There we were seated together. Torches flickering at the gate. Then
everything dark and black.
Gentlemen, that was a memorable ride!
The carriage wheels splashed through the mud puddles--ss--ss--ss.
The wind whistled and howled. The rain drummed on the top of the
carriage--tara tata! Tara tata!
"And now, what are you going to do with her?" I asked myself.
She was not to be seen, heard, or felt. As if I were driving through
the night absolutely by myself. It was not until we reached the woods
and the light from the lanterns shone on the wet birch trees so that a
gleam of light was reflected back into the carriage that I saw her
cowering in the corner as though she were trying to press through the
side and throw herself out.
Good Heavens! Such a poor little thing! Bereft of all that made up her
old existence and beholding in her new world nothing but an oldish
fellow who had just been dead drunk.
The devil! How ashamed of myself I felt.
"Iolanthe."
But, of course, I had to say something.
Not a sound.
"Are you afraid of me?"
"Yes."
"Won't you give me your hand?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"Here."
Slowly--very slowly--something soft touched my sleeve. I caught it, I
held it fast, I covered it up.
Poor thing! Poor thing!
And at the same time a kind of--I might call it "sacred fire" if I
wanted to be sentimental--took possession of me. In my hour of need, I
found beautiful, warm, comforting words to say to her.
"You see, Iolanthe," I said, "you are now my wife. There's no changing
that. And, after all, you wanted it yourself. But you mustn't suppose I
shall bother you with all sorts of amorous ways and make demands. It is
a true friend who is sitting here beside you--I may say a fatherly
friend, if you can get any comfort out of that--because I haven't the
least idea of trying to disguise the fact that I am much older than
you. So, my dear, if your heart is heavy and if you want to cry to your
heart's content, you'll never find a breast on which you can rest more
securely. Always come to me for refuge, just come to me even if you do
feel that I am the enemy from whom you are seeking refuge."
That was very nicely said, wasn't it? It was inspired by my sympathy
and by my pure unqualified good will.
Poor old me! As if a little bit of youthful fervour were not worth a
thousand times more than the deepest sympathy and all that. But at the
moment the impression of what I said was so strong that I myself was
frightened.
With one bound she was out of her corner, with her arms round my neck,
kissing my face through her veil and saying between sobs:
"Forgive me--forgive me, you dear, dear man."
At this I thought of the scene at our engagement when she had puzzled
me by the same behaviour.
"What's all this?" I said. "What am I always to forgive you for?"
She did not answer. She merely withdrew to her corner, and from then on
not another sound from her lips.
The rain had stopped falling, but the wind blew at the carriage windows
more madly than ever. Then--suddenly--a flash of lightning! And hard
upon it a peal of thunder.
The horses reared and curvetted toward the ditch.
"Rein them in tight, John!" I cried. Of course he didn't hear me.
However, the beasts stood still. His fists were like iron. I never had
a better coachman.
The thunderbolt turned out to be nothing but a signal. Peal after peal
followed--right and left--everywhere. Flaming roofs, balls of fire,
towers aglow, and the park all alight with a beautiful emerald green.
My good old Ilgenstein transformed into a real fairy castle.
A shiver of pure delight went through me at being able to show her the
new home bathed in such splendour. All this I owed to Lothar--the dear
boy--and perhaps much more. For often it is the first impression that
casts the lot for a whole life.
Iolanthe leaned out of the carriage window, and in the red glow I saw
her eyes looking ahead in a kind of eager or anxious searching.
"All this is yours, my dear," I said and tried to find her hand.
But she did not hear me. She seemed to be completely overwhelmed by the
beautiful picture.
As we drew into the court, bedlam broke loose--a shouting and shooting,
drums and trumpets, torches and lanterns on all sides, and faces
blackened by smoke, glowing eyes, open mouths.
"Hurrah! Long live his Lordship! Long live her Grace! Hurrah!" Such a
trampling and waving of hats! The horde of them behaved as though
possessed.
"Well," I thought to myself, "now she certainly must see that she isn't
married to a bad man, since his servants love him so much," and, primed
for emotion as one is at such times, I began to blubber a bit.
When the carriage stopped, I saw Lothar standing in front of the door
among the inspectors and apprentices. I jumped out and took him into my
arms.
"My boy! My dear, dear boy!" In my thankfulness I could have kissed his
hand.
When I started to assist my young wife out of the carriage, that
unfortunate creature, the chief inspector, in the midst of the
excitement, started to treat us to a solemn speech.
"For God's sake, Baumann," I said, "we'll take all that for granted,"
and I helped Iolanthe into the house.
There the housemaids were standing, curtseying and tittering, the
housekeeper at their head. But Iolanthe stared right past them.
Then I was seized by dread of what was to come.
"Oh, if you had not sent your sister away!" I thought, and looking
around for help I spied Lothar in the doorway, apparently about to take
leave. I rushed over to him and caught his hands.
"Come now, you aren't leaving us, are you? After all this trouble we
must have something hot together--what do you say?"
He turned red as blood, but I led him over to Iolanthe, who had just
been relieved of her hat and cloak.
"You must help me persuade him to stay, Iolanthe. His exertions for us
have surely earned him a cup of tea."
"I ask you," she said, without even raising her eyes.
He made a stiff bow, and pulled at his moustache.
I led them through the lighted halls to the dining-room.
She looked neither to the right nor the left. All the splendour brought
into being for her sake shone unnoticed. Two or three times she reeled
on my arm, and at each crisis I looked anxiously about to see if the
boy was with us.
Praised be the Lord! He was still there!
In the dining-room the tea kettle was boiling, by my sister's orders
before she left.
"Suppose you send for her?" flashed through my mind. "One carriage
hurried off to Krakowitz, another to Gorowen--and she might be here
inside of an hour."
But I, poor old blade, was ashamed to admit my helplessness. Besides,
there was Lothar for me to cling to in my desperation.
Thank God, Lothar was still with us.
"Well, be seated, children." I assumed the air of being wonderfully at
ease.
I can still see the whole scene. The snowy white tablecloth, the
Meissen china, the old silver sugar bowl, the hanging lamp of copper
overhead and in its hard light, to my right, Iolanthe, pale, stiff,
with half-closed eyes, like a somnambulist; to my left, Lothar with his
bushy hair and firm brown cheeks and the sombre fold between his brows,
his eyes fixed on the tablecloth.
Seeing that evidently the boy felt _de trop_ and would much rather have
run away, I laid my hands affectionately on his shoulders and thanked
him from the bottom of my heart for the torture he was imposing upon
himself.
"Take a good look at him, Iolanthe," I said. "We three shall be sitting
here like this many a time again, enjoying each other's company."
She nodded very slowly and closed her eyes altogether.
Poor thing! Poor thing! And the dread almost took my breath away.
"Be jolly, children," I said. "Lothar, tell us something funny--out of
your own life. Come on now. Have you anything to smoke? No? Wait a
moment, I'll get you something."
And in my anguish I made for the cigar cabinet in the next room, as
though a good smoke would bring everything to a happy ending.
And then, gentlemen, when I came back with the box under my arm, I saw
something through the open door that stopped the blood in my veins.
Only once in my life have I experienced a similar shock. That was one
evening when I was still a young cuirassier and I came home from a
jolly party to find a telegram for me with the pleasant message,
"Father just died."
But now as to what it was that I saw, gentlemen.
The two young people were sitting still and stiff on their chairs, as
before, but they had, so to speak, dipped their eyes into each other's,
and there was a wild, despairing, insane glow in them such as I had
never thought could shine out of human eyes. It was like two flames
darting sparks into each other.
So there I was. Not yet my wife, and already my friend, my son, my
favourite, betraying me with her.
Adultery in the house even before the marriage had really been
consummated.
In that look my whole future--an existence of suspicion, and dread and
gloom and ridicule, full of grey days and sleepless nights--lay
unrolled before me like a map.
What was I to do, gentlemen?
My impulse was to take her by the hand and say to him, "She's yours, my
boy. I have no longer any right over her."
But please put yourselves in my position. A look is something
intangible and undemonstrable. It may be denied with a smile. And,
after all, might I not have been mistaken?
And while I revolved this in my mind, the two pairs of eyes continued
to cling to each other in complete oblivion of everything about them.
When I walked into the room, there was not even a twitch of an eyelid.
They even turned toward me as if in surprise and indignation and as if
to ask:
"Why does this old man, this stranger, intrude upon us?"
I felt inclined to roar out like a wounded beast. However, I collected
myself and offered the cigars. But I felt I had to put an end to the
business quickly. All kinds of red suns were beginning to dance in
front of my eyes.
So I said, "Go home, my boy, it's time."
He rose heavily, gave me an icy handshake, and made his lieutenant's
bow to her with joined heels, and turned towards the door.
Then I heard a cry--a cry that pierced me to the quick.
And what did I see?
My wife, my young wife, lying at his feet, holding on to his coat with
both hands, and crying, "You must not die! You must not die!"
Well, gentlemen, the catastrophe at last!
For a moment I stood like a man hit over the head. Then I caught Lothar
by the collar.
"Stop, my boy," I said, "that's enough. I won't have any tricks played
on me."
Still holding his collar I led him gently back to his seat, closed the
doors, and lifted my wife, who was lying on the floor weeping
convulsively, to a couch.
But she caught my hands and started to kiss them, whimpering, "Don't
let him go! He wants to kill himself--he wants to kill himself!"
"And why do you want to kill yourself, my boy?" said I. "If you had
prior rights to mine, why did you not assert them? Why did you deceive
your best friend?"
He pressed his hands to his forehead and remained silent.
Then I fell into a rage and said, "Say something, or I'll knock you
down like a mad dog!"
"Do it," he said, stretching out his arms. "I have deserved nothing
better."
"Deserved or not--now you must tell me what all this means."
Well, gentlemen, then I learned the whole pretty story from the two of
them together, to the accompaniment of self-reproaches, tears and
bended knees.
Years before they had met in the woods and fell in love for ever
after--hopelessly and silently, as behooved the off spring of two
feuding families--Montagues and Capulets.
"Did you confess your love to each other?"
No, but they had kissed each other.
"And then?"
Then he had gone on garrison duty in Berlin and they heard no more of
each other. They did not dare to write, and each was uncertain of the
other's affection.
Then came the death of old Puetz and my attempt to bring about a
reconciliation. When I appeared at Krakowitz, Iolanthe conceived the
plan at first of making me a confident of her love. In fact, she hoped
to receive a message through me. Nothing of the kind. Instead, I
misunderstood her tender glances and played the enamoured swain myself.
Then, when her father's burst of rage proved clearly that there never
would be a bit of hope for her, she decided in her despair to avail
herself of the one possible way of at least getting near her beloved.
"Ah, but, my dear, that was really a contemptible thing for you to do."
"But I longed for him so," she answered, as though that made everything
right.
"Very good--excellent! But you, my son, why didn't you come and say,
'Uncle, I love her, she loves me, hands off!'"
"But I did not know if she still loved me."
"Splendid! You are a precious pair of innocents, you two. When did you
finally find out?"
"To-day--while you were asleep."
And now came a terrible story. After dinner, on leaving the table, a
single handshake in silence showed each how miserable the other one
was, and seeing no way out, they decided to die that very night.
"What! You, too?"
Instead of answering Iolanthe pulled out of her pocket a little bottle
from which a human skull grinned at me.
"What's that?"
"Cyanide of potassium."
"The devil! Where did you get that from?"
Presented to her some years ago by a friend of hers at the dancing
school, a chemist whose head she had turned. She had asked him to give
her the pleasant drink.
"And you were going to take that stuff, you little goose, you?"
She looked at me with big glaring eyes and nodded two or three times.
I understood very well, and a shudder passed down my back. A fine
bridal night it might have been!
"And now? What am I going to do with the two of you now?"
"Save us! Help us! Have mercy on us!"
They were on their knees before me, licking my hands.
And because I, as you know, gentlemen, am a professional good fellow, I
devised a means of bringing my failure of a marriage to a speedy end.
John was ordered to hitch up, and fifteen minutes later, without any
to-do, I was driving my twelve-hour bride to Gorowen to my sister,
under whose protection she was to remain until the divorce had been
decreed--under no circumstances would she return to her father's house.
Lothar asked me quite naively if he might not go with us.
"You rascal!" I said. "Off home with you!"
At the right time and place, gentlemen, I can be very severe.
* * * * *
It was striking half-past four as I got back to Ilgenstein.
I was beastly tired. My legs were hanging from my body like pieces of
dead wood. Everything was quiet, as I had sent the whole household to
bed before going.
Walking along the corridor, where the lights were still burning, I saw
a door decorated with wreaths. It led to the bridal chamber which my
sister had kept locked up till then as a surprise.
Moved by curiosity I opened the door and looked in. I beheld a purple
sepulchral vault, a mixture of strange scents almost choked me.
Everything was hung with curtains and draperies, and from the ceiling
swung a real lighted church lamp. In the background, on a raised dais,
there had been erected a sort of catafalque with golden ornaments and
silken covers.
It was there that I should have had to sleep!
"B-r-r-r!" I said and shut the door and ran away as quickly as my
limping legs would carry me.
And then I came to my own room and lit my lovely bright students' lamp.
It smiled at me like the sun itself.
In the corner stood my old narrow camp bed with its red-stained posts,
the grey straw bag, and the worn deerskin robe.
Well, gentlemen, you can imagine how delicious I felt.
I undressed, lit a good cigar, jumped into bed, and read an interesting
chapter of the history of the Franco-Prussian War.
And I can assure you, gentlemen, that I never slept more soundly than
on my bridal night.
THE WOMAN WHO WAS HIS
FRIEND
Oh, how tired I am, dear lady! I've been writing New Year's letters the
whole day and have disposed of everything that has gone unanswered the
entire year. Goodness, what ancient debts turned up! And what an awful
lazybones I've been! The number of good friends that I've insulted
through sheer neglect, the number of little thorns I've left sticking
in people's flesh! But enough said.
I sent out New Year's cards, too, and you will also receive my card on
New Year's morning with a stiff "Many wishes for a Happy New Year" and
not so much as even a sugary little verse beside the 1/1/86.
Don't laugh. On second thought 1/1 is a highly significant figure, and
we oughtn't to make fun of it the way I did. The day it designates is a
turning-point for people's hearts. On that day love changes its
residence. Not always, of course. Many people have a contract for a
number of years, for life even, and it's a good snug berth that love
falls into in homey dwelling-places like that. But the giddy creatures,
the butterflies--if one may speak of butterflies at New Year--the ones
that have been evicted and all the others who are looking for new
quarters either out of choice or out of necessity--you see them
preparing at New Year's time for moving in or moving out.
Why just at New Year's time, you ask?
Another season has begun, new relations are entered into, new intrigues
are woven, inclinations newly awakened crop up shyly to the surface.
Christmas belonged to the old era still; the happiness comfortably
enjoying itself in dressing-gown and slippers still held sway over the
discomforts of the new passion knocking turbulently at the door. But
now, at New Year, there's a general clearing out, and all worn
love-goods are disposed of "previous to removal," as the advertisements
read.
The heart's change of residence is probably the saddest there is. Many
things get broken and many a cherished memento falls into the gutter.
But if it cannot be prevented, then the moving may as well be done
thoroughly and energetically.
"Off with the old love before you're on with the new."
A truth of startling pregnancy. Many a person has arrived too late
because he lingered too long saying good-bye. Piles of novels could be
written on this subject.
Sometimes, too, the heart stays in the old house but moves to another
apartment. Then hate follows love and love follows hate, the latter, at
least, in Marlitt's romances. And more than this, friendship moves in
where love once dwelt.
And then, finally, there are the cases in which friendship clears the
way for love.
You shake your head. You believe friendship never clears the way for
love? You mean because we two friends are so proof against love? Oh, we
are the exception. Between us rises the intellectual love of truth like
a crystal wall in the Arctic Ocean. But I can give you examples, my
dear lady, any number of examples, of friendship clearing the way for
love. And mostly unhappy examples.
It seems to be an iron law of happiness that love should begin with
passion and end in the peace of tranquil friendship--marriage, I mean.
The reverse way is not excluded, but it leads--to the desert.
There are abstract enthusiasts that construe the marriage of souls as a
necessary preliminary to physical love. But nature punishes lying. When
friendship between a man and a woman ends in love, either the
friendship or the love is not true. And woe, woe if the friendship has
not been friendship but love.
Apropos of this--do you happen to remember the portrait of a woman that
created such a stir at the exhibition two or three years ago and
brought the painter so much fame and so many orders? A frail figure,
almost too frail, in a simple black velvet dress. A thin suffering
face, a pale forehead with the crown on it of the quiet aristocracy of
thought. Half-closed dreamy eyes, a bluish gleam from between dark
lashes. Upper lip covered with fine down and an expression of longing
and smiling melancholy about the mouth. Now I remember to a dot. You
and I admired the picture together. You stood studying it a long time
and then said:
"That's the way I fancy Vittoria Colonna must have looked."
I said nothing to that. I was astonished by your keenness, because
there really were many resemblances of character between the lady of
the portrait and Michael Angelo's unhappy friend. Her fate, too, was
curiously like Vittoria Colonna's. Of course, I may not tell how I came
to know her story. At that time it was still in progress, and the
change that came later--well----
She was the widow of a well-known architect. His house was a social
centre for a swarm of talented young artists, among them K----, the
painter of the portrait. He was a jolly young fellow, easy-going and
saucy. The maelstrom of the years at the Academy had not destroyed the
perfect childlikeness of his genius, and, as a result, the air of being
blase and weighted with the woes of the world that he put on in
deference to his varied experiences was all the more becoming as at the
slightest provocation he dropped this manner and burst into a ringing
laugh.
Hedwig soon realised there was a sound core to the young man's rather
giddy character, and since everybody felt that his talent was of the
first order and only needed a little cultivation to bear glorious
fruit, she took pleasure in looking out for him. And he, for his part,
surrendered himself ardently to the guidance of a woman a few years
older than himself, a woman whom he came to adore.
He brought her his sketches, and she passed upon them, with a sharp eye
for both the painter's sense of form and for the tiniest slip of his
still uncertain hand. He made her the confidante of his creative ideas,
which gushed from his brain impetuously, and he received them back from
her matured and refined. There was not a corner of his heart that did
not lie open to her view, and she was wise enough even to place the
right estimate upon the youthful coarseness with which his sentiments
sometimes bubbled over. Another woman might have felt hurt, while she
took it as evidence of his surplus of strength, and smiled and gently
poked fun at him, and so brought harmony out of the chaos within him.
She showered riches on him, and what she got back in return was
scarcely less in value. Held fast at the side of an ill-tempered aging
husband, an ailing woman herself and growing weaker from year to year,
she had matured in mind at an early age; and she had paid toll in the
loss of youthful spirits and elasticity. But now whole streams of a
fresh blithe life poured out of him into her. She felt rejuvenated in
his presence. And a tender motherliness, the shadow of a joy that had
been denied her, was interwoven with her other feelings for him.
Her husband was glad to see his lonely wife occupied and did not
interfere. And why should he have interfered? Never was there less
occasion for jealousy. The young scapegrace, as a matter of fact, even
confided his love affairs to her, and she tried by smiling advice to
render them at least innocuous enough not to hamper the development of
his talent.
Three years passed. Hedwig's husband died. Her illness had grown worse,
and at the physician's advice she went south, to Nice.
She lived in great retirement, broken into only now and then, when a
young genius long of hair and none too clean of shirt turned up in her
modest drawing-room, generally in money difficulties and bringing a
letter of recommendation from her friend.
Her one diversion was corresponding with K----, whose work and position
kept him in Berlin.
He often wrote her that he adored her like a saint.
She, for her part, parried his onslaughts of ecstasy and was satisfied
that in spite of his volatile nature and his growing fame, he preserved
his old liking for her.
Three years more passed. Then, once, late in autumn he suddenly
appeared at Nice, tired, worn out by work, spiritually desolate,
unsteadier than ever, but--a full-grown man.
"I have come to be cured by you," he exclaimed the first time he was in
her house.
She wept for joy.
Soon they dropped into greater intimacy than ever, and yet she
sometimes experienced a sense of shyness which she had not felt before
in her relation with him, for the very reason that he was no longer the
boy she could look down on with unconstrained motherliness. The
difference in years seemed to have been wiped out, inwardly as well as
outwardly, and he had grown close to her intellectually, alarmingly
close.
He often complained to her of his afflictions--the miserable headaches
that kept bothering him, the result of overwork, and then the worries
of his profession, the disillusionments. They were by no means
formidable, but easily too much for the spoiled darling of fortune. She
devoured everything he said. The least little thing of concern to him
assumed prodigious importance.
But there seemed to be a good deal that he did not tell her.
"And how about the women?" she asked, smiling, though tortured by
suddenly rising jealousy.
"Oh, let's not talk of the women. I've forgotten every one of them. Now
you are my one and only one."
She thrilled, but said nothing. Oh, had he known how _her_ whole being
lost itself in his!
These words of his caressed her from now on, echoing even in her sleep
at night.
They celebrated Christmas together.
When the candles were burning on the tree and the homelike scent of
pine and apples filled the room, he caught her hands, looked long into
her eyes smiling, and said:
"You know, you and I ought really to marry."
She felt her blood bounding hot through her veins, but she held on to
herself, and burst out laughing.
"You think I'm joking," he went on. "No, no, I'm not. I am in deep
earnest. You yourself tell me--we're each of us alone, we don't care
about the world, we have come to understand each other as no other two
people on earth have ever understood each other. Why should we not
share our fate the rest of our lives?"
"Now do be sensible," she said, trying to keep up a show of lightness,
"and don't talk such nonsense any more; for nonsense it is, whether
said in fun or in deep earnest. Exactly what you need--a woman hanging
round your neck who is five years older than you and soon will be
altogether faded. Besides, you don't strike me as having been born to
be a nurse, and you know I am slowly making my way graveward. So the
matter's settled."
That night she cried to herself.
The next day his headache bothered him worse than ever. With her he was
privileged to make himself comfortable, and he stretched out on the
sofa, and she adjusted the cushions under his head.
"Your hands are always so cool," he said. "In the days of old you
sometimes used to stroke my forehead so soothingly. It did me no end of
good. I have spoiled my chance for that form of happiness, too."
She passed her shaking hand over his head and brow, and when she
touched his cheek, he caught her fingers in both his hands.
"Let them stay there," he said with a great sigh. "My cheeks are on
fire."
Her cheeks were burning, too.
Christmas week went by, and the man and the woman drew still closer
together in the solitude of their hearts. New Year's eve came, and they
decided to wait up and greet the new year together.
Hedwig was preparing the tea, and he was leaning back in an easy chair,
smoking cigarettes and looking through the blue clouds at her
housewifely ways. There was a rosy sheen on her cheeks and something
like the promise of happiness glittering in her eyes.
He felt so happy and yet so oppressed that he wanted to jump up and
clasp her in his arms simply to lift the burden from his soul.
She spoke little. She seemed occupied with her own thoughts, and he
with his.
At about eleven o'clock there was a noise on the street, and the red
glow of smoking torches came through the window. It was a procession of
masqueraders got up by a private society, a foretaste of the public
carnival to follow.
She opened the French window and they went out on the balcony, on which
potted pomegranate-trees were in full bloom. It was a soft warm night,
like our own nights in spring. The stars were sparkling, and a vague
shimmer lay upon the ocean.
As the giddy throng flowed past below them whistling and hooting and
laughing, he felt her arm laid on his almost anxiously.
"Aren't we standing here as on an isolated rock in mid-ocean?" he
whispered.
She nodded and pressed herself against him softly.
"And yet have to remain strangers," he went on.
She made no reply, and lowered her head to dip it into the mass of
blossoms. He felt the quivering of her body.
"Hedwig," he said softly.
She shrank. It was the first time he had ever called her by her first
name.
"Hedwig."
"What is it?"
"Hedwig, my heart's so full. I must thank you. I must tell you loving
things. What would I be without you? Whatever I am I owe to you.
Hedwig, I can't bear any longer to be standing beside you so stiff and
so cold while my heart is throbbing. I must get some air--I must tell
you----"
"Oh, God!" she breathed, clapping her hands to her face and rushing
back into the room, where she dropped down on a settee.
He followed her and caught both her hands.
She was panting.
"Let us talk sensibly," she said, making an effort to sit up erect.
"Sit down--there--and listen to me." He obeyed mechanically. "Why can't
things stay the same as they always have been between us? Wasn't it
lovely? Didn't we use to enjoy each other? And now suddenly something
has seethed up in us that makes us ungrateful for all the happiness we
had. We mustn't give in. It would plunge us--me, at least--into
unhappiness. You see, a few days ago you told me I was your one and
only one. I feel that in a certain sense I really am, and that makes me
proud and happy. But the moment we want to reap love where we sowed
friendship, the magic departs that held us in its spell for so long.
Until then I shall have been your one and only one. Afterward I shall
be--one more."
He started.
"What an ugly notion!" he said dully.
"Ugly, perhaps, but all the truer," she replied, plucking at
the tablecloth with palsied fingers. "We must not surrender to
self-deception. This moment determines our future. It lies within our
power to decide which way we shall go. You know that--I--love
you--and that--I am lonely. So have pity on me. Spare me suffering. I
should like to mean as much in your life as I always have."
"You are to mean _more_ in my life, not less!" he cried, putting his
hands to his forehead. "I want to devote myself to you altogether, with
all my body, all my soul, and all my art. I want to have peace--peace
from the world without and peace from the passions within. And where
could I be surer of finding peace than with you?"
She drew a deep sigh, as if in awakening hope, and her gaze hung on his
ardently.
At that instant the hands of the clock were close on twelve.
"A few moments," he said, "and the year will be over--a new one will be
coming. Shall it forever remain the same for me, always doing futile
empty things? And shall it always remain the same for you, always
living in sadness and loneliness? Ahead of us is darkness, and,
crouching in the darkness like a hungry beast, is the grave."
She shuddered.
"Soon it will have us in its clutches at any rate. Why should we doubt
and hesitate? It's all the same whatever we do. In the background
stands Nothing. So let us be happy as long as there is still
intoxication in life."
The clock struck twelve.
Each stroke was like the flapping of wings of some lonely straying
soul.
With a sob she fell on his breast.
* * * * *
At the same time a year later Hedwig was sitting in the same room--but
alone. He had meant to be there by Christmas, but then had postponed
his coming until New Year, and by New Year's eve he had not yet
arrived. Instead a letter had come. She had been reading it over and
over again for hours.
She had aged greatly and bore the marks of intense suffering. A hard
bitter smile hovered about her lips. Her cheeks were aflame with the
fires of death, while she stared at the phrases in the letter, forced
hollow phrases of tenderness, forced because he was embarrassed.
She sank down in front of the settee on the same spot on which he had
kneeled a year before, a woman tortured and humbled to death; and
hiding her face in the cushions, she murmured:
"One more!"
* * * * *
Dear lady, why are you looking at me so mournfully? What's the story to
us?
In the first place _I_ am not a genius; secondly, _you_ haven't got the
talent for being deserted, and, thirdly, we shall stay the same good
old friends we've always been even after New Year.
THE NEW YEAR'S EVE
CONFESSION
Ah, dear lady, it's good to be here with you again, sitting so
peacefully in this comfortable chair, ready for a cosy chat. Thank
goodness, the holiday hubbub is over and done with and you have a
little leisure for me again.
Oh, the Christmas season! I do believe it was invented by the devil
especially for the annoyance of us bachelors, to impress upon us the
dreariness of our homeless lives. The thing that is a source of delight
to others is a torture to us. Of course, of course, we're not all of us
lonely. The joy of bestowing joy blooms for most of us, too. But the
pure pleasure of sharing pleasure with others is embittered partly by a
dose of ironical self-criticism, partly by that acid yearning which I
might call, instead of homesickness, marriage-sickness.
Why did I not come and pour my heart out to you? you ask, you
sympathetic soul, who bestow consolation as generously as most of your
sex bestow petty spite. Ah, but you see, the matter is not so simple.
Don't you know what Speidel says in his charmingly chatty "Lonely
Sparrows," which you, correctly divining the state of my soul, sent me
on the third day of the holiday? He says, "The genuine bachelor does
not want to be consoled. Once having become unhappy, he wants to
indulge his unhappiness."
Beside Speidel's lonely sparrow, there is also a species of confirmed
old bachelors, family friends. I do not mean those professional
destroyers of the family who insinuate themselves hypocritically with
evil intent while making themselves comfortable at the hospitable
hearth. I mean the good old uncle, papa's whilom schoolmate, who
dandles baby on his knees while respectably reading aloud to mamma the
story in the evening paper with omission of the indecent passages.
I know men whose whole life goes in the service of a family with which
they have become friendly, men who pass their days without desire
beside a lovely woman whom they secretly adore.
You are sceptical? Oh, it is the "without desire" that you object to?
You may be right. In the depths of even the tamest heart there probably
lurks a wild desire, but a desire--it is understood--that is held in
check.
I should like to give you an example and tell you of a conversation
that two ancient gentlemen had with each other this very New Year's
eve. You must not ask me how I found out about the conversation, and
you must not tell it to any one else. May I begin?
Picture, as the scene, a high-ceilinged room furnished in an
old-fashioned style and dimly lighted by a green-shaded, brightly
polished hanging lamp, such as our parents used before the era of
kerosene; the light falling upon a round table covered with a white
cloth and set with the ingredients for mixing a New Year's punch, and
in the centre a few drippings of oil spreading slowly.
My two ancient gentlemen sat half in the dimness cast by the green
shade. Mouldy ruins they were of a time long past, each tremulously
sunk in himself and each staring into space with the dim eyes and the
dull look of old age. The one, the host, was a military man, as was
clear at first glance from his closefitting stock, his pointed
moustache, shaved off under the points, and his eyebrows knitted
in a martial frown. He sat huddled in a rolling chair and clutched
the handle of the steering rod with both hands like a crooked
walking-stick. Nothing about him stirred except his lower jaw, which
went up and down incessantly with a chewing movement. The other, who
was sitting beside him on the sofa, was tall and thin, with narrow
shoulders and the head of a thinker, angular and broad of brow. He drew
skimpy clouds of smoke from a long pipe that was about to go out. Snowy
white curls framed his face, and in the thousand fine lines of his
smooth, dried-up skin nestled a soft, quiet smile, such as nothing but
the peace of renunciation can impress upon an aged countenance.
They sat without talking. In the silence you could hear the slight
bubbling of the burning oil mingled with the slight bubbling of the
tobacco juice. Then the clock on the wall in the dark background
wheezed and struck eleven.
"This is about the time you usually brew the punch," said the man with
the thinker's head. His voice sounded soft and quavered a little.
"Yes, this is the time," the other rejoined. His tone was harsh, as if
again resounding with the strident shouts of command.
"I should never have thought," the guest continued, "that it would be
so sad without her."
The host nodded and chewed on.
"She made the New Year's punch for us forty-four times."
"Yes," the old soldier put in, "ever since I have been living here in
Berlin and you have been coming to see us."
"Last year at this time," the guest continued, "we three were still
together, so happily. She sat there in the easy chair, knitting socks
for Paul's oldest child, and hurrying as fast as she could. They had to
be finished by twelve o'clock, she said. And they were. Then we drank
the punch and very comfortably discussed death. And two months later
she actually was carried out to the cemetery. You know I wrote a thick
volume on the immortality of the idea. You never could bear it. I
cannot bear it any more either since your wife died. As a matter of
fact, I don't give a fig for any philosophic ideas any more."
"Yes, she was a good woman," said the husband of the deceased. "She
took good care of me. When I had to be out for service by five o'clock
in the morning, she was always up ahead of me and saw to it that I had
a good cup of coffee before I left. To be sure, she had her faults,
too. When once she got to philosophising with you--whew!"
"You simply never understood her," murmured the guest, something like
restrained resentment quivering about the corners of his mouth, though
the look he allowed to rest on his friend a long time was mild and sad,
as though his soul carried the secret consciousness of guilt.
After a period of silence, he began:
"Listen, Franz, I must tell you something--something that has been
gnawing at me a long while. I cannot possibly go down into the grave
carrying it along with me."
"Fire away, then," said Franz, and picked up the long pipe leaning
against his rolling chair.
"Once something--happened between--me and your wife."
"Please don't joke, Doc," said Franz.
"I'm in grim earnest, Franz. I have been carrying it round with me for
more than forty years, and now the time has come at last to make a
clean breast of it."
"Do you mean to say my wife deceived me?" the old soldier shouted in a
rage.
"Shame on you, Franz," said the philosopher, with his sad, mild smile.
Franz mumbled and muttered a little and then lighted his pipe.
"No, she was pure as an angel," the philosopher went on. "You and I are
the criminals. Listen to me. It was forty-three years ago. You had just
been ordered to Berlin as a captain, and I was teaching at the
University. You know what a wild fellow you were then."
"Hm," said Franz, and raised his shaking hand to twist the points of
his moustache.
"There was a beautiful actress with big black eyes and small white
teeth. Do you remember?"
"Do I remember! Bianca was her name." A feeble smile flitted across the
old man's weatherbeaten countenance with the marks on it of hard and
fast living. "She could bite, I tell you, she could bite!"
"You deceived your wife, and she suspected it. But she never said
anything, and suffered in silence. You did not notice it, but I did.
She was the first woman I got to know after my mother's death. She came
into my life like a shining star, and I looked up to her as to a
shining star. Finally I summoned up the courage to ask her what was
troubling her. She smiled and said she was not feeling quite well yet.
You remember, it was only a short while before that Paul had been born.
Then came New Year's eve--exactly forty-three years ago this very
night. I came to your house at about eight o'clock, as usual. She sat
embroidering, and I read to her while we waited for you. The hours
passed, one by one. You did not come. I saw how uneasy she became and
how she began to tremble, and I trembled with her. I knew what was
keeping you, and I was afraid that you would forget twelve o'clock in
that woman's arms. It was getting very near the hour. She stopped
embroidering, and I stopped reading, and an awful silence descended on
us. I saw a tear creep out slowly from between her lashes and fall down
on her embroidery. I jumped up and wanted to go out and bring you home.
I felt capable of tearing you by force from that woman's side. But at
the same instant your wife jumped up, too, from this very seat I am
sitting on.
"'Where are you going?' she cried. There was unspeakable dread in her
face.
"'I am going to get Franz,' I said.
"At that she fairly screamed.
"'For goodness sake, stay with me. At least _you_ stay with me. Don't
_you_ leave me.'
"And she threw herself on me and laid her hands on my shoulders and hid
her wet face on my chest. My whole body quivered. Never before had a
woman been so close to me. But I held on to myself and spoke to her
comfortingly. She so needed comforting. Soon after, you came back. You
did not notice my confusion. Your cheeks were flushed and there was a
love-drunken weariness in your eyes.
"That New Year's eve produced a change in me, which filled me with
alarm. Since I had felt her soft arms around my neck and had drawn in
the perfume of her hair, the star had fallen from heaven, and instead
of the star it was the _woman_, the woman, beautiful, and breathing
love. I knew there was ardour in my glances, and I denounced myself as
a blackguard, a deceiver, and to make at least partial atonement to my
conscience, I went to work to separate you from your mistress.
Fortunately I had some money, which I had inherited, and she was
satisfied with the sum I offered her, and----"
"By Jingo," the old soldier interjected, "so you're the one to blame
for Bianca's writing me that touching good-bye letter in which she told
me it was with a breaking heart that she had to forego my love?"
"Yes, I am the one to blame for it. But listen. I had expected to
purchase peace with the money I gave her. I was mistaken. The wild
thoughts kept going round and round in my brain worse and worse. I
buried myself in my work. It was just then that I conceived the central
thought for my 'Immortality of the Idea.' No use. Peace did not come
that way.
"And so a whole year went by, and another New Year's eve arrived. I was
sitting beside her on this seat once again. This time you were at home,
but you were lying asleep on the sofa in the next room, tired out by a
jollification at the club. Sitting there, close beside her, looking at
her pale face, the recollection of the New Year's eve before came back
and overwhelmed me irresistibly. Just to feel her head at my neck once
again, just to kiss her once again, and then let come what may! Our
glances met for an instant. It seemed to me that a secret understanding
flashed into her eyes. I could not control myself any longer. I dropped
at her feet and hid my burning face in her lap.
"I lay there like that, motionless, for possibly two seconds, when I
felt her hand cool on my head and heard her say softly and gently:
"'You must be good.'
"Yes, I must be good. I must not deceive the man sleeping in the next
room so trustfully. I jumped up and looked about, disconcerted. She
picked up a book from the table and handed it to me. I knew what she
meant and opened the book at random and started to read aloud. I do not
know what I read. The letters danced before my eyes. But gradually the
storm in my soul subsided, and when it struck twelve and you, with a
sleepy look in your eyes, came in to wish us a Happy New Year, I felt
as though that instant of sin lay far, far behind me, in an era long
past.
"From that time on I became calmer. I knew she did not return my love
and I had nothing to hope for from her but compassion. The years went
by. Your children grew up and married. We three grew old. You gave up
sowing wild oats and lived for only the one woman, like myself. I did
not stop loving her. No, that was impossible. But my love took on other
forms. It discarded earthly desires and turned into a spiritual
communion. You often used to laugh when you heard us philosophising.
But had you divined how my soul became one with hers, it would have
made you very jealous. And now she's dead. Perhaps by next New Year's
eve we shall have followed her. That is why it is high time for me to
unburden myself of my secret and say to you, 'Franz, I once did you a
wrong. Forgive me!'"
He held out his hand to his friend pleadingly, but Franz answered
testily:
"Bah, stuff and nonsense! A lot to forgive! This news of yours, this
confession, is stale. I've known it for ages. She herself told me all
about it forty years ago. And now I'll tell you the reason I ran after
women the way I did until I was an old man--because, when she told me,
she also said that you were the only man she had ever loved."
His guest stared at him in silence. The clock on the wall wheezed and
struck twelve o'clock.
THE GOOSE HERD
My dear man, I've been listening to you now for a long while and you
fill me with astonishment. You usually show--more than I do myself--an
honest wish to take things as they are. Then whence all of a sudden, in
making these nice observations of human emotions, do you draw this
idealistic illusion of yours?
It seems to me your levelling-down democratic sentiment has been
playing you a naughty trick again. You maintain, if I understand you
correctly, that there is not a profound difference in the way the
various social classes feel and express their feelings; while, as a
matter of fact, life proves the very reverse every day. Oh, it would be
beautiful as a dream if you were right. The ideals of brotherhood and
equality that I, the bred-in-the-bone aristocrat--that is what you say
I am--must necessarily consider mere figments of the brain, would then
be reality, or, rather, have already become reality; because the bit of
knowledge more or less cannot possibly produce an organic difference in
men's natures.
No, no, dear sir, it is the cleavage in the way they feel, more than
all differences in wealth, rank, and learning, that separates the upper
from the lower classes; so much so that they go through the world
together each without comprehension of what the other does, like
citizens of different globes. Woe to him who hopes to leap the gap!
You don't believe me? You shake your head? Oh, my dear man, I am
speaking from experience. Alas, alas! If I could tell you--but why
shouldn't I? Night is falling outside, the November storm is howling,
and to-day I celebrated the advent of my thirtieth grey hair--quite the
atmosphere for conjuring up a picture of light, spring and youth.
Let me close my eyes, and you listen to me like a good little boy. I
want to tell you of my first love. Do you know who my first love was? A
goose-herd, a real, out-and-out gooseherd. I am not joking. I have wept
bitter tears over the wrong he did me, and that when I had long been a
grown-up, highly respectable young lady.
To be sure, when he first set my heart afire, I was still of the age
when my highest ideal of happiness was to go barefoot. I was eight
years old, he ten. I was the daughter of the lord of the castle, he,
the son of our smith.
Mornings, when I took breakfast on the verandah with my mother and big
brother, he used to pass by with his geese and disappear in the
direction of the pasture. At first he stared up at us with naive
astonishment, it never occurring to him to raise his cap. Then my
brother impressed it upon him that it was proper to give the family a
decent greeting, and from that time on he always called up a "Good
mornin' to you" like a lesson learned by heart and with a long sweep of
his cap.
If my brother happened to be in a good humour, I received permission to
take a roll down to him, and he always snatched it out of my hand with
a certain greedy anxiety, as if there were danger of my withdrawing it
at the last moment.
What did he look like? I can still see him as if he were right there in
front of me. His straight flaxen hair hung down over his sunburned
cheeks like a thatched roof, with his blue eyes peering from
underneath, jolly and cunning. He wore his ragged trousers rolled up
over his knees, and always carried an osier switch, into which, along
the green bark, he had cleverly cut white spirals.
It was upon this switch that my childish covetousness first fastened
itself. How fascinating to hold in my hand a marvellous piece of work
like that, so different from all my toys! And when I pictured to myself
being allowed to chase geese with it and to go barefoot, the pinnacle
of earthly happiness had been reached.
And it was this same switch that brought us into human contact. One
morning at breakfast, as I saw him going by so cheerily, I could no
longer restrain my desire. I furtively put together the pieces of the
roll spread with honey that I was eating and asked hurriedly to be
excused, and ran after him.
When he saw me coming, he stopped and looked at me wonderingly. But as
soon as he caught sight of the roll in my hand, a gleam of
comprehension shot into his eyes.
"Will you give me your switch?" I asked.
"Why?" he asked back, and put one foot up to rub the calf of his other
leg.
"Because I want it," I said defiantly, then added more gently, "I'll
give you my roll spread with honey for it."
He let his eyes rest longingly on the piece of deliciousness, and then
finally observed. "No, I have to have it for the geese, but I'll cut
another one like it for you."
"Can you do that?"
I was all astonishment.
"Oh, that's nothing," he pooh-poohed. "I can make flutes, too, and
jumping jacks."
I was so completely carried off my feet that I handed him the roll on
the spot. He bit into it with gusto, and, not honouring me with another
glance, he drove his feathered flock off before him.
I looked after him, envy in my heart. _He_ was allowed to shepherd
geese, but _I_ had to go up to Mademoiselle and learn French. Yes, I
thought, how unequal fortune's favours are.
That evening he brought me the switch he had promised to make. It was
even more beautiful than I had dared to hope in my wildest dreams.
There were the white spirals that had so fascinated me in the original,
and more than that, the butt-end was topped with a knob, on which a
human countenance--whether mine or his, I could not unriddle--was
depicted by two dots and two dashes at right angles.
From that time on we were friends. I shared with him all the goodies
that fell to me, the spoiled little darling, from every side. In
return, he bestowed upon me the artistic products of his skilful
fingers, reed pipes, little boxes, houses, toy utensils, and, best of
all, his famous jumping jacks.
Our meetings took place every evening behind the goose coops, and there
we exchanged gifts. I looked forward the whole day to these meetings,
my thoughts constantly engaged by my young hero. I saw him on the sunny
pasture lying in the grass, blowing his reed pipes, while I was
torturing myself with horrid vowels. And the yearning grew ever
stronger within me to partake of that bliss which is called minding
geese.
When I told him of my feelings, he burst out laughing.
"Why don't you come along, then?" he said.
That tipped the scales, and without a second's reflection, "All right,"
I said, "I'll go along to-morrow."
"Don't forget to bring something to eat along," my friend forewarned
me.
Luck was with me. Mademoiselle's headache came at the very opportune
moment, and the French lesson was dispensed with. Feverish with joy and
excitement, I sat at the breakfast table waiting for him to go by. My
pockets were stuffed with goodies of all sorts, which I had wheedled
out of Mademoiselle, and beside me lay the switch, which I looked
forward to swinging that day in the strict fulfilment of my duty.
Ah, there he was coming. His blue eyes glanced up at me slily as he
bellowed his "Good mornin' to you" at us; and the instant I could slip
away without attracting attention I was off after him.
"What have you brought along?" was his first question.
"Two little ginger cakes, three cervelat sandwiches, a roll cut in two
with sardelles between, and a piece of gooseberry pie," said I,
spreading out my glories.
He fell upon them at once, while I with carefully concealed glee
proudly drove the geese along.
After passing through the fir woods, the first part of which was
somewhat familiar to me from my previous walks, we came to regions less
and less well known. Stunted undergrowth rose on each side of the way,
making an uncanny thicket, and then, all of a sudden, the broad,
boundless heath opened up to my vision.
Oh, how lovely it was, how lovely! As far as the eye reached, a sea of
grass and gaily coloured flowers. Molehills covered with turf stretched
away in long rows like motionless waves. The hot air quivered, fairly
dancing on the breezy heath, while the buzzing of the bees made the
accompaniment. And high up in the deep blue heavens stood the golden
sun.
At the edge of the woods was a marsh with gleaming puddles of greyish
yellow, thickish water. The refuse of the geese floated on the surface,
and roundabout on the ground--so moist that great bubbles gushed up
between the clumps of grass--were thousands of fine tracks of the
geese's feet, making the whole spot look like a patterned rug.
This was the flock's paradise. Here we made halt, and while the geese
settled themselves comfortably in the puddles, we chased about on the
heath, shouting and laughing, caught yellow butterflies, and picked
blueberries.
Then we played husband and wife. Elsie, the tamest of the geese, was
our child. We kissed and whipped the poor creature almost to death, but
it finally succeeded, after prodigious efforts, in making its escape
from our clutches. Next, I prepared the meals for my husband. I untied
my white apron, spread it on the ground for a tablecloth, and placed on
it the remnants of the food I had brought along. He sat down to the
repast pompously, and when I saw the rapidity with which he finished up
one bit after the other, I nearly jumped out of our little home for
joy.
The hours passed as in a dream. Higher and higher rose the sun, until
its rays came burning down on us perpendicularly. My head began to
spin, and a dull lassitude came over me. Also, I experienced
considerable hunger, but my spouse had already consumed everything. The
inside of my mouth was dry, my lips were feverish. To cool them, I held
moist blades of grass against them.
Suddenly, from beyond the woods, from way far away, came the ringing of
a bell. I knew what it meant. It was the summons to the midday meal,
which called me to table, too. And if they missed me! Oh, God, what
would become of me?
I threw myself on the grass and began to cry bitterly, while my
companion, meaning to comfort me, passed his rough hands over my face
and neck.
Suddenly I jumped up and made a dash for the woods, as though pursued
by the furies. It must have been about two hours that I strayed about
in the undergrowth crying. Then I caught the sound of voices calling my
name, and a few moments later I was in my brother's arms.
The next morning my poor friend appeared in the part of abductor and
seducer before the high criminal court of the lord of the manor. He
seemed to take it for granted that he was to be the scapegoat and was
in for a flogging, and he made not the slightest attempt to shift part
of the blame from himself. He accepted the chastisement my brother
inflicted upon him with the greatest calm. Then he rubbed his aching
back against a porch column, smiling dolefully, and, after that,
hastily made off, while I, sobbing aloud, rolled on the floor.
From that day on I loved him. I plotted a thousand wiles and schemes
for meeting him secretly. I nabbed edibles like a magpie, so that he
might regale himself with the fruits of my pilferings. I fairly
oppressed him with the profusion of fond attentions, with which I tried
to wipe out of existence those frightful blows of my brother's whip.
He accepted my love calmly and rewarded me for it by a devotion that
was moving and an appetite that was sound.
Fate separated us six months later.
My mother had been ailing for some time, and the physician now
recommended her living in the south. She put the estate entirely in my
brother's charge and moved to the Riviera, taking me along.
* * * * *
Nine years were to elapse before I came back home. The return was
sadder than ever I should have dreamed. In Berlin, where I had lived
after my mother's death, a tricky nervous trouble had taken hold of me
and kept me confined to bed for many weeks. The doctors wrestled with
death and saved my life, but the blooming young girl had become a pale
weak shadow. My physician recommended the country and pine-needle
baths, and so I was bundled on to the train and transported to my
brother's estate.
I must have presented a pretty pitiful spectacle, because when I
reached the house and was lifted out of the carriage, I saw tears in
the old domestics' eyes.
It is a peculiar feeling to know you are back home again after long
wanderings, especially if you have gone through as much trouble as I
had. A rare softness takes hold of you, and you try to blot out forever
the joy and the suffering imposed by an alien world. You try to be a
child again and conjure up long lost magic out of the grave.
As I leaned back in my reclining chair and let my tired eyes roam
over the familiar fields, one shade after another came alive
again, and the first one in the motley throng was--my dear,
flaxen--haired goose-herd.
"What has become of him?" I asked my brother, and was rejoiced by the
good news that he had grown up into a fine, good-looking young man and
could already fully take the place of his father, the smith.
I felt my heart throbbing. I tried to scold myself for my folly, but
with poor success. The dear old memories were not to be dismissed, and
finally I yielded myself up to them unrestrainedly and pictured the
manner of our seeing each other again in all the glowing colours of
fairy tale romance.
A few days after my arrival I was allowed to take my first drive. I was
lifted into a carriage, driven to the woods, and then set down on a
soft, mossy, peaceful little spot, which I had selected deliberately.
From it you could see the smithy in which the companion of my childhood
dwelt.
My brother wanted to stay with me, but I begged him not to let me keep
him from his work, and assured him that the little girl sent along to
wait on me was quite enough protection. Besides, what was there to be
afraid of in these peaceful home woods? So, the coachman drove my
brother back to his office on the estate, and they were to call for me
again in two hours. Then I dismissed the little girl, too, telling her
to go hunt strawberries but to stay nearby. She ran off happily.
I was alone at last! Now I could dream to my heart's content. The fir
trees rustled overhead, and from the smithy came the dull blows of the
hammer. Brightly glowed the fire in the forge, and every now and then a
dark figure glided in front of it. That must be he.
I did not tire following the movements of his arms. I admired his
strength and trembled for him when the sparks flew about his body.
The two hours went by unnoticed, and in the midst of my dreamy
meditations I was surprised by my brother coming to call for me.
"Well, did it seem a long time?" my brother asked gaily.
I shook my head, smiling, and tried to get up, but sank back wearily.
"Hm, hm," said my brother, reflecting. "I didn't bring the coachman
back, thinking I could carry you to the carriage by myself, but the
seat is high, and I couldn't get you up without hurting you. See here,
Grete,"--he turned to my little companion, who had come running at the
sound of the carriage--"you go run down to the smith, the young one,
you know, and tell him he should come and help me here."
He tossed a penny on the ground and the little maid, radiant with
delight, picked it up before going for the smith.
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I was to see him again, here, on
this spot. He was to act the Samaritan to me. I sat there waiting, my
hand pressed to my pounding heart, until--until----
There he was coming! Yes, that was he! How strong, how handsome he had
grown to be! Heavy flaxen hair about his smoke-blackened face, and a
thick growth of light down around his powerful chin. Young Siegfried
must have looked like that while serving his apprenticeship with the
wicked Mime.
He clutched awkwardly at his little cap, tipped back on his neck so
jauntily, while I held out my hand smiling and said, "How do you do?"
"Very well," he replied with an embarrassed laugh, and carefully wiped
his grimy fingers on his leather apron before taking my hand.
"Help me lift the lady into the carriage," said my brother.
He wiped his hands again, and caught hold of me--none too gently--under
the armpits, and the two of them, my brother taking me by my feet,
lifted me up on to the carriage cushions.
"Thanks, thanks," I said and gave him a smile.
He stood at the carriage door, shyly twisting his cap and looking from
one to the other of us uncertainly.
"He still has something on his heart," I said to myself. "Why not? At
the sight of me old memories have been awakened. He wants to talk to me
of the blissful days when in childish innocence we watched the geese
together. Ah, he doesn't trust himself--his lord's presence--I ought to
come to his assistance a little."
"Well," I said, giving him a friendly, encouraging look straight in his
eyes, "what are you thinking of?"
My brother at this turned from his horses, with which he had been busy,
and said, thrusting his hand into his pocket:
"Oh, you're waiting for your tip."
I felt as though some one had struck me in the face.
"For goodness' sake, Max," I stammered, my blood going hot and cold.
But my brother did not hear me and handed him--actually dared to--a
dime.
I was already seeing my childhood friend dashing the coin back in my
brother's face. I exerted all my strength to raise myself and stretch
my hands out so as to prevent violence--but what was that? No,
impossible! And yet I saw it with my own eyes. He took the money--he
said, "Thank you"--he bowed--he walked away!
And I? I stared after him as though he were an evil spirit, then sank
back on the cushions with a weary sigh.
That, my dear friend, was the way I said good-bye to my youthful dream.