted stag under the
teeth of the dogs. Send the girl home; I beseech you, Harald, rather
to-day than to-morrow. And the old baroness, too,' I added. He looked
at me with open eyes, and laughed and said: 'You are less clever than I
thought, old one.' Then he turned his back on me and went singing into
the castle.
"I did not know what to make of all that. Had Harald really promised to
marry the girl? Did she, who knew his former manner of life, really
believe he would keep his promise? She looked so bright and sensible,
with her big blue eyes; how could she let him deceive her so? How had
Harald gone about to get the better of her so completely? It troubled
me day and night, until I was made sick. I should have liked so much to
save the poor innocent child, and to save Harald that additional sin.
But I did not know how to go about it. Since that conversation in the
garden Miss Marie avoided me everywhere; the aunt did not leave her
rooms till evening, and kept her head wrapped up, in spite of the warm
weather. Harald had not said another word to me for days. He really
seemed to have changed entirely. Since Miss Marie had been at the
castle he had not been drunk once; he had not beaten the servants; he
had not killed a horse by furious riding, while formerly not a day
passed without some such calamity. Then he had flown into a rage upon
the slightest provocation; now he was mild and kind towards everybody,
only not towards myself, because he knew he could not impose on me, who
had known him from childhood up,--and towards his new valet. That was a
hideous creature, constantly smiling, and constantly running after the
girls, who could not bear him. He had nothing to do all day long but to
lounge about, his hands in his pockets, and to make faces at everybody.
He did nothing for the baron since Harald had one day kicked him, so
that he was disabled for a fortnight. None of us could understand why
the baron did not turn him out.--During this whole time not one of the
gentlemen had been here who formerly used to come and go at the castle.
I had been hoping some of them might come, so that I might have a
chance of speaking to Miss Marie. But Harald never left her alone. If
they formerly had seemed to be fond of each other, matters were very
much worse now. Whenever they thought themselves unobserved they were
in each other's arms, and such kissing and caressing! Well, well, such
things happen between lovers, and I did not do differently when I was a
young girl, and I knew myself very well how the Barons Grenwitz flatter
the girls,--but I also knew what the girls have to pay for it in the
end. One fine morning, when I met Miss Marie again and asked her how
she was, she turned purple and stood and trembled like an aspen leaf.
When I saw that I knew what had happened, and my heart felt so heavy
that I sat down on a bench and cried. When Miss Marie saw that she
began to cry too, and sat down by me, and wound her arm around my
neck and said: 'Don't you cry, dear Mother Claus! It will all
come right!'--'God grant it, child!' said I, 'but I don't believe
it'--'But,' said she, 'don't you see yourself how kind and good the
baron is, and yet he is so only because he loves me, and if he did not
mean to marry me, why should he have brought the aunt here? And if the
aunt does not object, she who Harald says is so proud and haughty, how
can the other relations say anything against it?'--'Then you are not
the old lady's companion?' I asked, surprised.--'No!' she said, 'I saw
her here for the first time!'--'But how in Heaven's name did you get
here, if you did not come as her companion?'--The poor child cried more
violently than before. 'I must not tell you,' she cried. 'I have
promised the baron to keep it from everybody till----' she paused
as if she had said too much already. 'I dare not tell you,' she
repeated, 'but you may believe me, I am not a bad girl, as you seem to
think.'--Then she kissed me on my forehead and hurried away toward the
castle.
"After that day I saw that Miss Marie had often been crying. She had
cause enough for it, the poor child. Harald did what I had long
apprehended: he commenced his old life again; of course only gradually.
The friends did not come to the castle yet, but he himself rode out
frequently and remained away half a day or a whole day. When he
returned he was often in bad humor, treating the servants to whippings
and kickings, and demolishing the furniture; still times were golden in
comparison with what had been before, and he was still always quite
gentle with Miss Marie, especially after his violence had once
frightened her nearly to death. With the aunt he seemed to have nothing
at all to do, after they had been quarrelling once or twice in the
parlor at night, so that we heard it down stairs. I thought the old
lady was scolding him, and so I sent her as many good dishes and as
much wine to her room as she wished, although it was inconceivable what
she could consume.
"Then it was that I was one night walking through the house after all
had gone to bed, as I always did, to see if all the lights were out,
that suddenly a bright light struck me, which came towards me in the
passage that leads from the tower to the old castle, where the ladies
were staying. In my fright, and hardly knowing where the danger was, I
cried Fire! Fire! as loud as I could. At the same time I ran along the
passage towards the place where the fire was. Suddenly Harald was by my
side. I knew but too well where he had been.--'Hush, old one,' he said,
'it is only a curtain!' And then he commenced to tear it down and to
stamp the fire out with his boots. Suddenly the door opened which led
to the rooms of the baroness, and which lay just opposite the burning
window, and out rushes the old witch with a bundle under her arm, and
the valet with a still larger bundle on his shoulder. They had nearly
run over us; but Harald seized the valet by the shoulder and hurled him
back so violently that man and bundle rolled on the ground. 'Are you
again together, rascals,' he roared at the old woman, who began to
tremble in all her limbs when she saw the baron in such a fury; 'trot
back to your room or I'll help you!' All of a sudden he commenced
laughing again, and I also could not help laughing when I saw that the
old lady, in her hurry, had forgotten to put on her wig, and her own
red hair was hanging down from her soiled cap in not very short braids.
This and some other changes made her look so different that I hardly
recognized her.--'Go to the devil, old witch,' cried Harald, still
laughing heartily, 'and get yourself painted up again, or the world
will see too clearly where you come from.'--The old lady murmured
something which I did not understand, and went back to her room; the
valet had in the mean time gathered himself up again and slipped down
the narrow staircase which led from the passage into the garden. 'Go to
bed, old one,' said the baron to me, 'and think you have dreamt all
this, or think what you like. It is all the same to me. The comedy has
lasted long enough.'
"And the comedy was played out. Next morning the old lady and the valet
were not to be found, and none of us has ever heard or seen anything of
either of them; none of us has learnt where they came from and who they
were. This only was certain, that the old lady was as little the
baron's aunt as I was his mother. The servants laughed and the baron
laughed, although they had carried off as much plate and clothing as
they could manage; but I did not laugh, and there was somebody else who
did not laugh. The poor dear child! At first she would not believe it
that the baron had deceived her so badly. She walked about with open,
fixed, and tearless eyes, and when she met me she looked so sad, so
anxious and grieved; it wrung my heart. Alas! I could not help her! I
could only weep with her, and that I did as soon as the poor child had
recovered from her first horror and found tears once more. We were now
often together, for since that night Harald cared less for Miss Marie.
He rode out every day, and now the gentlemen also came back to the
castle, as of old, and the former life began once more. Harald became
wilder and more reckless than I had ever seen him, and the servants
avoided him wherever they could. Perhaps he wished to silence his
conscience or make up for lost time; who knows?
"One evening, when the gentlemen were again at the castle--it was about
seven o'clock, and they had been at table since three--Miss Marie was
in my room, where she now spent most of her time, when Harald suddenly
came in. I saw at the first glance that he was drunk. His face was all
aglow, and his eyes shone like those of a wildcat. When he saw Marie,
who had started up at his entrance, frightened, he laughed and said:
'Do I find you here, my dove? I have looked all over the house for
you. Come, pet, I want to introduce you to my friends; one you know
already--but you must be quite nice and polite, you hear?'
"Marie had turned pale as death when he said this, and was trembling in
all her limbs. I saw how she moved her lips to reply, but she did not
produce a sound. I could not bear it any longer.
"'Are you not ashamed, Harald,' I said, 'to tease the poor, innocent
lamb in this way? Fie, Harald--I have always known you were bad, but I
did not think you were so bad!'--He started up with one bound and
seized me by the throat.--'Say another word,' he ground out from
between his teeth, 'and I break your neck, old witch.'--I knew he could
do what he threatened, but I was not afraid of death. 'Do what you
like,' I said, calmly, 'but as long as I have a breath in me, I will
tell you to your face you are a wretch.' I looked firmly into his eye;
I saw how his anger rose in him, and I felt that his fingers were
encircling my throat as with an iron band. I thought my last hour had
come.--Suddenly Marie was standing by our side; she put her hand on
Harald's arm, and said, in a low voice: 'Let her go, Harald, I will go
with you!'--That was all she said, but it was enough to move even
Harald's wild heart. He dropped his arms and stared at Marie, as if he
were aroused from a dark dream. Suddenly he fell on his knees before
her, hid his burning face in the folds of her dress, and sobbed:
'Forgive me, Marie, forgive me!' Then he started up when he saw her
smiling, lifted her up in his arms like a child, carried her up and
down in the room, caressing and kissing her. Then he put her down into
an arm-chair, the same chair you sit in, and knelt down before her,
kissing her hands and her dress, and turning to me, he said: 'Go, old
one, and tell Charles to have the horses saddled. I am unwell, or
whatever they choose to say, but I cannot see the gentlemen to-day
again, nor to-morrow. Is that right so, darling? I am not quite so bad,
am I, as the old one says?' I went, crying for joy, and thought: 'Maybe
after all it will all come right!'
"But it did not. After a few days all was as of old. Similar scenes
occurred again and again, but Harald's good resolves lasted only a few
days, and we had to pay with bitter tears for every laughing remark of
the gentlemen. I say we, for I loved the poor girl now as if she had
been my own child. And now the poor child needed help and counsel more
than ever. She was sorely concerned for the fate of the child she knew
she bore--'What is to become of me,' she said, 'matters little. I would
die to-day if I could; but I must live and will live for my child's
sake. And I will not cry and complain any more; it does no good, and
Harald says he hates nothing more than red eyes.'--I asked her if she
had no parents, no relations, no friends, to whom she might go. She
shook her head sadly: 'I have no one in this wide world; no one but
you, good Mother Claus, and one other, who would do anything for me, if
he knew where I was; but he does not know it, and never shall know
it.'--She had never said anything about her former life: 'I have
promised the baron to keep it secret till he is publicly married to me,
and,' she added, sadly smiling, 'you see yourself that it will probably
remain secret forever.'
"She hardly ever left me now, and as for Harald, he seemed to have
forgotten of late that Marie was still at the castle. Only at times,
when I was alone with him, he would ask a few abrupt questions about
her, which showed me that he knew everything about her condition.
"Thus matters were standing. The summer had come to an end; autumn
came, with wind and rain, and the dry leaves were dropping fast from
the trees. It was one afternoon, when Harald had been away for several
days; I was with Marie in the garden, and tried to comfort her, as she
was particularly sad that day. Suddenly a Jew, a pedler, looked over
the fence, and when he saw us he cried into the garden: 'Nothing you
want? Nothing you want?' I happened just then to be in need of
something, I forget what, and so I called him in. He came. It was a
dirty old man, with a white beard and spectacles of blue glass on his
nose. He showed us his goods, and as the things were nicer than what
such people generally had, Marie and I bought several things. He asked
very moderate prices, but yet it amounted to more than we had, and I
went back to the castle to get money. By chance I could not at once
find the key to my drawer, and when I had found it, it occurred to me
that I had to attend to something in the kitchen; thus half an hour
might have passed before I came back in the garden. I found Marie
alone. 'Where is the Jew?' I asked.--'He is coming back to-morrow.'
'What is the matter, child?' I asked, for I saw that she had been
crying, and looked very much troubled.--Then she fell on my neck,
crying, but much as I asked her to tell me what had happened, I could
learn nothing.
"The Jew did not come back the next day, but Baron Harald. He brought
several gentlemen with him. They had been hunting, and were very tired.
This made them retire earlier, after having drunk a few bottles of
wine.
"I might have been a few hours in bed without being able to sleep, for
it rained and blew that night fiercely, and the shutters creaked, and
the hounds howled.--Then I heard a soft step in the passage before my
door, and a hand seeking the knob of my door; somebody came in and
walked up to my bed.--'Who is that?' I cried. 'It is I, Mother Claus,'
said a low voice. It was Marie. 'Are you sick, child?'--'No,' she said,
sitting down on my bed, 'I only come to say good-by to you, and to
thank you for all the love and kindness you have shown me.' I thought
she was going to take her own life, and said, horrified: 'For God's
sake, child, what do you mean?'--'Don't be afraid, Mother Claus,' she
said, and embraced me amid hot tears; 'I am going, but only from here.
I have long wished it, and now the hour has come.'--'Why now?' I asked,
'where will you go to now, at night, and in such a night? Don't you
hear how rain and wind howl with the hounds? And you know not the
way.... You run into the jaws of death, and if you do not think of
yourself, think at least of the child.'--'I am thinking of it,' she
replied. 'It must not see the light here where its mother has been so
very wretched; it must never know who its father was. Farewell, dear
Mother Claus! may God bless you and preserve you! And fear not for me:
I am not going alone; I have somebody with me, who will protect me and
watch over me, and who would give his life for me.'--'Are you quite
sure of that, child? I thought you had learnt what to think of the vows
of men? Who is it?'--'I cannot tell you,' she replied, 'and now I must
be gone.' She had risen from the bed. 'Wait,' I said, 'I will at least
see you out of the castle.'
"She begged me to stay, but I did not mind her; I had soon put on some
clothes; I was firmly determined not to let her go, till I was quite
sure that she knew what she was about. I was still afraid she might
think of suicide.
"When she saw that I was not to be turned aside from my purpose, she
helped me to dress, and said: 'Well, then, come, Mother Claus; at least
he will see now, that I have not been forsaken by everybody here.'
"We went, holding each other's hand, on tip-toe down the passages, then
down the staircase which leads from the old castle into the garden. It
had ceased raining, and the moon was shining at intervals through the
black drifting clouds. I still held Marie's hand in mine; she hastened
onward, drawing me after her through the familiar avenues. When we
passed a bench in one of the darker walks, where she had often been
sitting with Harald, she stopped for a moment, and I felt her hand
tremble. But she recovered herself instantly. 'No, no,' she whispered:
'he is right, Harold has never loved me, and I must not stay here any
longer.'
"We went through the garden into the court-yard, and through it and the
great gates into the forest, on the road to Berkow. When we had gone a
few hundred yards, a man came to meet us. 'It is he,' said Marie; 'you
must leave me now, Mother Claus; I have promised him to come alone, and
not to tell anybody that I am going.'--'You ought not to have promised
that, child; I think I have a right to know what is to become of you.'
"In the mean time the man had come near, 'Is that you, Marie?' he said.
'Why do you not come alone?'--'Because I did not let her,' I said, 'and
because I shall not let her go until I know what is to become of
her.'--'She is in God's care and under the protection of a friend,'
said the man. His words sounded so truthful and safe, that all my
anxiety vanished in a moment.
"The moon peeped forth from the clouds, and I could see the man, who
was now walking by our side, more distinctly. He was small, and not
very young, and had a hooked nose, like the Jew of the day before. He
had on a long overcoat, and when the wind blew it open I noticed by the
light of the moon the muzzle of a pistol, which he wore in a belt
around his waist.
"A few yards farther, a carriage with two horses was standing. 'It is
high time,' said the man on the box. He spoke Low German, and I thought
I knew his voice. 'Quick, quick,' said the man with the spectacles, and
drew Marie to the step, which had been let down. 'Good-by, good-by,'
she sobbed, embracing me once more; and as her head was resting for a
moment on my shoulder, she whispered in my ear: 'Tell him I have
forgiven all, all!'--'Quick, quick! Marie,' exclaimed the man
impatiently, stamping with his foot, and helped her into the carriage;
then he turned to me: 'If you really love the unfortunate girl,' he
said, 'keep this secret for forty-eight hours. I am prepared for
everything, but I should wish for Marie's sake that we should have no
use for this;' and he struck his hand upon the pistol.--'Rely on me,' I
said, 'and I will rely on you.'--'You can do that safely,' he replied;
'all men are not scoundrels and barons.'
"He jumped into the carriage and closed the door. The horses started,
and already, a few minutes later, I heard nothing but the wind in the
pine-trees.
"I walked slowly back to the castle, and reached my room without having
been seen by anybody. I locked myself in; then I threw myself on my bed
and wept as if a dear child of mine had died; and yet I was happy, and
thanked God that he had taken pity on the poor child and rescued her
from this hell.
"When I awoke next morning the sun was already standing high in the
heavens. It was a cool, bright morning, and Harald went hunting with
his guests. I was glad of it, for thus Marie's flight could be kept
from him at least till evening. The servants, to be sure, had to be
told towards noon that I could not find Miss Marie,--had they seen her
anywhere? They were not a little frightened, for there was not one who
had not liked the gentle, beautiful girl. They searched the houses, the
country around, the forest down to the shore, and even the great fosse;
for they all agreed that the poor child must have taken her own life.
"Late at night Harald came back. He was alone. As he entered the house
he read in the disturbed faces of the servants that something had
happened. His bad conscience told him at once what it was. 'Is she
dead?' he asked, and turned as white as chalk. 'We do not know,
master,' said old Jake, 'we have been looking all day, but we have not
found her.'
"He went past the servants to his room without saying a word. When he
was in the door, he turned around and beckoned to me.
"He was walking up and down in the room; at last he stopped before me,
and said, with a hollow voice: 'Did Marie ever tell you she would
take her own life?'--'No,' I said. 'Was she particularly sad of
late?'--'Yes.'
"Again he walked up and down, with uneven steps, and murmuring
unintelligible words. Then he stopped once more before me. 'And if she
has taken her life, I am her murderer,' he said.--'Who else?'
"He started as if a knife had been thrust in his heart. 'It cannot be,'
he said, 'it would be too fearful.'
"I knew the anguish he was feeling at that moment; but I also knew that
the proud man would rather know her dead than belonging to anybody
else, and besides, I had promised secrecy. Thus I remained silent, and
waited to see what he would do.
"He ordered me to ring and send for all the servants. They came.
"'Those of you who are tired may go to bed,' he said; 'those who are
willing to search on with me shall have whatever they may ask.'
"All expressed themselves willing to help him, not for the sake of the
reward, but because any way none of them would have been able to sleep
from excitement.
"He ordered all the lights to be brought that could be found, and now
they commenced the search once more--below in the cellars, through all
the rooms down stairs and up stairs, in the garrets, up into the old
tower,--Harald always ahead, searching every nook and corner, with his
eyes everywhere, giving his orders with a firm voice, indefatigable,
till morning broke.
"Now the women were sent to bed, but the men followed him still, as
many as could stand it. With these he searched the shrubbery, the
garden, from the fosse to the drawbridge, and the fosse itself. It was
raining that day as fast as it could come down, and the servants were
nearly exhausted; but Harald, for the first time in his life, I
believe, spoke to them kindly, and besought them not to give it up, and
promised them a mint of money. Thus they stood it till noon; but then
they had to give it up. Now Harald took the others, who had rested in
the mean while, and with these he went out on the moor near Fashwitz,
and into the forest of Berkow, and down to the sea-shore.
"Towards evening they came back, dripping with rain and the moor-water,
in which they had been wading about for hours. The men were so tired
they slept as they walked, but Harald's strength was unbroken. He told
me to bring a few bottles of wine, and while he poured them down his
throat he said to me, 'Listen, old one; I do not believe she has
drowned herself. It would be too horrible; it would drive me mad. She
cannot have intended to avenge herself on me so cruelly; she was too
good for that, and she was too fond of me. Did she ever tell you that
she would leave me? Did she ever speak to you of a man who was at all
times ready to receive her at his house?'
"I thought I ought to leave Harald some little hope, and said:
"'Yes, Maria has often told me so, especially of late.'
"'You see,' he said, and put the glass out of which he had been
drinking, so violently down on the table that it broke into pieces;
'now the hounds scent the track. Now we'll have a regular fox-chase.'
"He pulled the bell-rope till the handle came off. 'Order horses!' he
cried to old Jake, who came in, 'instantly!'
"I begged him to sleep at least a few hours, for I saw that his eyes
were burning with fever, and he trembled in all his limbs.
"'Pshaw!' he said, 'I sleep? I have other things to do than to sleep. I
do not know how long I shall be away, old one, but I shall either bring
her back or,--will you make haste!' he cried into the hall; 'I'll teach
you how to hurry, you scamps!'
"And he went off without having changed his clothes, even. He stayed
away four weeks; no one knew where he had been. One evening he came
back. The first question he asked me was: 'Have you heard from
her?'--He looked so pale and haggard that I hardly knew him again. His
eyes had sunk deep into his head and were burning like coals of fire.
'I did not find her,' he said, when we were alone in the room; 'give me
wine, old one; I must drown the hellish fire that burns within me in
wine.'
"I pitied the unhappy man; for I felt now only how very dearly I loved
him. I told him all I knew about Maria's flight. Contrary to my
expectation, he remained quite calm! 'It amounts all to the same,' he
said, 'whether she is dead or not. She is dead for me; she could not
help herself; she had to leave me; she was too proud to suffer herself
to be treated like a dog,--I have treated her like a dog, worse than a
dog,--wretch that I am!'
"He beat his forehead with his closed hand; then he threw himself into
an arm-chair, put his head in his hands and sobbed. 'And yet I loved
her! And I love her still! Oh my God, my God!'
"It was a fearful sight to see wild Harald weep! I lifted up his head;
he put it against my bosom and wept, as he had often wept there when he
was a boy. I begged him to calm himself. I told him what Marie's last
words had been: 'I forgive him all!'
"'And if she has forgiven me, I shall never forgive myself,' he cried.
'Go to bed, old one; we will talk about it tomorrow.'
"But when old Jake came into his room next morning, Harald was lying in
high fever. That lasted seven days, seven terrible days. Then it was
all over with Harald Grenwitz!"
The old woman paused, smoothed the sock she was knitting over her knee,
folded it up and said:
"Well, young master, now you go home. I have to look after the
children, who are sleeping in the other room on Jake's bed. It does not
rain just now, but it is going to rain worse. Therefore don't stop on
the way. Good-by!"
"Come!" said Oswald to Albert, who had just risen from his hard couch
and was yawning and stretching his arms. "It is high time, if we mean
to reach the chateau in time for supper. Good-by, Mother Claus."
"Good-by, good-by, young master," said the old woman.
When the young men found themselves in the muddy village street, Albert
pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the hut they had just left,
and said:
"Odd old lady that! Was not that a famous story, dottore?"
"You were not asleep, then?"
"Not a bit! At first I wanted to sleep, but you did not let me sleep,
and then when she commenced the story about Baron Harald I could not
sleep. But I remained quietly where I was, and snored from time to time
to reassure the old lady, who evidently did not want anybody to hear it
but her young master. Why does she always call you her young master,
dottore?"
"I do not know," said Oswald.
"Or you do not mean to know," replied Albert; "well, no harm done. We
must not wish to know everything. Why did Baron Harald want to know
what had become of that pretty girl Marie? Without that quite
superfluous curiosity he might have drunk his Burgundy to-day. Strange
that a sensible man should have had such absurd romantic notions in his
head! Can you understand it, dottore?"
"Well, perhaps I can," said Oswald; "but let us speak of something
else."
"As you like it, my dear sir. What do you think of immortality?"
CHAPTER VIII.
On the following day the weather had cleared up. The morning sun had
been hid behind thick mists, but a few hours later it had rent the gray
veil, and was now pouring its golden light upon the refreshed earth. In
the garden of the chateau all looked paradisiacally fresh and fragrant,
as on the first day of creation. The flowers raised their heads again,
and if here and there a few drops were still hanging in a calyx, they
looked in the bright sunshine like sparkling tears of joy; the birds
were singing with delight in the thick branches of the trees, and the
little worms that had been waiting patiently in all the crevices, under
the leaves and under the stones, came forth in restless activity.
And around the gray walls of the castle, which were now flooded with
rosy light, swift swallows were flitting to and fro, and on the roof,
in the gutters, between the stucco ornaments quarrelsome sparrows were
resuming their difficulties. In the large hall, where the portraits of
Grenwitz barons and baronesses were hanging on the walls in long rows,
from the fabulous Sven down to the great-aunt of the baron, "as she had
been at eighteen," and to Oscar, "who fell with Wodan," and Harald's,
"who would have done better to weep himself to death at his father's
coffin;"--the atoms were dancing about, as they rose from the old
gala-furniture with the faded damask covers, in the three slanting
bridges of light formed by the three arched windows.
Down stairs, in the breakfast-room, the baron and the baroness were
enjoying their frugal meal. They looked ready for their journey, and
Anna Maria had already put on her huge bonnet with wide projecting
wings, as it had been worn some twenty years ago. The great travelling
carriage was waiting at the door. The four heavy bays whisked their
bobtails thoughtfully to and fro, and the silent coachman cracked his
whip regularly every five minutes, from mere force of habit, and not to
admonish his master to be in a hurry, for that would have been
incompatible with the respect he owed them as well as with his
phlegmatic nature.
"I knew it," said the baroness, offering her husband half a glass of
Moselle wine,--"drink that, dear Grenwitz, it will give you strength
for the journey,--I knew it. He refuses our kind offer because he is
not very well! Ridiculous."
"He really looks as if he were not very well," said the old baron,
"ever since we were at Barnewitz, and then it does not look quite well,
it seems to me, that we should ask him to accompany us just when the
carriage is at the door! We ought to have done it sooner, perhaps."
"I do not understand you, dear Grenwitz," said the baroness. "Don't you
talk as if Mr. Stein was our equal! No wonder that the young man is
running over with pride. To ask him a week ahead to pay a visit in the
neighborhood! That would be nice! Why, we have not even mentioned our
Heligoland journey to him!"
"I should have done so long ago, if you could only have come to some
definite conclusion about it," said the old gentleman, scratching
himself behind the ear.
"I have now formed my resolution," said the baroness, angrily; "formed
this very moment. If he does not choose to accompany us on a little
trip in the neighborhood for three days, if it gives him too much
trouble to go with us when we take leave of our neighbors, who have all
treated him with the utmost condescension, then he shows clearly that
he does not mean to take leave, and so he may stay where he is."
"But, dear Anna Maria," said the baron, "that is, after all, not
exactly the same thing; and then where is he to stay in the mean time,
and how can we get along with the two boys quite alone?"
"I tell you, dear Grenwitz," replied the baroness, "I do not care where
he stays. He likes generally to go his own way--let him go his own way
in this case also. He can make a pedestrian tour through the island, or
visit his friend Oldenburg, or at worst remain here, although that
would, of course, be more inconvenient. Our journey is expensive
enough, and he would only be a burden to us. He will, as usual,
interest himself exclusively in Bruno's welfare, and leave Malte
entirely on our hands. If he stays, Bruno will be compelled to be more
with Malte, and as the question during vacation is only about a little
supervision of the boys, I am willing to intrust them to John as
readily, and perhaps rather than to Mr. Stein. Besides, if we bring
Helen back with us, we would not have room for him in the carriage. No,
no; let him stay here; I see my way clear now--quite clear."
"I do not know," said the old gentleman, out of humor.
"But I do know," said the baroness, rising; "and formerly that was
enough for you, dear Grenwitz. Come, it is time for us to start, if we
wish to reach Count Grieben's for dinner. There is Malte. I hope you
are warmly dressed. Where on earth is Bruno?"
"Up stairs with the doctor. He wants to stay if the doctor stays."
"There you see, dear Grenwitz; there you have it. A nice education,
indeed. At once go up stairs, Malte! Bruno must get ready instantly; do
you hear, instantly!"
"I won't tell him any such thing," replied Malte. "You can do it
yourself."
"So I will," said the baroness, ringing the bell. "Tell Dr. Stein I beg
him to come down for a moment!" she said to the servant.
The servant disappeared; the baroness walked up and down in the room
with rapid strides.
"Only for Heaven's sake no scene, dear Anna Maria," said the old
gentleman, who had risen.
The baroness did not vouchsafe an answer, for at that moment the door
opened, and Oswald and Bruno came in--Bruno with a dark, defiant face
and traces of recent tears in his eyes, but quite ready to start; a
straw hat covered with oil-cloth in his hand.
"You wish to see me, madam," said Oswald, bowing to the baroness.
The baroness was not a little disconcerted by this unexpected solution
of the difficulty.
"I was told Bruno refused to accompany us," she said "and so I
thought----"
"Pardon me, madam," said Oswald, interrupting her; "of course, a
refusal on the part of Bruno to obey your orders is utterly out of
question. Bruno would have preferred to keep me company. It required
only a word, however, to remind him that he must not on my account
forget for a moment what he owes to you and the baron."
"Well, that is what I thought," said the baroness, who in her heart was
very glad to have escaped a "scene" with Oswald, of whom she was more
or less afraid, little as she was willing to confess this humiliating
weakness even to herself. "He shall not repent having complied with our
wishes. The weather is splendid, and I hope we shall have a delightful
ride. What a pity, dear doctor, you cannot be one of us! Well, I hope
we shall find you quite well again when we return--probably in two or
three days.--Ah, mademoiselle, everything in readiness? Well, let us
start, dear Grenwitz. Adieu, my dear doctor! _Adieu, mademoiselle;
n'oubliez pas ce que je vous ai dit!_ Ah, Mr. Timm! really, I had
nearly forgotten you."
"Very flattering and very natural," said Mr. Timm, who had just made
his appearance, his pencil stuck behind his ear, and his toilet in very
imperfect condition, in order to bid them good-by, and who now helped
the baroness into the carriage. "_Bon voyage._ My kindest regards to
Count Grieben! famous old gentleman, who keeps a capital glass of wine!
All right! Up!" and Mr. Timm gave the nearest horse a sound blow with
his open hand, and then kissed his hand to the people in the carriage
as it began to get into motion.
"God be thanked," he said, as the carriage had disappeared, and rubbed
his hands with delight "Now we are all alone among the girls. What
shall we do for sheer delight! _Qu'en dites-vous, Monsieur le docteur?
Qu'en dites-vous, Mademoiselle?_"
"I have to write some letters, and will go to my room," said Oswald,
going into the house.
"Then we'll take a French lesson in the garden, little Marguerite,"
said Mr. Timm, putting the young lady's arm unceremoniously in his own.
"I have not time," said the pretty Frenchwoman, trying to withdraw her
arm.
"Ah, nonsense!" said Albert "If you have not time now that the old
scarecrow is gone, when will you have time? We have made very good
progress already in the verb _aimer_: _J'aime_--_tu aimes_--_nous
aimons_!"
And Albert drew willing Marguerite into the garden, and those who took
a special interest in the romantic couple, could see them roam about
there, arm in arm, till dinner-time, and notice, moreover, that they
decidedly preferred the divers shrubberies and darker avenues to the
more exposed parts, which was perfectly natural in the burning
sunlight.
It was afternoon, and Oswald was sitting at his writing-table, which he
had only left to share a very silent dinner with Albert and Margerite,
when a servant brought him a note. Oswald had, since he lived at
Grenwitz, received so few letters that he was quite surprised, and
asked the bearer from whom it came.
"From Baron Oldenburg," was the answer, "and the baron's carriage is at
the door."
Oswald opened the note. It ran thus:
"Dear friend! If you can get rid of the studious boys, and have nothing
better to do, I wish you would come and keep a lonely hypochondriac
company for a few hours, and convince yourself, at the same time, how
well the little heath flower has borne the transplanting into a strange
soil. My coachman brings you this. He has orders to return with you or
upon you. You may choose! Your Oldenburg."
Oswald hesitated what he should do. With the sunshine his longing for
Melitta had returned. He could not comprehend how he could have let
three days pass without making an attempt to see her. And yet he was
reluctant to take the first step towards a reconciliation, although he
knew that the cloud conjured up by the scene in the ball-room had long
since disappeared, and that he had himself repented a thousand times
his grievous wrong. We all know the contradictions in which so young a
heart is apt to lose itself when pride and love contend for the
mastery! And Oswald's proud heart had to beat many years yet before it
learnt true love, which the Bible knows under the beautiful image of
Charity, that beareth all things and believeth all things. True love
can live only in hearts that have lived much and suffered much, as the
sweetest and most highly prized fruits hang on those trees which the
autumnal winds begin to strip of their summer dress of rich leaves.
Oswald took a sheet of paper to write the baron, that he could not
accept his invitation, but the next moment he had taken up his hat and
run down. The same elegant light wagon in which the baron had brought
him back from Barnewitz, with the two fiery black horses, was at the
door. The coachman, a handsome young man with an immense beard, smiled
when he saw him, remembering the liberal fee he had received on that
evening. As he got in, Albert called out over the garden wall:
"Can you take me with you, _Monsieur le docteur_?"
"Not very well!" said Oswald.
"Well, then, go alone!" said Albert; "to the devil," he added, as the
carriage rolled away. "You are right, Marguerite," he said to the
little Frenchwoman, who now came out of the shrubbery in which she had
hid from Oswald, "the doctor is really a _fat_, as you say, and I shall
soon be near hating him."
In the mean time the object of Mr. Timm's rising hatred was driving
through the smaller gate towards the lane which went all around the
ramparts into the beechwood. The latter came up to this place from the
sea-shore, and had to be passed by all who drove from Grenwitz to Cona,
the old home-place of the Oldenburgs. It was a delightful drive through
the lofty cool halls of beech-trees, where the blue sky shone through
the thick green tops of the trees; and on the left, when the underwood
in places flourished less thickly between the grand old trunks, the
blue sea occasionally flashed through, at first at rare intervals only,
then, as they approached the edge of the forest, more and more
frequently, till at last, at the end of the wood, it lay before them
blue and boundless, sparkling in the glorious sunlight.
The road followed the bluffs above the beach,--at times coming quite
near to the brink, so that the roaring of the breakers among the great
rocks below could be distinctly heard,--then again receding for some
distance. On the right the eye swept over enormous grain-fields, which
covered the whole table-land. The tall, strong stalks bent under the
burden of the full ears, and waved to and fro in the mild breezes which
came from the sea. Here and there a lark was fluttering, whose nest was
close by the road, and then winged its way singing up into the blue
sky.
Then the road descended into a low valley, through which a considerable
brook, the outlet of the Fashwitz moor, was hurrying towards the sea. A
village extended along the brook and close down to the sea, in which
mostly fishermen lived, who paid rent to Baron Grenwitz, The carriage
had to pass through the village, which looked very pretty with its
small, tidy cottages, and the little gardens before the doors, in which
all the flower-beds were edged with shells. At the door of one of the
larger houses, which bore a sign with a large ship sailing swiftly
through the green waves, and thus announced itself as an inn, a
horseman was stopping. He was on a marvellously beautiful thoroughbred.
He wore a long overcoat, and Oswald could not see his face, as he was
just bending down to take a glass of brandy, which a pretty blue-eyed
girl with a charming little snub nose held up to him.
"That horse is worth his two hundred pounds," said the coachman, who
was a connoisseur.
"Who is the gentleman?" asked Oswald.
"Can't tell; I could not see his face."
Behind the fishermen's village the road ascended quite suddenly to a
greater height than before. The landscape also changed its aspect
entirely. The ground was less level; instead of golden grain, russet
heather covered the soil--a desert, with large and small stones here
and there, and at times with large plains of sand, on which a few spare
signs of turf appeared at intervals. The air even seemed to be less
mild, and where the road approached nearer to the brink of the steep
bluff one could hear the roaring of the sea very distinctly. A
sea-eagle was drawing its vast circles on high, and at times its blue
shadow would darken for a moment the sunlit, rocky road.
"Is it far to Cona?" asked Oswald.
"The farm lies in that direction," said the coachman, pointing with his
whip to the right across the heath; "you cannot see it from here. I
have orders to drive you to the Swiss cottage."
"And where is that?"
"Straight before us, in the pines."
A small wood of pines crowned the highest point on the shore, to which
the road now led upwards, becoming more and more rocky and steep. When
Oswald turned round to look back, he noticed, at a distance of four or
five hundred yards, the horseman whom he had seen at the inn. He rode
keeping pace with the carriage, and when the latter stopped
accidentally, because something was out of order in the harness, he
also checked his horse till the carriage moved on again. Oswald, who
had been struck by this man[oe]uvre, asked the coachman a few minutes
later to stop again. He turned round: the horseman also was stopping.
He repeated the same man[oe]uvre once more with the same success.
"That is very strange," said Oswald.
"Yes," replied the coachman; "I do not know what it can mean."
At that moment the horseman left the road and trotted off across
the heath in the direction in which the coachman had said the
farm-buildings of Cona were lying.
The carriage had reached the pines, which stood so close that one could
not see the sea, and only heard its roaring as it mingled with the rush
of the wind in the tall trees. Then it suddenly flashed up again at a
turn in the road, and they saw before them, upon an open place looking
upon the sea, a house built in Swiss cottage style, Oldenburg's
summer-house.
CHAPTER IX.
When the carriage stopped on the open space before the door, surrounded
by trees, and covered with dry brown leaves as with a carpet, Oldenburg
appeared up stairs on a gallery, which divided the two stories and ran
around the whole house. The next moment he was down at the door and
shook Oswald heartily by the hand.
"There you are," he said. "I was almost afraid you would have done like
most people, who, when they have once been in my company, do not care
to renew the experiment."
"I do not know, baron, whether you show yourself to most people as you
did to me," said Oswald; "if that is so, then I have at least a
different taste from most people."
"Really, a salam in _optima forma_," said Oldenburg, smiling; "a couple
of old gray-bearded sons of Mohammed could not do it better. Nothing is
wanting but that we should now kiss the tips of our fingers. But come
into the house; we'll be more-comfortable there."
They stepped into a small hall, from which they reached, by means of an
easy, wide staircase, a larger hall in the upper story, which was
lighted from above. From here they went into a large, quite high room;
a glass door opened upon the broad gallery, which afforded an
uninterrupted view upon the sea, and seemed to overhang the steep
precipice, although there was still a distance of about thirty yards
between it and the brink. Below was the surf howling between the
shingle and huge blocks of stone.
The view from this elevated point out upon the blue, boundless sea, and
upon the high white chalk-cliffs, which stretched far to the left, and
ended finally in a cape crowned with the beech forest of Grenwitz, was
indescribably grand, and Oswald could not suppress a loud cry of
admiration.
"Well," said Oldenburg, leaning over the railing of the gallery by
Oswald's side, "was it not a good idea of my worthy grandfather's to
build a house at this point, which, by the way, is one of the highest
in the whole island. I recall the old gentleman yet, with his long
snow-white beard, and can see him even now sitting here on this
gallery, and looking out with his dying eye upon the sea, like the king
of Thule. He revered it as a grandson reveres his grandmother, and
loved it as a young man loves the idol of his heart. I wish he could
have bequeathed to me, beside his size, also his capacity of enjoying
the beauties of nature. Unfortunately I have missed inheriting that."
"Are you in earnest?" asked Oswald.
"Certainly," said Oldenburg. "I have often enough regretted it in
travelling, and been heartily ashamed of my aesthetic stupidity, which
kept me from feeling anything at places where others would make
summersets for pleasure or weep sentimental tears. I tried in vain to
do like the English misses and sob: Beautiful, very fine indeed! I read
in vain in Byron and Lamartine till I knew them nearly by heart,--it
was all in vain. I never could do more than poor Werther, who saw in
nature but a well-varnished picture; and a couple of beggar-boys, who
fought in the sand by the sea-shore, or a poor fellah turning his heavy
water-wheel, were more interesting to me than the Gulf of Naples and
the Nile. I delight in men and the manners of men,--Nature is beyond
me."
"But why do you exile yourself into this solitude? Why do you, who
could so easily afford it, not rather live on the _Boulevard des
Capucines_, or in Pall-Mall, London, than on this northern shore?"
"For the same reason that the falcon is made to fast twenty-four hours,
before he is taken out on the gazelle-hunt,--to sharpen my hunger after
my favorite dish. When I have lived here a few weeks my senses become
fresh again and susceptible, and the sight of man's busy life has its
old charms for me once more."
"And how much longer do you expect to stay here?"
"I do not know yet. My Solitude--this is the name my grandfather gave
this place--pleases me this time better than usual. I have led an odd
sort of life for the last few years, and seen so many children of Adam
of various races and degrees of civilization that at last they all
looked alike to me, an evidence that my senses had become dull and a
new fast was necessary. You and Czika must see to it that I do not
starve altogether."
"And where is our little foundling?"
"Somewhere on the heath, where she lies down in the blooming broom and
stares at the sky; or on the beach, where she climbs about among the
rocks and claps her hands with delight if a wave wets her bare feet.
She has not been persuaded yet to put on shoes; I leave her in perfect
freedom since she declared, on the second day of her stay here, when I
refused to let her run out in the most inclement weather: Czika dies if
she cannot go in the rain!"
"Does she pine after her mother?"
"Do you really think that brown woman, whom I at least saw only in
passing, is her mother?"
"Certainly! The likeness between Czika and the Brown Countess is
unmistakable."
"From whom have I heard that expression before?" said Oldenburg,
thoughtfully; "probably from you the other day, but it sounded so
familiar to me. Does the name come from you?"
"No; from Frau von Berkow," said Oswald, fixing his eye upon Oldenburg.
"Ah, indeed!" said the baron.
This was the first time that Melitta's name was mentioned by the two
men, and it was characteristic enough, that at once a pause occurred in
the conversation.
"On what occasion did Frau von Berkow make the acquaintance of the
gypsy?" asked the baron, after a little while.
Oswald told him in a few words the story of the Brown Countess, as he
had heard it from Melitta.
Oldenburg smiled. "Yes," he said, "now I remember. Frau von Berkow told
me that anecdote some years ago. The story is a very pretty one,
especially for those who take an interest in Frau von Berkow, because
it is very characteristic of the amiable lady, who is as kind-hearted
as she is fond of such little _escapades_."
The baron said this as simply and calmly as if there had never been a
period when he would have risked his life for a smile of this "amiable
lady."
"But had we not better go in?" he continued; "I see Hermann, my raven
and my factotum, has put all kinds of nice things on a table, and there
comes Thusnelda, his wife and my nurse, to invite us solemnly to take
some refreshments."
A venerable-looking old lady of large size appeared in the glass door,
dropped a low courtesy and said:
"Master, the table is set."
"Very well," said Oldenburg. "Have you seen the Czika?"
"I thought she was here," replied the matron, looking anxiously around.
"No. Bring her up if she comes while we are at table. Just go and look
out for her. Come, doctor, I hope the long drive has made you hungry,
or at least thirsty; Thusnelda has prepared for both cases."
While they took their seats at the richly served table, Oswald looked
around in the room. The large apartment was well filled with chairs and
sofas of various shapes, which seemed to have no fixed place, and a
large writing-table of oak. Along the walls stood huge oak cases filled
with books. Books were lying upon the tables and on the sofas and
chairs; books strewed the floor. A few busts, copies from the antique,
and some large engravings, were the only ornaments of the room, which
evidently had no special claims to elegance. Between two of the
bookcases, where an engraving ought to have hung, there was a green
silk curtain, which conceded either an awkwardly placed window, or a
portrait that was not to be seen by the curious eye of stray visitors.
Then his attention returned once more to the baron himself, who
appeared to him to-day, in his long coat of yellow linen hanging
loosely around his tall, thin form, quite another man. But then the
altered costume struck Oswald even less than the changed expression in
his face. The ironical line near the mouth, which even the close black
beard could not effectually conceal, the small, sharp wrinkles on the
high forehead, around the eyes, and near the nostrils--all these were
to-day effaced by a benevolent smile, which gave an expression of
mildness and goodness to the usually sharp eyes. Oswald could hardly
trust his eyes, although he had overcome much of his former prejudice
against the baron. Now the thought that a woman could and might love
this man with her whole heart did not appear to him any more so very
strange as at the ball at Barnewitz. He thought of the leaf in
Melitta's album; he thought of his own words: This man will never be
happy, because he will never desire to be happy, and of Melitta's
answer: "Therefore this man is taken out of my life, as his portrait is
taken out of my album;" and he said to himself: Ah, he might have been
happy if he had desired to be so! Why did he not desire it? What has
parted the two?--Which of them spoke the word that parted them, as it
seems, forever?
These thoughts no longer awakened in Oswald that wild jealousy which
had torn his heart on the day when he first met the baron in the
forest. But the mysterious darkness which brooded over these events
which he could not penetrate, and, what was worse, which he did not
dare to penetrate, filled his soul with that sadness, that pity, which
we feel for ourselves when our devotion is interrupted just when we
most desire to pour out our overflowing heart in prayer.
Oswald tried to master his emotion; he felt as if the baron's sharp
eyes were able to read what was going on in his soul. But the latter
remained apparently quite unconcerned, and entirely preoccupied by the
subject of their conversation: Czika and the Brown Countess. Both men
tried in vain to solve the enigma of this remarkable affair with all
their ingenuity. What could have induced the Brown Countess to leave
her child, which she seemed to love most devotedly, so unceremoniously
in the hands of strangers? How could she gather courage to part
with her at the very moment when the brutal jokes of the young
noblemen--young Count Grieben's groom had told the whole story to
Oldenburg's coachman--and the playful elopement with the child had
excited her rage to such a degree? Had she given the girl to Oswald or
to the baron, or had she not given her but merely sold her, postponing
the day of payment for a month, in the hope that the two men, or either
of them, would in the mean time become so attached to the child that
she would receive a higher price for her?
"My special apprehension," said Oldenburg, "is that the Brown Countess
may repent of her bargain and take the child again from me, or that the
Czika cannot resist the longing after her young life, and vanishes some
fine morning or other. I confess it would be a severe blow for me. Your
prophecy that I would find in the sweet child a treasure more precious
than Aladdin's magic lamp, seems to have been fulfilled. I should like
to be the child's father! I should like to endow this silent heart with
speech, to see my own thoughts beautified and ennobled in the new
language. I should like to bind her to me with all the ties that can
bind a daughter to her father, a father to his daughter--of course only
in order to see these ties torn, and some jackanapes come and ask me to
throw her into his arms, because his coat fits him a little better than
his neighbor's! I am now in that period of life when one longs to have
children; when one is not a Swiss, who, you know, proposed to eat
children, though not from love; I long for them as a tired wanderer
desires a staff to support his weary limbs. When we feel that we have
reached the turning-point in our life, and that we must go down hill
henceforth, while the land of our youth is gradually disappearing
behind the top of the hill, then we would like to hear joyous
children's voices reach us from the other side, which recall to us our
own happy childhood. You will ask me why I do not yield to my prosaic
desires and marry?--Or perhaps you will not ask me so; for you will see
yourself that marriage is out of question for a man who has spent the
ten best years of his life in all kinds of _liaisons dangereuses_ and
_innocentes_, I do not want a wife who does not wish me to say to her:
I love you! and how can I tell her so without making myself ridiculous
in my own eyes, after having said so to I know not how many in all the
languages I know? No, no! With such views a man may become a Turk and
establish a harem, but he is too bad in all conscience for marriage in
the highest and purest sense, which is a wonderful alchemy changing two
into one."
"And yet," said Oswald, "genuine love has a purifying, hallowing power,
which scatters all doubts as the rays of the sun scatter fogs and
mists. True love, like true hatred, wipes 'all foolish stories from the
tablets of memory,' and changes us in an instant from wild barbarians
into Hellenes of delicate feelings. Rude strength, which before simply
asserted itself in destruction or in production, now assumes a pleasing
shape, and where before it created a Siva, whose fiery glance destroyed
all creatures, it now creates an Olympic Zeus, who blesses all creation
with his paternal eyes."
"Well said," replied the baron; "will you try this hock, a wine of some
merit,--very well said and also perhaps true,--only not for Problematic
Characters."
"What do you call Problematic Characters?"
"It is an expression which Goethe uses in a place that has ever given
me much trouble of mind. There are problematic characters, says
Goethe,--I believe in his Fact and Fiction,--who are not equal to any
position in which they may happen to be, and who are not satisfied with
any. This, he adds, produces a violent contradiction, and leads to the
consumption of life without enjoyment.--It is a fearful word of his,
for it is a sentence of death pronounced with Olympic calmness on a
numerous class of men, of whom we have but too many in our day, who are
very good men and very bad musicians.--There is Czika!"
"Where?"
"Behind you!"
Oswald turned round. Within the open door which led out on the balcony
stood the pretty child, surrounded by the red light of the setting sun.
Her luxuriant bluish black hair fell in long ringlets on both sides of
her face upon her shoulders, which rose from a blue Turkish blouse,
while a light shawl of red silk was tied around her slender waist
Turkish trousers reached down to her feet. When she had seen that there
was a stranger in the room, she had been about to slip away again as
stealthily as she had come, till the baron's words had arrested her and
Oswald had turned around. At seeing him a joyous smile passed over her
dark, solemn face, and her brown gazelle eyes looked almost tenderly up
at him, as he now was standing before her, holding one of her hands in
his own, and parting with the other her luxuriant hair.
"Czika knows you," she said. "You are very kind. You love the poor; the
poor love you."
"A declaration of love!" said Oldenburg, who had remained seated at the
table; "how many have you had, doctor, this week? Doctor, you are a
dangerous man, and I shall see myself compelled to forbid you the
house?"
"Why are you not always here?" asked Czika, turning her large eyes from
the baron upon Oswald. "Czika will sit by you near the great water;
Czika will gather flowers for you on the heath. Why are you not always
here?"
"He cannot be always here, Czika," said the baron, "but he will come
very often. Won't you, doctor?"
The door to the anteroom opened, and Mrs. Muller, or Thusnelda, as the
baron called her, looked in.
"I cannot--ah! there she is! Where have you been, darling doll? Come, I
will put you a little to rights. How you look again!--quite covered
with heather, as usual; what are the gentlemen to think?"
With these words the matron led the child out of the room.
"You must know that there is a strong attachment between the two," said
the baron. "My old nurse has had many blooming children who have all
died young. Other women's hearts often grow hard under such calamities;
hers has remained soft, and now she loves the Czika as if she were her
first-born. But that is just as if a dove had hatched a falcon. Czika's
determination to enjoy unbounded liberty causes the old lady ten times
every day infinite trouble and despair. And then, another difficulty.
Thusnelda is very pious, and Czika has--_horribile dictu_--no religion
whatever, unless it be some mysterious worship of the stars, which she
performs at night, when she steals away from her couch and dances in
the moonlight on the beach, as Thusnelda swears she has seen her do, to
her own unspeakable horror and disgust. And, to tell the truth, I
believe Thusnelda is right. At least I have noticed more than once that
if the gypsies have any object of worship it is the sun, the moon, and
the stars."
"Have you often had opportunity in your travels to come in contact with
this interesting race?"
"Oh yes!" said the baron, "even into very close contact, especially
once in Hungary--now twelve years ago."
The baron paused, filled his glass, and drank the wine slowly, fixing
his eyes on the tablecloth like a person whose thoughts are completely
preoccupied with some recollection.
"Well," said Oswald, "how was that?"
"What?" said the baron, as if awakening from a dream; "oh yes; well,
you shall hear what I had to do with gypsies in Hungary."
"I presume that was a romance?"
"Of course," replied the baron; "I was at that time at an age when
every man is more or less romantic, unless he be born a mere stick. I
was enthusiastic about moonlit magic nights, about wells and forest
noises, and, above all, I was enthusiastic about slender maidens, with
or without a guitar and a blue ribbon.
"All my views of life were eminently romantic, especially my morality.
The whole of life had no more meaning for me than a puppet-show at a
fair, and sovereign irony was the only real feeling which I
appreciated. In a word, I was a nice fellow, and if they had hung me on
the nearest gallows it would have been my just punishment, and, I
trust, a good warning for others.
"I was heartily tired of my student's life at Bonn and at Heidelberg. I
had looked in vain into a thousand books to solve the mystery about
which so many better men have racked their brains, and I wanted to try
it in a new way. I wrote to my guardian, and conveyed to him my
intention to travel a few years. My guardian approved the plan, as he
approved everything I ever suggested,--so he could get rid of me for a
time,--he sent me money and letters of introduction, and I went on my
journey. I travelled over Southern Germany, Switzerland, and Northern
Italy. But if you were to ask me even for a superficial account of my
journey I would be seriously embarrassed. I know as much of those
countries as of the landscapes I have seen in my dreams. Last, I went
to Hungary. Chance, which was always my only guide, had led me there.
In Vienna I had become acquainted with a Hungarian nobleman, whose
father owned large estates at the foot of the Tetra mountains. He had
invited me to visit him, and I went. We led quite an idyllic life; the
main features of which were wine, women, and dice. He had a couple of
beautiful sisters, with whom I fell in love one by one. Then I became
enthusiastic about the French _dame de compagnie_ of his mother, who
had just come from Paris and put all the young Hungarian ladies to
shame by the grace of her manners, her taste in matters of toilette,
and her skill in conversation.