I had an hour to spare. And this hour, I thought, could not be better
spent than in sauntering through the street where the confectioner's
shop stood, and patrolling a short time on the other side to watch who
went in. As it was already growing dusk I felt pretty well concealed
under my umbrella, but all the same I was conscious of a certain
agreeable mysterious sensation as though playing an important part in
some deed of honour. In point of fact, however, there was nothing
remarkable to be seen. The shop seemed to be pretty well frequented,
but only by a humble class of customers, children, schoolboys intent
upon devouring their pocket money, coughing old women going in for a
penny-worth of lozenges. Dangerous young men did not seem aware that
behind those brown blinds lurked a dangerous young girl.
Much relieved by the result of my observation, I finally crossed
the street just to find out whether there were any possibility of
peeping in. The gas was lit in both rooms, but the shop-window was so
well-protected that one could see nothing whatever from without. But on
the other hand the blind of the reading-room had a crack just across
the back of the angler. So I stood and looked in, a good deal ashamed
of myself for spying. And there, on the very same corner of the sofa
that he occupied yesterday, sat my poor friend Sebastian before an
empty plate covered with flies, his eyes wandering beyond the newspaper
into empty space. A singular thrill came over me, half jealousy, half
satisfaction, at his having got on no further. Just as I was watching
him, he made a movement as if to take up his cap and leave. I drew back
from the window, and crept along the houses like a thief who has had
the narrowest escape of capture. When I got to the house where I was
expected, I had of course to collect my wits. I was more lively than
usual, and paid my court to the daughters of the house with all the
awkward nonchalance of a man of the world of sixteen, nay, I even
allowed myself to be persuaded to read out my last poem, and drank
several glasses of strong Hungarian wine, which made me neither wiser
nor more modest. When ten o'clock struck, I suddenly took my departure
under the pretext of an appointment with a friend. To keep late hours
seemed to me congruous with the character of a youthful poet. Had
people but known that the real engagement was the copying out fair a
German essay, all the halo would have vanished!
And as it was that luckless essay fared badly enough. The night was
wondrously beautiful. After long-continued rain, the air was as
soft and exquisitely still as a human heart just reconciled to a
long-estranged friend (I involuntarily fall back into the lyrical style
of those early days!), and the sky sparkled and shone with thousands of
newly-washed stars. In spite of the lateness of the hour, girls and
women went chattering through the streets without hat or shawl, with
merely a kerchief thrown over their heads, as though the lovely night
had enticed them out just to inhale, before going to bed, one draught
of fresh air after the discomfort of the day. Every window stood open,
the roses gave out their fragrance; one heard Mendelssohn's "Songs
without words" played on the piano, or some sweet female voice quietly
singing to itself.
How it happened I did not know, but all of a sudden there I was again
at the little shop, and had hold of the door handle before I could make
out even to myself what it was that led me there.
As I entered, Lottka raised her head from the counter where it had been
resting on her arm. Her eyes shewed that she had been asleep. The book,
over which she had been tiring herself, fell from her lap as she rose.
"I have disturbed you, Miss Lottka," said I. "Forgive me, I will go
away at once. I happened to be passing by--and as the night was so
beautiful--as since yesterday you--Would you be so kind as to give me a
glass of bishop, Miss Lottka?"
Strange that my usually reckless eloquence should so regularly fail me
in the presence of this quiet creature!
"What have you been reading?" I began again after a pause, walking the
while up and down the shop. "A book from the lending library? Such a
torn shabby copy is not fit for your small white hands. Allow me--I
have a quantity of charming books at home--romances too--"
"Pardon me," she quietly rejoined. "I have no time to read romances.
This is a French Grammar."
"You are studying by yourself then?"
"I already speak it a little, I wish to understand it more thoroughly."
She relapsed into silence, and began to arrange the plates and spoons.
"Miss Lottka," said I after an interval, during which I had regained
courage from a contemplation of the gruff old Bluecher in the smaller
room. "Are you happy in the position that you occupy at present?"
She looked at me out of her large weary eyes with the amazement of a
child in a fairy-tale when suddenly addressed by a bird.
"How come you to put such a question?" she enquired.
"Pray do not attribute it to heartless curiosity," I went on, in my
excitement upsetting a small pyramid of biscuits. "Believe that I feel
a genuinely warm interest in you-- If you need a friend--if anything
has happened to you--you understand me-- Life is so sad, Miss
Lottka--and just in our youth--"
I was floundering deeper and deeper, and the drops stood on my brow. I
would have given a good deal if that old Bluecher had not encouraged me
to make this speech.
However I was spared further humiliation. The door leading from the
interior of the house opened, and the person to whom the shop belonged
made her appearance. She seemed a good-natured square woman, with a
thick cap-border, who explained to me as civilly as she could, that I
had already remained a quarter of an hour beyond the usual time of
shutting up, for that she was in the habit of putting out the gas at
half-past ten. Accordingly I paid in all haste for my half-emptied
glass, threw an expressive and half-reproachful glance at the silent
girl, and went my way.
That night my couch was not one of roses. I made a serious attempt to
finish my German essay:--"Comparison between the Antigone of Sophocles
and the Iphigenia of Goethe," but what were either of these Hecubas to
me? I began to scribble verses on the margin of the book, and their
melody had so lulling an effect that not long after midnight I fell
asleep in my chair, and in spite of the uncomfortable position never
woke till morning, though in my verses I had confessed myself once more
in love; and what of all the untoward circumstances of the case was the
darkest, in love with the heart's choice of my best friend!
This too was my first waking thought on the following morning. I
remember distinctly, however, that the misfortune which I clearly saw
to be ours, did not after all make me actually miserable, nay that it
rather exalted my self-complacency and rendered me very interesting in
my own eyes, as I had now a chance of personally experiencing all that
I had hitherto merely read of. I was never tired of conjuring up the
disastrous and heartrending scenes to which this complication must
necessarily lead, and an indefinably pleasurable kind of pity for
myself, for Sebastian, and for the innocent source of our woes suffused
all my thoughts.
Instead of going to the gymnasium, where I should have had to appear
without the German essay, I preferred to visit the "hedge-school" as
the French say, that is to lounge about the park, and there on a lonely
bench in the most out-of-the-way corner, commit my youthful sorrows to
paper. Heine and Eichendorff were at that time contending for my
immortal soul. On that particular morning I was not yet ripe for the
irony of the "Buch der Lieder," and the tree-tops rustled too
romantically above my head for the utterance of any tones but such as
suited a youthful scapegrace. About noon I saw with melancholy
satisfaction that the poem entitled "New Love," begun that morning,
would form a very considerable addition to my volume, if it went on
long at this rate.
In the afternoon when I sat, thinking no evil, in my room, and
attempting to draw the profile of my secretly beloved one from memory,
I heard Sebastian's step on the stair. I hastily hid away the sheet of
paper, and dipped my pen in the ink-stand to seem as though I were
interrupted at my work. When he entered I had not the heart to look up
at him.
He too gave me a very cursory greeting, stretched himself out as usual
in my arm chair, and began to smoke a short-pipe.
In about half-an-hour he asked,
"Have you been there again?"
"Yes," I replied, and seemed to be very busy looking out a word in my
lexicon.
"And what do you think of her now?"
"What I think? I have not yet found out the riddle. So much, however, I
know, that she is not a flesh and blood girl, but a water-nixie, a
Melusina, 'cold even to her heart,' and who knows whether her very
figure does not end like a mermaid's '_desinit in piscem_?'"
He sprang up. "I must beg you not to speak in such a tone!"
"Patience, old boy," said I. "Do not go and suppose that I think
lightly of her. A past history she has that is quite clear. But why
need there be any harm in it? Suppose there were only some misfortune,
a great grief, or a great love?"
"You think so?" and he looked at me anxiously and sadly.
"I should not be at all surprised," I continued, "if she, with those
precocious eyes and that wonderful composure, had already traversed the
agonies of hopeless love. Do not forget her Polish father. Polish girls
begin early both to excite and to feel passion. How the poor child ever
got into that fly-trap, God knows. But you and I together should find
it difficult to deliver her out of it."
After that followed a silent quarter of an hour, during which he turned
over my MS. poems.
"I should like to copy out this song," he suddenly said, reaching out a
page to me.
"What for?" asked I. "Bastel, I half suspect you want to pass it off as
your own."
"Shame upon you!" returned he with a deep flush, "_I_ give myself out
for a poet! But I have a tune running in my head; it is long since I
have composed anything."
"Look out something better and more cheerful. What could you make of
that feeble-minded whimper? That song is half a year old" (dated from
that 'olden time' that I could not myself distinctly remember!)
He had taken back the sheet, and was now bending over it, being
somewhat short-sighted, and singing in a low voice the following verses
to a simple pathetic melody:
"How could I e'er deserve thee,
By serving long years through;
Though thou wert fain to own me,
Most stedfast and most true.
Or what though high exalted,
Though glory were my meed:
Love is a free gift from above,
Desert it will not heed.
"Thou tree with head low bending,
Thy blossoms may prove vain;
Who knows if God will send thee
The blessing of his rain?
Thou heart by joy and anguish
Proved and refined indeed:
Love is a free gift from above,
Desert it will not heed."
He sprang up, just gave me an absent nod, and rushed out of the room.
Not long after I went out myself. I had no particular object, except to
quiet the tumult in my veins by bodily fatigue.
After walking with great rapidity about the town for an hour or so, I
found myself unintentionally in the neighbourhood of the mysterious
street. It attracted and repelled me both. I had a dim consciousness of
not having played a very creditable part the night before. I was pretty
sure that the young stranger who had so zealously offered himself as
her knight, would be greeted by a satirical smile by Lottka. But that
was reason the more, I argued, for seeking to give her a better
impression of me. And therefore I plucked up courage, and rapidly
turned the corner.
At the same moment I was aware of my friend and rival, his cap pressed
down on his brow, advancing with great strides towards the small green
house, from a contrary direction. He too was aware of me, and we each
of us came to a halt and then turned sharp round the following moment
as though we had mistaken our way.
My heart beat wildly. "Shame upon our ridiculous reserve and suspicion
of each other!" I inwardly cried, feeling that if this went on I should
soon hate my best friend with my whole heart.
I was in the angriest of moods while retracing my steps, and reflected
whether the wisest and most manly course would not be to turn round
again and take my chance even if a whole legion of old friends stood in
my way. Had I not as much right as another to make a fool of myself
about the girl? Was I timidly to draw back now after speaking out so
boldly yesterday and offering myself as champion to the mysterious
enchantress? Never! I'd go to her at once though the world fell to
pieces!
I turned in haste--there stood Sebastian. In my excitement I had not
even heard his quick steps following me.
"You here!" I cried in counterfeit amazement.
"Paul," he replied, and his melodious voice slightly trembled. "We will
not act a part. We--we have been fond of each other, you and I. But
believe me if this were to go on I could not stand it. I know where you
are going: I was bound the same way myself. You love her--do not
attempt to deny it. I found it out at once."
"And what if I do love her?" cried I, half-defiant and half-ashamed. "I
confess that the impression she has made on me--"
"Come here under the gateway," said he. "We are blocking up the way,
and you speak so loud you will attract attention. You see I was right;
indeed I should have been surprised if it had not turned out thus. But
you will agree that it is impossible to go on. One or other must
retire."
"Very well," returned I, endeavouring to assume an inimical and dogged
expression. "One of us must retire. Only I do not see why it should be
I. Just because I am the younger by two stupid years, though as
advanced a student as yourself."
I had hardly spoken the hasty heartless words before I regretted them.
At that moment they sounded like a humiliating boast.
"Besides," I hastily added, "it does not signify so much which of us
takes precedence, as who it is she cares for. At present you and I seem
to have equally poor prospects."
"That is true," he said. "But none the less I cannot find it in my
heart to enter into a contest with you; and then you are the bolder,
the more fluent, I should give up the game beforehand if we were both
to declare our feelings for her: you know what I mean."
"If this be so," I rejoined, looking with artificial indifference
through the dark gateway into a garden where a lonely rose-tree
blossomed; "if you have not more confidence in yourself than this, you
cannot after all be so much in love as you suppose, and as I can fairly
say I am. I have spent a sleepless night" (I did not reckon those seven
hours snatched in a chair) "and a wasted day. And so I thought--"
I could not end my sentence. The pallor of his good, true-hearted face
shewed me how much more deeply he was affected by this conversation
than I, for whom indeed it had a certain romantic charm. I felt fond of
him again.
"Listen," said I, "we shall never get on this way. I see that neither
of us will retire of his own free will. Fate must decide."
"Fate?"
"Or chance if you prefer it. I will throw down this piece of money. If
the royal arms are uppermost, you have won; if the inscription--"
"Do so," he whispered. "Although it would be fairer--"
"Will you cry done?"
"Done!"
The coin fell to the ground. I stooped down in the dim light we were
standing in to make sure of the fact.
"Which is uppermost?" I could hear him murmur, while he leaned against
the door-post. He himself did not venture to look. "Bastel," said I,
"it cannot be helped. The inscription is uppermost. You understand that
having once appealed to the decision of Providence--"
He did not move, and not a sound escaped his lips. When I drew myself
up and looked at him, I saw that his eyes were closed, and that he
stood as if in a trance.
"Don't take it so to heart," said I. "Who knows but that in two or
three days I may come and tell you that she does not suit me, that the
field is open for you, and that--"
"Good night," he suddenly whispered, and rushed away at full speed.
I only remained behind for a moment. At this abrupt departure the
scales fell from my eyes. I was conscious that my feelings for the
mysterious being were not to be compared with his, and that I should be
a villain if I were to take advantage of this foolish appeal to chance.
In twenty yards I had caught him up, and had to employ all my strength
to keep hold of him, for he was bent on getting away.
"Hear me," I said. "I have changed my mind. Nay, you _must_ hear me, or
I shall believe you were never in earnest in your friendship for me. I
solemnly swear, Bastel, that I make way for you. I resign utterly and
for ever, every wish and every hope. I see it all clearly. You could
not recover it if she were to prefer me. I--why I should make up my
mind! You know one does not die of it even if all one's dream-blossoms
do not come to fruit. Give me your hand, Bastel, and not another word
about it."
He threw himself on my breast. I meanwhile feeling very noble and
magnanimous, as though I had renounced a kingdom to which I was heir,
in favour of some cousin belonging to a collateral line. Any one who
had seen us walking on for an hour hand in hand, and been aware that we
were disposing of a fair creature who had probably never given either
of us a thought, could hardly have refrained from laughing at so
shadowy an act of generosity. I insisted upon accompanying him at once
to the shop. I was bent upon proving that my sacrifice did not exceed
my strength. "Success to you!" I cried, as he turned the handle of the
door, and I shewed him a cheerful face. And then I went away wrapped in
my virtue, whose heroic folds were full compensation for all that I had
resigned.
I slept so soundly that night, that I felt ashamed of myself the next
morning for not having dreamed of her. Could it be that the flame of
this "new love" had gone out thus suddenly, not leaving so much as a
spark behind? I would not allow it to myself, and thereby diminish the
importance of so tragic a collision. As it was Sunday I had plenty of
time to give myself up undisturbed to my happy-unhappy sensations. A
few verses written down that morning still linger in my memory:
"Sad and consumed by envious desire,
A Cinderella sits beside the fire:
The hearth grows cold, the ashes fly about,
There is no sunshine in the air without.
"Oh strange that friendship should so cruel prove
As to inflict a pang on yearning _Love_:
Pale and half-blind she weeps the long hours thro',
Yet are they children of one mother too!
"Love decks herself and proudly lifts her head;
More and more glows her cheek's soft rosy red:
The pale one bears the weight of household care,
In games and dances never claims a share.
"Yet when her sister comes home late at night,
Poor Cinderella laughs and points with spite:
'Blood's on your shoe for all you're gaily drest,'
And thus she robs the proud one of her rest!"
And yet people persist in calling youth the time of unclouded
bliss--youth, which through mere mental confusions and self-invented
tortures lets itself be cheated out of heaven's best gifts;
counterfeits feelings in order to achieve unhappiness, and passionately
presses the unattainable to its heart!
* * * * *
About a fortnight may have sped away without my ever seeing my
fortunate rival except by accidental glimpses. From some delicate
scruple, for which I gave him full credit, he left off climbing the
stair to my study as heretofore, and if we met in the streets we soon
parted with a commonplace word or two, and a pretty cool shake of the
hand.
However, by the time we reached the third week, this estrangement
became intolerable to me. It was holiday time; the days were too hot
for work or exercise, and I even found the Castalian fount run dry. I
became aware that the silent presence of my friend had grown to be a
positive want. I longed even to hear his deep voice sing once more, "I
think in the olden days," and was as uncomfortable in my isolation as
Peter Schlemihl when he had lost his shadow.
At last I determined to seek him out. He lived the other side of the
Spree in an upper room of a house belonging to a tailor's wife, by whom
his cooking was done, and his few wants attended to. I must just
mention here that he received a very small allowance from his family,
and made up the deficit by giving music-lessons, for which indeed he
was but poorly paid.
When I entered his little room he was sitting at an old, hired piano,
and writing down some notes in a music-book on his knee. He jumped up
with an exclamation of pleasure, let the book fall, and caught hold of
my hand in both his. He made me sit down on the hard sofa and light a
cigar, and spite of all I could say, would have me drink a glass of
beer which the tailors wife fetched from the nearest tavern. At first
we said but little, as was our wont, but often looked at each other,
smiled, and were heartily glad to be together again.
"Bastel," said I at length, shrouding myself as completely as I
possibly could in tobacco-smoke, "I have a confession to make. You need
no longer keep up any reserve with me about--you know what. The wound
inflicted by a certain pair of eyes" (again the old lyrical style, this
time with a touch of Spanish colour), "either was not so deep as I at
first believed it, or else absence has done wonders. Suffice it that I
am perfectly recovered, and if you have turned these last weeks to good
account and been made happy, I shall rejoice with you unqualifiedly."
He looked at me with beaming eyes. "Is it really so?" he said. "Well,
then, I can tell you, you remove a great weight from my heart. I have
reproached myself a hundred times for accepting your sacrifice, and my
best hours with her have been embittered by the thought of having done
you wrong. I did not indeed feel sure that you would have been
satisfied with what made me so happy. And besides I felt that it would
have been wholly impossible for me to have renounced her. But now--now
all is right."
And again he pressed my hand, his joy so genuine and touching that I
felt myself and my artificially excited feelings, very small indeed in
comparison.
He then went on to tell me how far matters had advanced. It certainly
did require a modest nature, and a very sincere affection, not to be
rather disheartened than encouraged by the amount of progress made in
the course of three entire weeks. He had gone evening after evening, to
spend an hour in that small reading-room. It was plain that his silent
reverential homage had touched her, and the last few evenings she had
permitted herself to sit with him, and keep up an innocent chat. Once
even, when he was two hours later than usual, she received him with
evident agitation, and confessed that his delay had made her anxious.
She had become, she said, so accustomed to their daily talk, and as
there was no one else who took the least interest in her; and then she
stopped--perhaps because he too vehemently expressed his delight at
this her first kind word. He, for his part, had told her all about his
relations, and everything connected with himself that could in any way
interest her. But she had not confided to him the very slightest
particulars about her family or her past history, had only said how she
was pining in this dark shop-corner, and longed to go far away into
foreign lands. She had been putting by, she told him, for a year past
to meet travelling expenses; and privately teaching herself both French
and English in order to go into the wide-world at the first
opportunity. "If you had only seen her, Paul," said he at the end of
his narrative, "and only heard her voice, how sadly and resignedly she
told me all this, you would have pledged your life that no evil thought
had ever stirred her heart, that she was as pure and innocent as saints
and angels are said to be, and you would understand my resolve to leave
nothing undone in order to make her happy."
"You really then mean to marry her?"
"Can you doubt it? That is if she will accept me. She must have plainly
seen that my intentions were honourable, although, as to any formal
declaration, you know that my heart overflows least when it is fullest.
And besides there is no hurry. She cannot be thinking of leaving for
some time to come, and as for me--if I make great efforts in four or
five years--"
"Four or five years? Why, you will scarcely have passed your legal
examination."
"True," he rejoined. "But I have given up the idea of it. I shall not
seat myself on the long bench of law students, which is but a rickety
one after all. I think I can in a shorter time make something of music,
and at the worst if we are not able to get on here--and indeed my
parents would hardly be pleased at the marriage--we can seek our
fortune in America."
I looked at him sideways with pride and amazement. He seemed to me to
have suddenly grown ten years older, and I confessed to myself that all
the lyrical enthusiasm of my views of life, would not have rendered me
capable of so bold a plan.