CHAPTER I.

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive

Transcriber's Note:

1. Page scan source:

http://www.archive.org/details/throughnighttol00veregoog

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

Through Night To Light

A NOVEL

BY

FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

PROF. SCHELE DE VERE

_Author's Edition_

"Ex fumo dare lucem cogitat."

Horace

_REVISED EDITION_

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1878

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by

LEYPOLDT & HOLT,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States

for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY

DENNIS BRO'S & THORNE,

AUBURN N. Y.

Through Night to Light.

Part First.

CHAPTER I.

The sun hung glaring red near the horizon. In the valleys of the

mountain ranges dark-blue shadows were gathering, while high on the

forest-crowned tops the warm evening light was still aglow. The trees

were gorgeous in their gay autumn livery, but in this part of the

mountain dark forests of sombre evergreens covered the narrow ravines

up and down, and all the swelling heights.

On the turnpike which led in manifold windings towards the main ridge

of the mountains, and was lined on both sides with unbroken rows of

dwarf fruit-trees, an old-fashioned carriage was slowly making its way.

It was one of those broad but clumsy vehicles, drawn by two raw-boned,

broken-kneed horses, and carefully provided with a huge drag-chain,

which are hired in the cities for a few days' excursion into the

mountains. The horses lagged, with drooping heads, heavily in their

harness, and labored painfully step by step up the hill, for the road

was steep and the carriage heavy. The driver encouraged them from time

to time with a friendly Gee, bay! up, sorrel! as he walked slowly by

their side, and the two gentlemen who had employed him for some days

had gotten out at the foot of the mountain and were leisurely following

at some distance behind him.

They were a couple of young men, evidently belonging to the best

classes of society, that is, to the middle classes, in which

intelligence and culture are nowadays almost exclusively found. They

were both tall and showed the slight build and the elasticity belonging

to their years. One, the smaller one, whose mouth and cheeks were

nearly hid under a close, deep-black beard, would probably have been

thought the more interesting of the two, as his finely-cut features,

full of intelligence, were sure to please the more careful observer,

and yet he was neither as tall nor as handsome as his companion, who at

once attracted the eyes of all fair maidens and matrons in the towns

and villages through which they had passed.

The two young men had for a time walked on in silence, separated as

they were by the whole breadth of the turnpike, which was here covered

with small broken stones, to the despair of horses and foot-passengers.

Now, when they had passed the bad places, they approached each other

again, and the one with the black beard put his hand in a kindly manner

on the other's shoulder and said affectionately: "_Eh bien_, Oswald,

why so silent?"

"I return your question," replied the latter, turning his beautiful,

earnest eyes towards his companion.

"I enjoy in full draughts the glory of this evening's landscape," said

Doctor Braun; "and enjoyment, you know, is silent, because the very

pleasure is business enough, and leaves us no leisure for talking. But

tell me, is it not a wonderful country, this Thuringia? Is it not

worthy to be the heart of Germany, and thus the heart of the heart of

our continent, in fact of the inhabited globe? Stop a moment where you

are; we have just here a view which would be unique if there were not

thousands and thousands like it in these lovely mountains. There is the

valley, which we have just left! you can now follow easily the

meandering course of the willow-fringed brook through the meadows.

There is the village, a dirty place when seen near by, but now how

beautiful it is, half veiled by its gay cloak of trees, and the blue

columns of smoke, which rise straight up from the chimneys, and

gradually dissolve on the sides of the mountains into blue, transparent

clouds. And now these beautiful heights with their evergreens! how they

rise one behind the other with their deep coloring. And now, here to

our left, the glimpse of the blue mountains which we crossed this

morning. And, above all, this marvellously fair sky, clear and deep and

unfathomable, like the eye of some one we love. Oh, there is something

divine in these outlines and these lights. They are surely intended to

be more than a mere pleasure for the eye, or even a study for the

painter: they are meant to comfort us and to admonish us. A glance at

the enchanting face of our mother nature puts our wild hearts to sleep,

makes us forget the eccentric character of our so-called culture,

brings us back to the first harmony of the soul, and awakens and

revives in us the conviction that everything true, beautiful, and

noble, is infinitely simple, and that the well of contentment gushes

forth at the bidding of every one who seeks it with a pure heart."

While Doctor Braun had spoken these words in his usual animated and

impressive manner, Oswald had looked with sad eyes into the far

distance. Now, when his companion ceased, he said--an ironical smile

playing around his lips--

"Are you quite sure of that? And suppose it were so, who will blame the

unfortunate man whose heart is not pure, who is cursed with blindness,

and never sees the well of contentment? We shall meet one of these

unfortunate men to-night. If you will open his closed eyes and restore

to him the purity of his heart, I will worship you as a god."

Doctor Braun seemed to be much affected by these words, which had

towards the end assumed a passionate tone of bitterness. He was silent

for a few moments while they ascended the mountain, and then he said,

"I thought the journey would have calmed you and made you more

cheerful, Oswald. I begin to doubt my professional skill when I see

that the old dreams are as powerful as ever in you. You seemed to be

almost cured of the fatal desire to sit down, like Heine's young man,

by the sea coast, and to ask the restless waves for an answer to the

painful old riddles of life, and now----"

"Now I am once more bored with the old complaint! No, Franz, I will not

bring disgrace upon your mental cure and try to find the world as

beautiful and reasonable as you do. That was only a recollection of the

past. Is it not natural, is it not quite intelligible, that it should

turn up just now, when we approach the end of our pilgrimage, and I am

about once more to meet face to face the noble, unfortunate man to whom

I owe so much, and that after an interval during which so much, so very

much, has changed for him and for myself! I have followed your advice

faithfully, as well as I could. I have let the past bury the past; I

have practised industriously the art of forgetting, and I have sent the

very shadows of the departed back to Hades, when they became

troublesome. But here comes the form of a living man who is dead, of a

dead man who still lives, and I find neither in my mind nor in my heart

the magic words which will lay this spirit, whom I reverence, whom I

mourn with tears, like the others."

"Then let us turn back," said Doctor Braun, with great vivacity. "If

you do not feel the strength in you to maintain the position which you

have yourself chosen, against every objection and every authority, it

would be madness to expose yourself to such danger. Let us turn back;

it is time yet."

"No," said Oswald, "that would be both cowardly and foolish. We do not

overcome danger by avoiding it. I must see Berger and speak to him.

This interview must be the test of the problem that has occupied us

these four weeks. Either I recover myself from my own insanity by

seeing this madman, or----"

"There is no _or_," cried Franz. "Really, when I hear you talk so,

Oswald, I have a great mind to let you starve and thirst till you come

again to your senses, or consent to do honor to reason. You are an

enigmatical man, a thoroughly problematic character. There are

incongruities in your character which I have not yet learnt to explain,

in spite of our long intimacy. Natural disposition and education, which

jointly make the man, must in your case have been most strangely

intermingled. I have so far always avoided speaking of your early

youth, because I felt a natural reluctance to inquire after what you

evidently did not care to reveal. But my friendship for you is greater

than such considerations, which are after all of little account between

such intimate friends as we are. What do you say, Oswald, while the sun

is gloriously setting behind those mountains, and our poor horses are

painfully dragging themselves up the hill, you might tell me something

about your early years--much or little, as you are disposed. Will you

do it?"

"Willingly," replied Oswald. "I also have been thinking much of my

youth in these last days. If one is engaged in settling his affairs, as

I am now doing, at a certain epoch of one's life, it is almost

indispensable to trace that life back to the beginning. It is true you

are the first man, and perhaps the only one, whom I could permit to

look into those dark portions of my existence; but I will do it."

"I shall be all the more attentive," replied Doctor Braun.

CHAPTER II.

"To begin at the beginning," said Oswald, after a pause, during which

he seemed to have collected his thoughts, "I was born in the capital.

My father was a teacher of languages, my mother the daughter of a

mechanic. You see, therefore, that I have no claims to nobility, and

that my hatred against the nobles is the very natural and legitimate

hatred of the plebeian against the patrician, of the Pariah against the

Brahmin.

"I have never learnt why my father left the capital, and shortly after

my birth--I was, and remained, the only child of my parents--he went to

live in the little Pomeranian port W----. It is true I never knew much

of the history of my parents and of all that happened before my birth.

I do not even know whether I have any relations on the father's or the

mother's side. If there are any, I have never made their acquaintance.

"My mother also I only recollect dimly, after the manner of a person

whom we have seen in a dream. But even now I sometimes dream of a fair

young lady, with great, sweet blue eyes. She says in a soft tone some

words which I do not understand, but which sound like the music of

heaven, and always move me to tears even in my sleep. I know that this

lovely creature of my dreams is my mother, for she never changes. She

died before I had ended my fourth year.

"If ever man succeeded in replacing a mother to an orphaned, motherless

child, my father solved that problem. When I was a little child, he

sang and talked me to sleep; when I was sick, he watched day and night

by the side of my little bed; he sat by me in the garret window and

blew alternately with me bright soap-bubbles from a little clay pipe

into the air; he taught me the alphabet and to make ships from the

bark of trees; he made me learn the first Latin words, and taught me to

swim and to skate; he gave me the first lessons in Greek, and in

pistol-shooting and fencing. I had no other friend but him, until I

went to the University."

"He was a strange, unfathomable man, even so far as his outer

appearance was concerned. Imagine a figure of dwarfish size, but

exceedingly well proportioned, very agile and active, dressed in winter

and summer, early and late, invariably in a worn-out black dress-coat,

black shorts, black stockings, and shoes with large buckles, walking in

sunshine or rain, always hat in hand, through the streets of the city.

Imagine this figure ending in a disproportionately large head, with a

well-set brow, bald on the temples, beneath which a pair of sharp eyes

sent out flashes of lightning, and a face which, though fine and sharp

of outline, either had never known how to laugh or forgotten how to do

it for long, long years. This was the figure of my father, the Old

Candidate, as he was called in W---- by everybody, even the boys in the

street, with whom I had many a battle royal, when they dared to laugh

at the old gentleman's appearance.

"The nickname, besides, had no application to my father, if I except

the word Old. He had never in his life been a candidate for any office,

clerical or political, as far as I know, and, in spite of his enormous

erudition, he would not have been fit for any office, for his

eccentricity and odd disposition would have made it impossible for him

to fulfil his duties.

"In later years I have often and often tried in vain to find out what

bitter experience of life, what sad misfortunes, could have changed my

father into such an odd character. He was a hypochondriac and a

misanthrope at once, who avoided most carefully every contact with the

world, and who, therefore, was as carefully let alone by everybody

else. Those who claimed to be men of refinement and religious

convictions called him a cynic because he had emancipated himself from

all social obligations; and an atheist, because he never appeared at

church. The superstitious rabble crossed themselves when they saw him,

as if he were standing in nearer relations to the Evil One than was

proper for a good Christian. If he had lived two hundred years sooner,

they would no doubt have burnt him as a sorcerer or a magician.

"I must confess, to be candid, that the refined and the unrefined

rabble were not so far amiss when they attributed to my father ideas

and notions which are not ordinarily met with in the brains of the

majority. He had a supreme contempt for all faith founded merely upon

authority, because he felt himself fettered by it in the freedom of his

existence; and an intense hatred for all worldly tyranny, because it

prevented him from acting freely. He openly declared a republic to be

the only form of government under which a man who had the right _point

d'honneur_ could live happily. Every prerogative granted to one, to a

few, or to the many, was to him an injustice, which could only be

explained by the insolence of the ruler and the cowardice of the ruled.

He could see no difference in the end between a flock of sheep driven

to the slaughter-house by a stupid servant and a savage dog, and a

people who allowed themselves to be oppressed and ill-treated by a

proportionately small number of men. The men, he said, only managed to

cover their disgrace with bright-colored garments, while the sheep were

not able to do the same.

"His special hatred, however, was given to the nobility. As soon as he

happened to speak of their caste, he had a whole dictionary of

opprobrious epithets at his command. He never entered the house of a

nobleman; and whenever young men of noble birth proposed to take

lessons from him, he immediately refused. Once, as we were firing at a

target--a practice in which he excelled--he told me that in his youth

he had hoped thus to engage himself against a nobleman who had mortally

offended him. Unfortunately the man had died before he could carry out

his plan. That is the only hint which I ever received as to my father's

former life.

"And thus I grew up, exclusively communing with this strange man. The

relations between us were as extraordinary as he himself. Although my

father did more for me than generally both parents jointly do for their

child, and although he apparently lived and suffered only for my sake,

I still do not think he really loved me. He was a purely spiritual man.

Either his heart had received, at some time or other, a fatal blow from

which it had never recovered, or his sentiments had all evaporated into

mere notions under the influence of his scepticism. Whatever he did, he

did from a sense of duty, from a conviction that it was right; for, as

he said himself, Justice is higher than Love; it does all that Love

does and a great deal more.

"More, and yet not quite so much," interrupted Franz, "What we do from

affection for those we love, we ought to do for others from a sense of

justice; that is, from a conviction that the interests of all men are

represented in each. Love and Justice stand in the same relation to

each other as individual and species. One can not exist without the

other, for they need each other mutually. Justice can never teach us

all the thousand little acts of tenderness which we lavish upon those

we love, as individual love does not aid us any longer when we are

called upon to help a brotherhood, a nation, or all mankind."

"You may be right," replied Oswald, "and what you say renders it easier

for me to make a confession which I was about to make. I honored my

father deeply, but I did not love him; on the contrary, I often

experienced, as I only felt clearly in later years, a fear approaching

repugnance, when I came in closer contact with the strange man. Now I

hardly wonder at it, since I have found out that nature probably never

produced two beings more radically different than my father and myself.

We were as unlike in body as in mind and in inclination. I loved

already, as a boy, with perfect passion, everything brilliant and

splendid, and whatever is beautiful in nature and the world of men. I

was enthusiastically fond of my schoolmates, who rejoiced in the

youthful ornaments of golden locks, red cheeks, and bright eyes. I

loved to visit in houses where everything was elegant and in style,

after the manner of those days. I attached much importance to my dress,

and liked to hear it when women called me a handsome boy.

"You may imagine how little a young fellow with such wants and such

inclinations must have suited, as a companion, a misanthropic

hypochondriac, whose manner of life he was nevertheless forced to share

to a certain degree. For although my father allowed me a certain amount

of liberty, which was hardly in keeping with his general views, and

although he indulged me in my love of fine clothes and the comforts of

life to a degree which I have never been able to comprehend, I knew

nevertheless that he was deeply offended by this fondness of mine for a

world which he despised. I tried, therefore, very hard, to wean myself

from such a life, and succeeded all the more readily in my efforts, as

I soon discovered in the solitude, which was at first intensely hateful

to me, a source which changes the most desolate desert into a blooming

paradise--the Castalian spring of poetry.

"We lived in a small house built against and upon the city wall. The

solitary small window from which my room received its light was pierced

in the thick wall, so that the whole looked very much more like a

prison than anything else; and yet, what marvellously blessed hours I

have spent in that room! From my window I had an unlimited view over

the wall and the ramparts of the city--upon smooth ponds, lined with

beautiful copses of trees--upon rich meadows, with willows scattered

over them here and there, far out to the sea, which glittered like a

dark-blue ribbon through the green woods.

"Here, at this window, I used to sit on summer evenings, when the sun

was setting in brilliant splendor, my heart full to overflowing of

chaotic sentiments, and my head weaving thoughts as fair and bright,

and, alas! as perishable as soap bubbles! I remember I often wrote

verses in bright summer days and in dark autumn evenings, afterwards,

while I was sitting in deep meditation over my books, to remind me of

the happy days then, which had dropped one by one from the cup of time,

bright and brilliant, into the ocean of eternity.

"But why should I any longer attempt to describe to you these relations

to my father, which appear only the more enigmatical to me the more

clearly I desire to present them to you. If I ever had felt, as a

child, true, hearty love for my father, it grew less and less as I

became older and more independent. I had to hide in my heart all the

feelings, all the tenderness, which we ordinarily lavish upon our

mother and brothers and sisters and friends, for I could not feel any

confidence in him who, as matters happened to stand, ought to have

stood me in place of all of them. The constant intercourse with a mind

so sombre and sceptical gave to my mind a coloring which was little in

harmony with my sanguine and passionate disposition. I was an Epicurean

sitting at the feet of a Stoic, a Sybarite on terms of intimacy with a

Cynic philosopher. My exuberant fancy dreamed of the most magnificent

worlds, which my cool judgment destroyed pitilessly; I exhausted myself

in subtle devices, while my hot blood was filling my heart to

overflowing; I sat in my cell and studied dusty old parchments, while

my adventurous mind was longing for the marvels of the East and for

lofty deeds of chivalry.

"Thus matters continued till I went to the University, when I was

nineteen years old. I parted without grief from my father. What he felt

at the parting I cannot tell. He spoke to me, when I said good-by, like

a philosopher who dismisses his pupil, and recalled to my mind once

more all the great principles of his harsh worldly wisdom. The letters

which he wrote to me at regular intervals were in the same tone. There

were not many of them; for about six months after I had left him I

received a letter from the authorities of my native place, in which

they dryly informed me of the death of my father. He had left me a

little property, the fruit of his long and painful saving; it was just

enough to support me in a modest way during my university course, and

perhaps some little time beyond that. No will had been found; nor had

there been any papers, letters, diaries, or anything which might have

possibly given me a clue to the former history of my parents.

"Thus I was standing alone in the world--a young man in years, with the

weary mind of an old man. I was far too old for my fellow-students, who

looked to me like children at play; and yet I was far too young and

inexperienced myself to resist the temptations of a large city, or to

wander about in such a Babel without ever and anon losing my way. How

could a young man, in whom the current of full youthful life had been

so long artificially dammed up, avoid going astray? I became the hero

of many an intrigue, of which I was in my heart thoroughly ashamed, as

I ought to have been. I was spoilt by the women, and became the

innocent victim of many a heartless coquette. I gathered much

experience without growing any wiser--the worst thing that can befall a

man. And the most remarkable of it all was that I loathed in my heart

the enjoyments to which I gave myself up; that my heart yearned after

true love at the very times when I wasted it upon women unworthy of

such a gift; and that I cherished the most extraordinary plans for the

future, while I squandered my strength in senseless amusements.

"A friend, who in those days had some influence over me, rescued me

from the whirlpool in which I would have perished sooner or later. He

advised me to go to Grunwald. I followed his advice.

"From that moment you know my life, at least in its outlines. You know

that I became there acquainted with the unfortunate man whom we are

about to visit. You will now also be able to understand why it was

utterly impossible for me to resist the charm of Berger's extraordinary

character, and how I entangled myself by my intercourse with him only

more and more deeply in the thorns and briars of internal conflicts,

which finally made my heart bleed to death.

"Berger wished me to go to Grenwitz and to take there a position in a

noble family, which suited me about as well as a dove-cote suits a

hawk. You have followed me through the great periods of my life there

with an observant eye, and at the same time as a philosopher and as a

friend. I do not know--and I do not want to know--how much you have

seen, how much you have understood, and what may have remained an

unexplained mystery for you. A part of these events I dare not touch

upon; another part I am in duty bound to leave untouched. When the

catastrophe came which you had anticipated, and the frivolous world in

which I was living, crushed me--then you stood by me as a friend; you

snatched me out of the confusion, and you laid upon yourself a burden

which has no doubt made you sigh more than once since. But no! that

cannot be! You are as clever as you are wise, and as wise as you are

kind. Tell me, Franz, what Odysseus was your father, what Penelope bore

you, that Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom, should always so manifestly

have held you under her gracious protection?"

"I believe everything in my life has happened in the most ordinary

way," said Franz, laughing. "I pray you will not think I escaped

altogether from either Scylla or Charybdis! I have been, like yourself,

on the point of despair. What has saved me is the conviction that the

world is, after all, but a Cosmos, in which everybody, be he what he

may, has to fill his modest place--a conviction which came to me first

very dimly, then more and more clearly and distinctly, and finally

filled my heart with triumphant certainty. This idea has given me that

cheerful calmness without which life would in the end become

unbearable. I said to myself: This world, of which you know after all

but very little, is such an old, solid, and well-finished edifice that

you need not give up the plan on which it was built, even if you should

not comprehend it in all its details. This race of ours, which maybe is

intended for as many millions of years as we now know thousands, is

such a marvellous and unfathomable problem of creative power that you

will never come to an end studying it, if you were to live ever so

long. Goethe tells us that no man ever possessed art, and I add, no one

ever possessed philosophy.

"Starting from this conviction, I determined to find a sense and a

meaning in life, and I cannot help saying that my efforts have been

crowned with some success. Mistrusting even as a school-boy the results

to be obtained from mere speculation, I chose a science which reveals

the processes of our soul, as it were, _ad oculos_--Medicine. I chose

it, moreover, because in its practice it brings us advantageously into

intimate contact with other men, from whom we hold but too generally

aloof--whatever may be said in praise of solitude. He who has once

understood the solidarity of all human interests--that fundamental

principle of all moral and political wisdom--knows also that his

individual existence is but a drop in the vast stream, and that such a

drop has no right to claim absolute independence. It would be different

if men fell like ripe fruit from the trees. But we are brought into

this world through the agony of a mother, in order to be the most

helpless of all created beings, entirely dependent on the faithful care

of parents; we are then allowed to grow up, if fate favors us, amid

brothers and sisters, in order not only to share with them all the joys

of life, but also to obtain them by their assistance; and, even later,

we cannot enjoy any true pleasure, any delight of our heart, except

through others and with others. All this teaches us that we are true

children of men, the offspring of this earth, with the right and the

duty to work out our life here below upon our inheritance side by side

with other children of men, our brethren, who have the same rights, and

of course also the same duties, as we ourselves.

"Thus you see, Oswald, the world becomes a Cosmos, and we cease to be

mere atoms whirling about in the infinite space without a reasonable

government, while nobody knows whence we come and whither we go. The

great fault of your life, which it is true you could hardly avoid with

such an experience as you had in your young days, is that you have

always lived for yourself only and never truly for others. Thus you

have drifted into a false position, in which you could not be useful to

the world, and the world could not be useful to you. Now, all this will

be different. From friendship for me, you have made the sacrifice of

taking a step which I know well--and better now than before--must be

very painful to your whole nature. But I am convinced you will bless

this step hereafter. The trial year which you mean to devote to the

college at Grunwald will be in more senses than one a trial year for

you. You will see whether you can obtain the hardest of all victories,

the victory over yourself--over your own arbitrary, sovereign will. I

wish you were, like myself, engaged to some good, sensible girl. That

would compel you to work and compel you to struggle, if not for your

own interest, at least for the sake of her who is dearer to you--ten

thousand times dearer to you--than your own life, and you would see how

easy the battle, how easy the victory would be to you."

Oswald made no reply. He felt convinced of the truth of what his

companion said, but at the same time he felt painfully ashamed. For the

face of truth is stern, and makes him tremble who does not worship it

at the cost of every feeling of his own.

Thus they walked side by side in deep silence, until they reached the

top of the mountain, where the carriage was waiting. They got in again,

and now they rolled in a quick trot down hill towards the little town

which was lying at their feet in the bosom of a secluded valley,

surrounded on all sides by well-wooded hills, and veiled at this moment

by the gray evening mists. It was the end of their day's journey, and

for Oswald the place of his destination--a watering-place, called

Fichtenau, renowned far and near on account of its charming position,

its invigorating baths of spruce leaves, and more recently yet its

large and admirably-kept insane asylum, which Doctor Birkenhain, a man

of great intelligence and large experience in such matters, had founded

there a few years ago.

Oswald's heart was filled with strange sensations as he saw from the

corner in which he was leaning back the rocks and the trees flit by,

and felt that every step brought him nearer to the place which had

occupied his mind during the last months so persistently and so

painfully. How unmeaning the name had sounded to him when he first

heard it mentioned at Grenwitz as the place where Melitta von Berkow's

suffering husband was living! Then he did not know Melitta yet, then he

did not anticipate that he would a few days later be enchained by the

charms of that beautiful woman. Afterwards he had heard her mention the

name, though only rarely, and always with much reluctance, and in his

state of boundless delight the place had given him very much the

impression with which the owner of a superb, brilliant house looks upon

a dark room which he does not like to open, and of which he avoids

speaking, because years ago a person who was dear to him had committed

suicide there. Then the time had come when Melitta obeyed Dr.

Birkenhain's summons and went to see her dying husband--at last the

painful, wretched days during which he knew she was at Fichtenau by the

side of her unfortunate husband, and when he received from Fichtenau

those letters in which every word was a longing kiss. In those days

Fichtenau had appeared to him alternately the grave and the cradle of

his happiness, as he at one moment fancied Berkow's death would remove

all impediments in the way of his marrying Melitta, and then again

feared the very same event might forever separate him from her. Then

came the fatal day when he found out that the man whom he had from the

beginning looked upon as his most formidable rival was with Melitta;

when malicious tongues had whispered the most hateful explanations of

this fact in his ear, and he, unhappy man, had but too readily listened

to these abominable slanders. Alas! he had even then betrayed his own

love by his own acts, and, like a ship-wrecked man, who, in order to

save himself and his treasures, pitilessly pushes his best friend from

the frail plank into the ocean, he had sacrificed Melitta in order to

justify his passion for the fair Helen before the tribunal of his own

heart! And finally, to fill the cup to overflowing, and to prove as it

were to his troubled mind that the whole world was out of joint, and

one error more or less did not matter much, the same place must hold

both the woman he loved so ardently, who sought comfort for the moments

she must needs spend at the deathbed of her husband in the arms of a

fascinating roue, and the revered friend and teacher, whose genius, so

like a bright blazing torch, had just been extinguished in the deep

darkness of insanity! Only a little later death had robbed him of the

boy whom he had learnt to love as a brother, and Fate had broken, in a

most painful manner, his connection with a great and noble family; then

he had seen his rival wounded unto death by his ball, lying at his

feet, and separating him forever by this one deed from the beloved

girl, from whom a thousand other reasons would, even without this, have

compelled him to flee. Was it a wonder that he felt as if the whole

earth had no more suitable asylum for him than a cell adjoining that of

his friend and teacher in Doctor Birkenhain's famous Insane Asylum at

Fichtenau?

Doctor Braun had originally suggested to him this trip for scientific

purposes, but now Oswald had insisted upon starting at once, although

the former had endeavored to postpone the visit under one pretext or

another for some time, and this for good reasons. He had written to

Doctor Birkenhain, without telling Oswald, and asked him to give him a

minute description of Berger's case. Doctor Birkenhain had replied,

that Berger's insanity consisted exclusively in the fixed idea of the

absolute non-existence of all things, but that otherwise he was in full

possession of all his mental powers, and would have been dismissed from

the institution long since but for his own urgent desire to prolong his

stay there. Doctor Braun knew perfectly well that under these

circumstances a visit to Fichtenau might be extremely dangerous to

Oswald's eccentric mind, excited as he was by all that had happened of

late. The sight of a madman might have restored him to tranquillity;

but the intercourse with a hypochondriac, whose genius shone brightly

even in Its aberrations, might possibly only tend to confirm him in his

extravagant ideas.

Moved by this apprehension Doctor Braun had postponed the visit to

Fichtenau till the end of their journey, instead of going there at

first, as Oswald had wished. He had hoped that the frequent intercourse

with other men, the beneficent influence of a journey through a

beautiful country, brilliant in all the glory of autumn, would bring

Oswald back to calmer and more reasonable views of life, and enable him

to meet Berger, if not with the superiority of this calmness, at least

without danger for himself.

Now Franz saw himself deceived in his hopes. He was by no means pleased

with Oswald's excited manner, and would have liked best to turn back,

if that had still been possible. He sat casting now and then an anxious

glance at Oswald, who, throwing himself back in his corner, looked with

fixed eyes upon the little town below, and he determined at least to

shorten the visit as much as possible, and to prevent his friend's

being alone with Berger while they were there together.

CHAPTER III.

The sun had already set for half an hour behind the broad back of the

well-wooded hill, which embraces Fichtenau on the western side, when

the carriage left the mountains and rolled down into the plain in which

the town is situated. The wearied horses enjoyed the level ground and

the easier motion of the carriage, and hastened to meet their good

supper of oats. They seemed to gather new strength from the shrill

notes of a clarinet which were heard high above the unfailing roll of a

big drum, from the midst of a close circle of men on the commons near

the town-gate, who surrounded a band of rope-dancers. The road passed

close by the place, and as the crowd of curious people had overflowed

upon the turnpike, the driver saw himself compelled to drive more

slowly, and at last to stop altogether, as the people were not willing,

in spite of his scolding and cursing, to give up their vantage ground,

and persisted in remaining on the spot, from which they could

comfortably look down upon the performance.

The good people thought it naturally quite hard to be disturbed just

then, as the wandering artists were at that moment engaged in

performing their masterpiece, with which they always wound up the

evening's work, so as to dismiss the audience with the most favorable

impression.

They had stretched a rope from the little circus to the top of a tall

but broad-branched oak-tree which stood upon the common, smaller ropes

ran on both sides down to the ground, and were there held fast by stout

boys, who had volunteered to perform that service for the sake of High

Art. The increased shrillness of the clarinet and the growing thunder

of the big drum announced the coming of the great moment when the

famous acrobat, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, called the Flying Pigeon,

would have the honor to perform, with permission of the authorities,

his great feat, admired by all the potentates of Asia and Europe, viz.,

to fetch down a flag fastened to the top of a steeple four hundred feet

high, on the extraordinary path of a single rope, and moreover walking

backwards all the time, a feat which he hoped the nobility and the

highly cultivated public of Fichtenau would not fail duly to

appreciate.

The tower, four hundred feet high, of which the placards at all the

street corners had spoken, had changed, it is true, into an oak of

perhaps forty feet in height, and the enemies and rivals of the Flying

Pigeon--and what great artist is without enemies?--insisted upon it

that this change in the programme diminished not only the danger but

also the interest of the daring feat. But it was not Mr. John

Cotterby's fault, surely, that in the Thirty Years' War the

Imperialists had shot to pieces the steeple of the little church on the

public square of Fichtenau, which was then held by the Swedes. Nor was

he to be blamed if the paternal government had now for two hundred

years annually determined to rebuild the steeple, but never

accomplished it yet. What could he do, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, if,

for want of better times to come, the church on the square was to this

day without a steeple? Certainly, if the conscience of the Flying

Pigeon was as innocent of every other crime as of this, he could

perform his great feat, even with the change of the programme,

unblushingly before the potentates of Europe and Asia, and the nobility

and highly cultivated public of Fichtenau.

And without blushing--unless the carmine of his rouge should be

interpreted as the flush of modesty--the Flying Pigeon now presented

himself upon a little scaffolding, hung with soiled linen sheets, to

begin his journey heavenward, accompanied by desperate efforts of the

clarinet and the big drum, which were at that solemn moment reinforced

by the tinkling of a triangle and the squeaking of a tuneless fiddle.

He was a handsome, well-made man, and quite young; his dark curly hair

was confined by a narrow band of brass, and his whole costume consisted

of a suit of stockinet which had long lost its first color of innocent

white, and a jacket of the same material, to which on the shoulders two

wings had been fastened, which, however, had evidently performed such

very hard service that they had lost many a feather on previous

occasions.

Encouraging applause greeted the artist and drowned easily the hissing

of the opposition; he bowed gracefully all around, with an air which is

only found among circus riders, rope-dancers, and other members of that

airy guild, while other mortals in vain endeavor to imitate it, and

thus to rob them of their exclusive secret. But the applause ceased

suddenly, when to the astonishment of the whole audience a huge,

shapeless figure was seen climbing after the courteous artist upon the

platform, and presenting him, after a hearty slap upon the place

between the Icarus wings, with a long slip of paper! The white

nightcap, the large blue apron, but above all the enormous, deep-red

nose, left no one who was learned in such matters long in doubt

as to the nature of the man; they saw at once in him the owner of a

beer-shop, or something of the kind, and in the paper an unpaid bill.

The artist would not have been a true artist if he had not been deeply

embarrassed by this sudden intrusion of stern reality upon the bright

regions of art. There followed a pretty pantomime; the Flying Pigeon

shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the place in his stockinet where

people with trousers of larger dimensions indulge in pockets, in order

to express his very evident inability to pay, and seemed to implore the

landlord with much wringing of hands and plaintive gesticulating to

have patience. The latter replied, however, as it seemed, only by

making fearful faces and by striking his hand with his closed fist, and

thus made it very clear that he was inexorably hard-hearted.

The highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country

looked upon the scene as a very serious affair, and showed their

amazement and deep interest in every feature. But the excitement rose

to a painful intensity when next, upon a sign from the red-nosed

landlord, two fellows with huge moustaches, in blue coats and black

tri-cornered hats, came climbing up on the stage, and filled the hearts

of the innocent spectators with horror as they raised their arms upon

the bidding of injured Justice, and, seizing the unlucky artist with

fearful grimaces and gesticulations, bound his impecunious hands behind

his winged back.

And now, at this most painful moment in the earthly career of an

artist, it was to be shown that the great god Apollo knows how to lead

his saints wonderfully out of troubles and trials, and to secure to

them the well-earned apotheosis, if not in this vale of tears, at least

in heavenly regions.

For, from the thickest of the oak-tree, where the rope had been

fastened to a mighty branch, there suddenly appeared the figure of a

lovely genius, winged like the Flying Pigeon, with a wreath on the hair

and a bright banner in the right hand. This was evidently the flag

which Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, usually fetched down from a steeple

four hundred feet high, and which he saw himself on this day forced,

for want of a suitable tower, to bring down from heaven itself. For was

not the winged genius one of the heavenly choirs?

When the messenger from Olympus showed himself so opportunely, the

servants of earthly Justice and the wine-colored dispenser of

abominable beverages were, as in duty bound, seized with sudden terror.

They abandoned their victim and fell with all the signs of deep

contrition upon their knees, while the Flying Pigeon relieved himself

of his fetters and began to ascend the narrow path that leads to

heaven, with all the swiftness and agility which had won such honor

for his name and reputation. When he had gone up half-way he knelt

down before the heavenly apparition, who had beckoned him on with

unceasing waving of the flag, rose to his full height and made there,

far above the earth and all earthly fear, a gesture towards his

conscience-stricken pursuers, which is universally understood upon the

earth. Loud applause and cheerful laughter accompanied the humorous

artist up to the very heavens, where the genius handed him the flag,

crowned him with the wreath, and then disappeared once more in the

branches. Mr. John Cotterby then returned to the stage, where the

constables had in the meantime learnt to appreciate the value of the

ideal and of the divine nature of art, and now received him with deep

bows, while the red-nosed landlord yielded to the impulse of the

moment, and with most praiseworthy repentance tore the enormous bill

from end to end, thus giving the spectators a comforting assurance that

the Flying Pigeon was, at least for the present, safe against all

attacks upon his freedom.

The performance was at an end. The generous landlord, who now appeared

in the character of manager of the company of artists, alone remained

behind on the stage, and in his epilogue promised the nobility and

highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country on

the next day a far more splendid representation. The audience dispersed

very suddenly, for a suspicious ringing of money on tin plates reminded

them suddenly of a duty which the ungrateful among the spectators did

not hold themselves bound to perform, while many grateful admirers

regretted deeply their inability to prove their gratitude.

Nevertheless the majority of those unable to pay were still honest

enough to allow the unwelcome plate to come quite near to them, and

those who were not kept by honesty remained from curiosity to find out

how the genius who dwelt in the branches of oak-trees might look when

seen near by. For it was Apollo's own messenger who deigned to make the

collection for the benefit of his children upon earth.

The cunning director could not have made a better choice. The

genius--it was hard to tell whether it was a boy or a girl--had a pair

of magnificent brown eyes, which looked with such bewitching modesty

and so imploringly into every face that the purses opened together with

the hearts. Kindly words followed the child everywhere, and one or the

other of the well-to-do citizens seemed to think himself entitled by

his gift of a few cents to pinch the brown cheeks; but the genius

appeared by no means disposed to appreciate the caress.

The driver had been on the point of leaving as soon as the crowd

allowed him to pass, but Franz and Oswald, who had followed the drama

of the artist's earthly career and his apotheosis with great interest,

and now and then with hearty laughter, ordered him to stop till the

genius should have made his way through the dense crowd to the

carriage. They had not to wait long, for a travelling carriage with two

gentlemen inside was surely worth more than a dozen of poor citizens of

Fichtenau.

Franz was looking for some small change in his purse when he was

startled by a loud exclamation.

"What is the matter?" he asked, looking wonderingly up at Oswald, who

had jumped up and uttered the cry.

Oswald did not reply, but leaped with a single bound out of the

carriage, and hurried to meet the genius, who no sooner recognized the

young man than he dropped the plate with all the silver and copper

coins, and fell into his arms.

"Czika, is it really you?"

"Yes, man with the blue eye," replied the child, eagerly and

affectionately, still hanging on his neck; but then suddenly tearing

herself away and anxiously looking toward the carriage:

"Is the other one there also?"

"No, Czika," said Oswald, knowing very well that the other of whom she

spoke was Oldenburg. "But are you quite alone?"

"No, mother is with me; mother does not leave the Czika. Come and help

me to collect the money again." And the child stooped down to pick up

the coins that were half hid in the dust.

"Oldenburg's child among rope-dancers," said Oswald to himself,

mechanically obeying the child's injunction and unconscious of what he

was doing, kneeling down and picking up here and there the scattered

pennies.

The highly-cultivated public thought this meeting of an apparently

great personage with a rope-dancer's child, and their warm embrace,

more remarkable than anything they had seen that evening. Young and old

they crowded around them, forming a close circle, and apparently

determined not to leave the place till they had solved the mystery of

this extraordinary meeting.

Franz, who had witnessed the scene from the carriage, had scarcely been

less amazed than the crowd. Very soon, however, he recollected the

mysterious reports about a gypsy girl whom Baron Oldenburg was said to

have harbored at his lonely house for several weeks, until she had

escaped from him one fine day, and, with that rapidity of combination

which is often found in strong heads, he at once concluded that Oswald,

who no doubt was in the baron's secret, had recognized the gypsy girl

in the beautiful genius. His next thought was to shorten the scene, for

Oswald's sake mainly, and in order to diminish as far as possible the

sensation which it had already produced. He jumped, therefore, from the

carriage, hastened to Oswald, and said,

"Let us go on! At least till the crowd has dispersed."

At the same moment the director of the company, who had also observed

the scene from the stage, on which he had harangued the public, pushed

his way through the assembly. His curiosity to know what was going on,

and his indignation at seeing the important business of collection

interrupted at the critical moment, had made him forget that he still

wore the costume of the red-nosed landlord, and that he, therefore,

ought not to have mingled with the people unless he wished to sacrifice

the dignity of his art. Franz was justly afraid that the tragi-comic

scene might become decidedly disagreeable if that personage should join

them, and therefore anticipated his questions by meeting him before he

came near, and whispering to him in a tone just loud enough to be heard

by the bystanders,

"I am a physician, sir. This young man (pointing over his shoulder at

Oswald, who was still kneeling down with Czika) is rather eccentric.

You understand. Here is something in compensation for the loss he may

have caused you."

The man considered this explanation, which was given in a very solemn

manner, perfectly satisfactory, since the possible loss was amply made

up by the two silver dollars which Franz had slipped into his hand. He

smiled cunningly, and said, pulling off his night-cap and bowing low,

"Understand, understand, your excellency. Only pray get him away

quickly, so that the Czika can go on with the collection."

"Where are you staying?" inquired Franz.

"At the Green Hat, your excellency. Your excellency will rejoice a poor

artist's soul if you will bestow upon him your gracious patronage."

"Well, well," said Franz, and then turning to Oswald, who had risen in

the meantime,

"I pray you, Oswald, let us go on now. I know where these people are

staying; you can go and see them some other time."

Oswald, who had recovered from his first overwhelming astonishment at

finding Czika in such company, now saw very clearly the extraordinary

character of his position, and knew too well how sensible his friend's

advice was to neglect it any longer.

The Czika had shown the wonderful self-control which this remarkable

child never lost but for a few moments, and was going on with the

collection as if nothing had happened. She did not even cast a glance

at Oswald as he went back to the carriage, almost forced to do so by

Franz.

The carriage drove off. The crowd had quickly seized upon the fable of

Oswald's insanity, which Franz had invented with such admirable

presence of mind, and dispersed all the more rapidly as the increasing

coolness of the evening air reminded them forcibly of the warm supper

that awaited them in their warm rooms at home.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a few hours later. The evening had come completely. The

mountains of Fichtenau were wrapped in their double veils of night and

mist; on the dark sky a few lonely stars peeped here and there through

the drifting clouds. The narrow streets of the little town were

deserted; lights, however, were shining from the windows of the low,

simple houses. People were sitting around the stove after their frugal

suppers, and the husband told his wife, who for good reasons had not

been able to venture into a crowd, what wonderful feats of strength,

agility, and skill he had seen outside of the town on the great meadow;

how an insane gentleman had driven up with his physician (who no doubt

was bringing him to Doctor Birkenhain's great institution), and how he

had embraced the pretty gypsy girl, who was going around with the

plate, before all the people. The old, half-deaf grandmother, who was

nodding in her arm-chair near the stove, and only heard half of what he

was saying, remarked,

"Yes, yes! gypsies are the devil's children; everybody knows that. My

sainted great-grandfather lent a hand when five of them were burned on

the great meadow."

There was great feasting that night in the Green Hat, a low drover's

inn near the gates of the town, and not far from the great meadow. The

Green Hat was also the headquarters of all wandering rope-dancers, and

therefore a most attractive place for all lovers of art among the

people of Fichtenau.

The long table in the public room, which was filled with tobacco

smokers, could scarcely hold the number of guests, although they were

sitting closely enough on the hard benches. At the upper end,

especially, the crowd was great, for there the artists sat and drank in

the full consciousness of their dignity and the hearty enjoyment of a

free treat. The director, Mr. Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, presided

as a matter of course. He had laid aside all the insignia of the last

part he had played, except a few patches of rouge which still adorned

his bloated face; he had taken off his nightcap and the blue-checked

apron, together with the pillow with which it was stuffed. He appeared

now in the comfortable and elegant costume of a gentleman who has

relieved himself of his coat and waistcoat, and who forgets, in the

consciousness of his artistic fame and of his broad, richly-embroidered

suspenders, that his linen is not of the cleanest. Mr. John Cotterby,

of Egypt, who sat on the right hand of his lord and master, had been

compelled to make a greater alteration in his toilette, especially

since the artistic wardrobe boasted only of a single suit of stockinet,

and it was therefore of the utmost importance for him to do all that

could be done in order to preserve its delicate whiteness. Mr. John

Cotterby, of Egypt, wore a short, gray coat with green trimmings, and

would have looked, all in all, far more like a handsome Tyrolese (which

was, by-the-by, his real character) than the son of the land of mystery

through which the Nile rolls its waves, if the narrow brass band which

still confined his dark locks, and the broken German which he composed

most artistically for the occasion, had not vouched for his mystic

descent. There were two other artists sitting a little further down the

table; one a modest, silent, tall man, who took his craft in earnest,

and meditated deeply how he might introduce a new feature in his

far-famed performance, the Gigantic Cask; the other, the clown of the

company, a round, odd-looking creature, who produced a new grimace at

every glass which he drank with a new guest, and thus proved the

immense stock of those valuable commodities which he owned, since this

process of touching glasses occurred on an average every five minutes.

Mr. Casper Schmenckel, director, etc., had been a fine-looking man

until the abundance of his potations had injured the fair symmetry of

his person, and he loved to recall the many gallant adventures of which

he had been the hero, and in which even great ladies, whose eyes had

been well pleased with the gigantic proportions of the Hercules, played

a prominent part. When Mr. Schmenckel had emptied his third glass he

was apt to become eloquent about this heroic age of his life, and

tonight he had already more than doubled the mysterious number which

loosened the chaste seal on his lips. The young men who pressed around

him glass in hand would have fared better, probably, as far as their

morals were concerned, if they had not honored the Green Hat on that

particular evening with their presence.

Mr. Schmenckel's fancy was exuberant, and where ordinary eyes saw but a

number of midges dancing in the air, his rolling orbs beheld a host of

elephants. He calculated with incredible boldness upon the credulity of

his listeners; above all he endeavored to surround himself and the

members of his company with a nimbus of adventurous glory. The accident

on the great meadow, which had brought the madman and the Czika into

contact with each other, was far too useful for such a purpose not to

be fully employed by Mr. Schmenckel. It is true the gypsy and her child

had joined his troop quite accidentally a few days ago, as they were

making their way across the mountains towards Fichtenau, and Mr.

Schmenckel knew as little of their former history as any one in the

company; but his imagination was only the more perfectly free to rove

at random, and he invented a magnificent story in order to satisfy the

curiosity of the guests, who continually came back to the beautiful

child and the gypsy woman who had appeared as a dancer in the first

part of the performance.

"Yes, you see," said Director Schmenckel, "that is a very mysterious

story, and I should be quite ready to tell you all about it, but it is

so very incredible."

Mr. Schmenckel dived with his red nose into his beer and slowly

absorbed the remaining half, while his eyes twinkled with delight as he

looked by turns through the swollen lids at one and the other of his

friends.

"Tell us, tell us, Director!" cried half a dozen voices.

"Another bumper for the Director!" cried another half dozen.

"It may be about ten or twelve years," began Mr. Schmenckel, after

having diminished the contents of the new glass to a considerable

extent, "when I was making a trip to Egypt----"

When he said Egypt all eyes turned to Mr. John Cotterby, who leaned

back in his chair and smiled mysteriously.

"What were you going to do in Egypt?" asked a voice.

"May I tell, Mr. Cotterby?" asked Mr. Schmenckel.

"Fideremkankinsavalilaloramei," replied the Egyptian, who could not

imagine what his lord and master wanted to be allowed to tell.

"Thanks, Cotterby," said Mr. Schmenckel, "modesty adorns a man, but why

should I conceal it that it was on your account I was making that

journey? You must know, gentlemen, that the fame of Mr. Cotterby was in

those days filling the whole Orient, and that nobody spoke of anything

but the Flying Pigeon. I said to myself: You must induce this man, the

greatest artist whom the world ever saw, to join your company, as sure

as your name is Caspar Schmenckel. No sooner said than done. I went to

Egypt, where I was told Mr. Cotterby was then residing, but Mr.

Cotterby was nowhere to be found. At last I learnt from an old Dervish

who had sold me the talking serpent, which I shall have the honor of

exhibiting to-morrow, that Mr. Cotterby was staying somewhere far away

in the desert near the pyramids. May I tell why you did so, Cotterby?"

"Framtebaramta! Tell what you wish to tell," replied the Egyptian, with

a generous, modest smile.

"Mr. Cotterby, you must know, had retired for some time into the

desert, and sworn a fearful oath that he would not again appear in

public till he had ascended every one of the pyramids on a rope."

"What are those pyramids?" inquired a voice.

"Pyramids!" said Mr. Schmenckel, dictatorially, "are immense heaps of

stone, which the old Egyptians raised in honor of their gods, a

thousand feet high, or more, and so steep that a cat can hardly get to

the top. On the top there is a pointed stone pillar, called obelisk; to

this Mr. Cotterby fastened one end of a rope, while the lower end was

held by two thousand black slaves of his, and thus he walked up and

down, so that those who saw it felt their hair stand on an end. That

was the way I found Mr. Cotterby engaged in the desert, and of course I

became more anxious than ever to engage him for our company; but he

refused. What was I to do? I had nothing left but to climb at night to

the top of the pyramid at the risk of my life, and next morning, when

Mr. Cotterby arrived there, to seize him around the waist and to cry:

Either you consent to an engagement for three thousand a year, or I

send you head over heels down this pyramid, as sure as my name is

Caspar Schmenckel. May I tell what you replied, Cotterby?"

The Egyptian nodded assent.

"If you are Mr. Schmenckel from Vienna," said Mr. Cotterby, "you need

not have made such an ado about it. I should have come to you any way

to Vienna, as soon as I had done with this pyramid. There is only one

Schmenckel, as there is only one Cotterby; both ought to be together,

like bread and butter. But that was not exactly what I was going to

tell you, gentlemen," said Mr. Schmenckel, emptying his glass and

holding it up to the light, as if he wished to convince himself that

there was really nothing left in it.

"A glass for Director Schmenckel," cried a dozen voices.

"Thanks! thanks! gentlemen! Your health!--but how I made the

acquaintance of Madame Xenobia--or Kussuk Arnem, as her true name

is. But that story is almost still more incredible, and contains

certain episodes which I can only touch upon in the way of delicate

allusions----"

"Oh, never mind! Just go on and tell us!" exclaimed the listeners,

crowding more closely around him.

"Well, then, I will tell you! A short time after I had thus secured Mr.

Cotterby for my company, I was giving a few representations at

Constantinople on the great square before the Sultan's palace. He took

uncommon interest in our art, and had given us permission to fasten our

rope to the uppermost turret of his palace, upon the flat roof itself.

Now, you must know that the upper story of this palace contains the

rooms of the wives of the Sultan, and on that account it is called the

harem. I had always felt the most intense desire to make my way some

time or other into such an harem, which otherwise is utterly

inaccessible to everybody. And now Cotterby had told me that whenever

he came by the top story the most beautiful black eyes in the world

were glancing at him through the narrow crevices between the planks,

which are nailed over the windows of the harem. What could I do? I say

to Cotterby: 'Cotterby,' says I, 'you can do anything. Suppose you take

me to-morrow in the wheelbarrow which you carry up and down the rope,

and then let me get out on the roof. I must see how things look up

there. You can bring me back the same way the day after. Will you do

it?' 'Why not?' says Cotterby, 'if you wish it particularly.' The next

day the thing is done. I hide myself in the wheelbarrow. Cotterby

carries me up to the roof; he turns the barrow over and there I am, on

the roof, quite alone, for Cotterby had gone back immediately, so as to

create no suspicion. Now you may believe it or not as you choose,

gentlemen, but I assure you I felt rather peculiar in that position.

How easily the head of a black guardsman might pop out through one of

the openings in the roof--and then farewell to my sweet life! But there

I was, caught in the trap, and I was determined not to leave again

until I had a taste of the bait. While I was still considering what I

had better do next, I suddenly hear the rattling of spears and of

swords on the staircase which leads up to the roof. It was the Sultan

himself, who wished to admire Mr. Cotterby from that elevation. I, in

my terror, run up to the nearest chimney which rose out of the roof,

creep into it, and--I had not time to think for a moment--down I go

some twenty feet deep--and where do you think, gentlemen, I came out

again? In the fire-place of the bed-room of the Sultan's first

favorite. But here I must ask the pardon of all the gentlemen present

if, to spare the honor of a great lady, I can only assure them that the

next twenty-four hours were among the happiest which Caspar Schmenckel

has ever enjoyed in this life. On the day following, Cotterby brought,

as a matter of precaution, a much larger wheelbarrow, and carried me

safely down again. We left Constantinople that very night, and from

that moment our company was richer by one great artist, and the harem

of the Sultan had lost its fairest flower."

Mr. Schmenckel looked around him triumphantly. He could well be

satisfied with the impression which he had made by his stories on his

audience; they sat there listening with breathless attention. At that

moment a lady came running into the room; it was the same one who used

to sit at the ticket office, and who attended to all the domestic

affairs of the company; she whispered a few words in the director's

ear, of which the company only heard one or two, which sounded like

"woman--run away." The director did not seem to be pleased with the

information. His face darkened perceptibly. He grumbled something about

the devil and his luck, and left the table without finishing his

glass--a proof that the news he had just received must have been of the

utmost importance.

And the news was important, for it amounted to nothing less than that

the fair flower, which Mr. Schmenckel had stolen ten years ago with so

much daring and such cunning from the palace of the Lord of the

Faithful, had been lost again. Alas! he had allowed her to rest ever

since on his broad bosom, he had seen the tender bud of the beauteous

flower unfold itself under his watchful care, and now both flower and

bud had been torn away by a storm, carried off by the deeply-injured

Sultan, or at least they could not be found anywhere in their chamber

or in the whole house! Mamselle Adele had made the discovery as she was

about to invite the gypsy to the common supper of the ladies of the

company, which was laid in another room. Mamselle Adele, a lady with an

abundance of black curls, the genuineness of which was strongly

suspected by envious rivals, a dark face full of energy, and a voice

chronically hoarse and rough, informed Mr. Schmenckel of her discovery

with that gift of the gab and that dramatic power which is given to

ladies who are in the habit of addressing the public from the open

steps of a wooden booth. The news was soon confirmed by the result of a

thorough search of the whole house, in which he himself took the lead;

it fell upon him like a flash of lightning from a clear sky. The escape

of the gypsy woman was to him what the death of his best lioness and

her cub would have been to the owner of a menagerie. He lost in the

mother and child a capital which had cost him next to nothing, and

which yet promised to produce abundant interest--the ornament, the

glory, the poetry of his establishment. Even Mr. John Cotterby, of

Egypt, might have been replaced more easily. Flying Pigeons are rare,

but after all they can be procured; but a genius with such eyes, such

deep, brown eyes, with such a kindly, serious smile, that could tempt

the stingiest green-grocer to lavish profusion, was not to be found

again. Mr. Schmenckel would not have been a man and a director, and

above all he would have had to drink, instead of so many glasses of

bitter beer, as many gallons of the milk of human kindness, if he had

borne such a loss with stoic repose. Mr. Schmenckel was a man, he was a

director, he had been drinking beer and not milk--and Mr. Schmenckel

gave himself up to fearful wrath. The first explosion fell very

naturally upon the bearer of the bad news, especially as Mr. Schmenckel

had had full opportunity during the many years of their intimacy to

become aware of the jealous temper of this lady, as well as of her

other foibles. He accused her in terms which ought t(C) be impossible

even among the most intimate friends, of having compelled the gypsy by

her intrigues to seek safety in flight. Mamselle Adele, whose temper

was naturally not of the gentlest, and who found herself in this case

considered guilty when she was really quite innocent, replied in a tone

which betrayed her inner excitement but too distinctly. Mr. Schmenckel

belonged to that class of heroic men who, in the consciousness of their

superiority--especially when they have drunk deep--allow of no

contradiction, and whose proud motto in decisive moments is: "Works,

not words." Mamselle Adele no sooner felt the heavy hand of her master

upon her cheeks than her burning heart burst forth in flames, and her

tongue began to ring the alarm-bell with such loudness and shrillness

that the guests inside started up from their seats and hurried to the

door, apprehending that some dire calamity had taken place in the hall,

where the scene between Mr. Schmenckel and Mamselle Adele was then

under way.

The sight of so many uninvited and undesirable witnesses brought the

director, who was always anxiously concerned for the good name of his

troop, very quickly to his senses; but the poor lady, who saw her honor

thus compromised before a great crowd, was exasperated beyond

endurance. So far she had only threatened to let the director feel her

nails; now she added the act to the threat. The highly-cultivated

public of Fichtenau, as far as it had assembled at the Green Hat, were

unspeakably shocked when they saw the celebrated artist, the hero of so

many adventures, the master of the far-famed pyramid-climber, the

robber of the Grand Sultan's own palace, in such a state of suffering.

Mamselle Adele's attacks did not cease for a moment; they were even

carried out with irresistible energy, force, and agility. Some wished

to come to the assistance of the defeated general; others laughed and

encouraged her; still others, men in blue blouses and heavy hob-nailed

shoes, who were regular customers at the Green Hat with their wagons

and horses, and bore no good-will to the rope-dancers, because they

interfered with their accustomed comfort, spoke loud of "rabble," and

"turn them out," a sentiment which in its turn displeased a few

enthusiastic admirers of high art. Angry faces, threatening arms lifted

high, and curses loud and many, formed a tableau, which in the

twinkling of an eye was changed into another, in which even the

landlord of the Green Hat, who was leaning against the kitchen door in

phlegmatic composure, his pipe between his lips, could no longer

distinguish any details. Dense clouds of dust half concealed and half

revealed a heap of struggling men, rolling to and fro on the floor of

the inn, while everybody was striking out with his natural weapon of

the fist, or the artificial weapon of a leg of a chair, against his

real or imaginary adversary.

CHAPTER V.

Oswald had been hospitably provided for in the elegant "Kurhaus" of

Fichtenau, but he had not been able to resist the desire to visit

little Czika that same evening. He hoped to learn from the Brown

Countess how they had become mixed up with such strange company, and at

the same time to persuade her either to return to Baron Oldenburg, or

at least to give up the child to him. He thought he should be able to

accomplish by management what the violence of the baron had rendered

impossible, and this all the more readily as the Brown Countess seemed

to be kindly disposed towards him, and little Czika evidently felt more

confidence in himself than in the "other," who was her father. And then

there was still another feeling besides the personal interest which he

felt in the beautiful child and the gypsy, whom he had first met on

that eventful afternoon when he was lost in the forest on his way to

Melitta, and who, therefore, had in a manner been the instrument to

bring him to Melitta, to say nothing of their subsequent connection

with Oldenburg, all of which prompted him to act energetically. He felt

the burden of the gratitude which he owed to Oldenburg for his

chivalrous assistance at Bruno's death, and in the duel with Felix. He

did not like to be under such obligations to a man against whom he had

felt a strong antipathy from the beginning, and whom he had afterwards,

in the days of his love for Melitta, feared as his most dangerous

rival--a man whose determined strength of will had something imposing

to him in spite of his reluctance to acknowledge it, and whom he yet

accused--heaven knows with what justice!--of duplicity and

inconsistency!--a man who had betrayed him all these days in the most

humiliating manner, if the relations between Oldenburg and Melitta were

at all like what they were represented to be by the Barnewitz family

and other friendly spies and gossips. If he could now succeed in

rescuing the child whom he had almost given up, and render him the very

great service of restoring her to him--then the oppressive debt of

gratitude would be paid, he would have acquitted himself of all he

owed, and Oswald Stein would have no reason to cast down his eyes

before Baron Oldenburg, if fate should ever array them against each

other as foes--and the young man apprehended that such a moment might

come.

These thoughts and feelings filled Oswald's heart as he followed a

servant from the Kurhaus through the silent streets of the town towards

the Green Hat, where he had been told by Franz that he should find the

rope-dancers. Franz himself had remained at the Kurhaus, as he was too

discreet to intrude upon a secret which was apparently kept from him.

For when he had laughingly endeavored to explain to his friend how he

had managed to interpret, for the benefit of the crowd, the strange

scene with the rope-dancer's child, Oswald had remained perfectly

silent, and Franz had seen no other way to explain this reticence than

by supposing that his companion was either not willing or not at

liberty to give any further explanations about the matter. When Oswald,

therefore, remarked that it would probably be too late that evening to

pay a visit to Berger, he had simply answered: "I think so!" and

refrained from offering his company when Oswald, after walking up and

down in his room for a quarter of an hour in perfect silence, had at

last declared his intention to take a walk in the cool of the evening.

Franz adapted himself all the more readily to the fancies of his

companion, as he was busily occupied at that moment with his own

affairs. He had hoped to find in Fichtenau a letter from his betrothed,

but his hopes had not been fulfilled. This disappointment caused him

some apprehension, as Sophie generally wrote very punctually, and they

had come to Fichtenau several days later than they had originally

intended. He consoled himself, however, with the hope that the last

mail, which was expected every moment, might yet bring him the

much-desired letter.

In the meantime Oswald arrived at the hospitable shelter of the Green

Hat at the very moment when it sent a part of the odd crowd that had

assembled there that evening through the open house-door into the

street, where the conflict in large masses, as it had been carried on

in the hall, changed into a fight between isolated groups. For a moment

they blazed up, like the remains of an exhausted fire, only to sink the

next moment into utter night for want of fuel. Peace was soon restored,

for nobody knew exactly why they had been fighting each other with such

rage, and there were quite enough closed eyes and bruised limbs for

such an intangible cause of war. The excitement, it is true, was not

allayed, and there was still a good deal of noise, but it was only the

long swell of the ocean after the violence of the storm has been

broken. They cursed and swore, they bragged and threatened--but they

sat down again and drowned the last remnants of hostility in beer.

Oswald was so anxious about Czika that he had not been so much

disgusted with the horrible scene as he would have been under other

circumstances. Fortunately he saw neither the child nor Xenobia in the

crowd, but the mere thought that they might have been mixed up with

such a pandemonium was terrible to him, and he determined to remove

them at any hazard. He pushed his way through the noisy fighting crowd,

who did not notice him at all, and inquired of the one and the other

why they were fighting, and where Xenobia the gypsy was, with her

child? No one had time or inclination to answer his questions, until at

last he happened to speak to a young man who looked a little less

rowdyish than the rest, and who told him that some members of the

rope-dancer's troop had run away, a gypsy woman and her daughter, and

that this had given rise to a general fight. He pointed out to him a

man who was wiping the blood off his face and speaking with most

animated gesticulations, intimating that that was the director, and

that he would probably be able to tell him all he desired to know.

Oswald felt greatly relieved when he heard this. Xenobia and Czika were

gone, and it mattered little where they had gone to, so they were free

from this association. He considered for a moment whether he had better

return without having anything more to do with the rope-dancers; but

the desire to hear more, and to ascertain, perhaps, the place to which

the fugitives might have escaped, overcame his reluctance, and he

addressed the person who had been pointed out to him as the director.

Mr. Schmenckel was a man of remarkable elasticity of mind, and had

readily recovered the imperilled harmony of his soul after the battle,

from which he had come forth covered with honorable wounds. As soon as

the first storm of his passions had subsided a little, he generally

exhibited a high degree of that philosophic resignation which submits

with dignity to the inevitable, and makes every effort to adapt itself

to the circumstances. Since the gypsy woman was gone, all lamentations

about his loss would only make him ridiculous, and it became a noble

character to forgive and forget. He pretended, therefore, to ignore the

whole occurrence, and treated it as something by no means unexpected.

"Ingratitude is the world's reward--easily won, easily lost--to-day it

is I, to-morrow it is another. Let us sit down again, gentlemen.

Director Schmenckel is not so easily thrown out of gear. We have other

means still in reserve to entertain a highly-honored public, and you

shall see that the performance which I shall have the honor to give

to-morrow--what does the gentleman wish?--you wish to speak to me? I am

at your service--a director must be always ready." Mr. Schmenckel

followed Oswald, who had asked him for a few moments conversation, very

readily, since the circumstance that an elegantly-dressed gentleman

came all the way to the Green Hat in order to have an interview with

Director Schmenckel, was well calculated to make a sensation.

"What does your excellency desire?" inquired Mr. Schmenckel, when they

were in the hall.

"I should be glad if you would give me some information about the gypsy

woman, who, I am told, has left your company this evening."

Mr. Schmenckel was startled; the question sounded suspicious. He

availed himself of the light of the lamp before the house--for they had

reached the street by this time--to examine Oswald's face more

carefully, and he now recognized in him the gentleman whom the Czika

had embraced. Mr. Schmenckel knew at once how the matter stood. This

young gentleman was an immensely rich lord who had a mania for gypsies,

and was in the habit of buying up young gypsy children for his

amusement. Mr. Schmenckel reflected that the woman might possibly

return, and that the greater his claims were upon her, the higher the

price he might ask for the child.

"Well," he said, in order to gain time for consideration, "why would

your excellency like to know?"

"That does not matter," replied Oswald; "it will suffice for you that I

do not mean to leave the man who gives me the information I desire to

obtain unrewarded," and he slipped a dollar into Mr. Schmenckel's hand.

"Thanks, your excellency," replied Mr. Schmenckel, whose suspicions

were only confirmed by Oswald's liberality, "nevertheless I should like

to----"

"But I do not understand why you should hesitate to tell me what little

you may possibly know about the woman?"

"Well," replied Mr. Schmenckel, "perhaps it is not so very little I

know about her. When one has had somebody thirteen years in the

company----"

"But I have met the gypsy only this summer at--never mind, not very far

from here, and quite alone."

"That may very well be," replied the cunning director; "it is not the

first time to-night that Xenobia has run away, but she has always come

back again."

"Thirteen years!" said Oswald, who did not think for a moment of

doubting the fable; "how old was the child, then, when she came to join

you?"

"How old?" said Mr. Schmenckel. "Why, your excellency, when she came to

us, she had no child. I know that, as a matter of course, ha, ha, ha!"

"You?" said Oswald, and he shuddered. "You?"

"Well! why not? Do I look to your excellency's eye as if a pretty young

woman could not possibly fall in love with me; and did not this girl,

moreover, take wages from me? I can tell your excellency that I have

made very different conquests in my time. Has your excellency ever been

in St. Petersburg? There is the Princess--but, after all, I am not at

liberty to speak as freely of such a great lady as----"

"In one word," said Oswald, scarcely able to restrain himself, "the

Czika is your child?"

"I couldn't swear to that," said Mr. Schmenckel, smiling, "but I can

take my oath that she might be my child, and that I have always looked

upon her in that light."

"And you think the gypsy will come back again?"

"Oh, your excellency may rely upon that; she is never as well off as

when she stays with me."

"But why does she run away so often, then?"

"Yes, just think of it, your excellency; women are a strange kind of

people," said Mr. Schmenckel, philosophizing, "and the kinder you are

to them, the sooner they will play you some trick or other. There is no

truth and no faith among them, and especially these gypsies----"

"Very well," said Oswald, who was overcome with disgust, "we will talk

about that some other time." And he went away quickly.

Director Schmenckel followed him with his eye for awhile, shook his

head, put the dollar, which he was still holding in his hand, in his

pocket, laughed and returned into the public room, feeling very happy

in the pleasant conviction that he had cheated a greenhorn. Within

peace had in the meantime recovered its sway, and the whole company had

joined in singing the favorite ballad: "Blue blooms a blossom."

While Oswald was receiving this doubtful information about the true

history of poor little Czika from the truth-loving lips of Director

Schmenckel, Franz was waiting for his return with painful impatience.

The mail had really brought him the long-desired letter from his

betrothed, but unfortunately had also confirmed the vague apprehensions

which had of late troubled his mind. Sophie wrote in a hand almost

illegible from anxiety, that her father had had a stroke of paralysis,

from which the physicians feared the very worst. Her father, she added,

was at that moment, several hours after the attack, still speechless

and unable to move. If there were any hope for her father, help could

only come from Him whom she looked up to with trusting confidence and

perfect submission.

Franz had formed his resolution instantly. As the driver who had

brought them to this place declared he was unable to go any further, he

had at once ordered post-horses, in order to reach the nearest railway

station that night. To think of his sweet love in such bitter need and

sorrow--watching and weeping by the sickbed, perhaps already by the

coffin of her father--and he, her comfort and her hope, some four

hundred miles away--all this was enough to disturb even so firm a heart

as that of Doctor Braun was under ordinary circumstances. He felt as if

the ground was burning under his feet. The few minutes before the

carriage could be made ready, seemed to him an eternity.

At last he heard the horses coming, and Oswald also returned. Franz

told him the sad news he had just received, and what he had determined

to do. He begged his friend, in a few parting words, not to prolong his

stay at Fichtenau beyond what was absolutely necessary, and above all

to be punctually at the appointed time at his post in Grunwald. Oswald

had been so thoroughly excited by the many extraordinary occurrences of

the last hours that he apparently expected nothing but surprises, and

thus he received his friend's communications with an air of

indifference. He promised, however, what Franz asked of him, as he

accompanied him to the carriage.

"What do you say, Oswald," said Franz, who had already settled himself

down in the carriage; "Come along with me! You may find my proposal

somewhat extraordinary, but the strangest way is often the best way."

"I cannot do it, Franz," said Oswald. "I cannot leave here without

having seen Berger, and besides----"

"I know all you can possibly say on that subject," replied Franz, "and

I must tell you frankly that I have no good reason whatever for making

the proposition. But I feel as if I ought not to leave you here

alone--as if there was something in the air here that boded you no

good. Come with me, Oswald!"

"I will follow you as soon as I can."

"Then farewell! Go on, driver!"

Franz once more pressed Oswald's hand. The carriage rattled over the

uneven pavement of the little town and disappeared around a corner.

"What a pity the gentleman had to leave so soon," said Louis, the head

waiter at the Kurhaus, who was standing near Oswald, a napkin under his

arm and a pen behind his ear. "A most pleasant gentleman--would you

like to have supper now, sir? You will find very agreeable company in

the dining-room, sir."

Oswald went back into the house. If Franz could have repeated his

request at that moment, Oswald would not have again refused to

accompany him. For since Franz had left him he felt as if his guardian

angel had abandoned him, and as if the air of Fichtenau was really

laden with mischief.

CHAPTER VI.

On the next morning Oswald awoke late from his broken slumbers, which

had been much disturbed by strange haunted dreams. Melitta, whom he had

so ardently loved but a short time ago, had appeared to him, her fair,

pale face disfigured by sorrow, her brown, gentle eyes overflowing with

tears, and looking at him with an expression of ineffable sadness. Thus

she had sat by him--her sad, sweet smile on her full lips, which he had

so often kissed, intoxicated with love! And Oswald's heart had been

overflowing with love and pity! He had forgotten all that had come

between her and himself the bad weeds sown by whispering tongues which

had grown up to maturity so suddenly, thanks to the fickleness of his

own heart; he had forgotten everything except the remembrance of those

sunny days of inexpressible happiness. And he had thrown himself at her

feet and shed tears, bitter-sweet tears, upon her knees, and stammered

words of repentance, and implored her forgiveness. Then an icy-cold

hand had been laid on his brow, and as he looked up it was no longer

Melitta, but Professor Berger; but not the man of the melancholy humor

and the biting satire, who had so often sat opposite to him with his

sardonic smile on the mysterious lips when they met at aesthetic teas,

but a gruesome mask of wax, motionless and silent. And of a sudden

there had begun a quivering and a stirring in the cold, rigid face of

the mask, as when one tries to speak and the tongue refuses to serve

him; then the mask had actually spoken, not in human language, but in a

mystic idiom, of things half intelligible, half mysterious, of

unspeakable, fearful things--awful secrets of another world.

Oswald had not been able to endure the horror any longer, and his soul

had made a desperate effort to rise from the intolerable twilight into

the bright light of day. But the light of day had not brought him the

right kind of cheerfulness, for the visions of the night still cast

their spectral shadows upon the day. Woe to him whose heart is not

clear of sin! Woe to him whose heart conceals recollections, which he

drives away with a slight frown, when they obtrude upon him in moments

of wakefulness and preparation! He may well see to it. What dreams are

coming to him in his sleep?

Oswald spent the whole forenoon in this heavy state of mind. He could

not summon courage to undertake the painful task of going to Doctor

Birkenhain's Asylum; he postponed the visit till the afternoon, and

tried to persuade himself that he would then be in better humor, and

better prepared to stand once more before Berger, face to face. He went

down to take his dinner at the table-d'hote, where he found, in spite

of the advanced season, quite a number of persons still, who, were

either drinking the waters of the place or travelling for their

amusement. He sat quietly sipping his wine, and amused himself with

listening to the brilliant conversation of some commercial travellers,

as it flitted to and fro, touching a thousand subjects, and among them

also the escape of the gypsy woman and her child, and the "enormous

row" which had arisen in consequence, disturbing the peace of the Green

Hat and the nightly rest of a considerable part of the little town.

Some of the young gentlemen who had witnessed the exhibition on the

great meadow enlightened more recent arrivals as to the beauty of the

gypsy, and regretted eloquently the disappearance of that "famous

person." The little one, also, was represented as a "famous" thing,

with really "famous" eyes. An eccentric Englishman, who had been near

the stage, they added, had instantly fallen in love with her, and there

was no doubt at all but that this Englishman, of whom no one had

afterwards seen or heard anything more, had eloped with the gypsy girl.

Oswald was rather troubled by these authentic reports of the fate of

Xenobia and the Czika, and left the table for the purpose of returning

to his room. He was naturally less than ever disposed now to call upon

Berger, and he had therefore to make a great effort at last to ring for

the waiter, and to inquire of him the way to Doctor Birkenhain's

institution.

"Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, sir? Quite near by, sir. The best way is

through our garden up the hill, then always turning to the left, on the

height along the river, until you come to a large house. That is Doctor

Birkenhain's asylum. You have perhaps a relation of yours there? We

have many people coming here who have relations at Doctor Birkenhain's.

Only this summer there was a lady here from your country, who stayed

several months at the house. Very beautiful lady, sir, perhaps you may

know her; a Frau von Berkow, with her brother, a Baron Oldenburg--very

tall gentleman, with a black beard----"

"Is Baron Oldenburg a brother of that lady?" asked Oswald, not without

some reluctance.

"Why, certainly, sir. The gentleman and the lady were at least two

weeks here, and always together. But the brother had to leave before

the lady's husband died--what a misfortune for such a beautiful lady!

Will you be back in time for supper, sir? No? But you will certainly

stay over night, sir? Oh, I thought so--of course. Nothing else I can

do for you, sir? How far is it? Oh, at most, ten minutes' walk. I'll

show you the way, sir."

When the loquacious waiter had at last left him, Oswald walked slowly

along the path which followed the slope of the low range of hills. On

the left hand prattled merrily a clear mountain brook, rich in trout,

which gave its name to the town, and flowed evenly beneath tall trees.

Here and there the water peeped out from between the dense foliage, but

only to disappear again, like a playful child that likes to tease. At

one point the brook had been stopped and forced to turn the wheels of a

mill. The little vagabond did not seem to like the delay. It poured its

waters wrathfully into the mill-race, shook and struck the buckets with

all its might, and then rushed off, foaming and pelting, in angry

haste.

Oswald sat down on the low railing opposite the mill, and looked

wearily into the water, as it played and purled, drawing wide circles

and pushing wave after wave. He thought of Melitta, how often she had

probably come down this way, hanging on the arm of "her brother," and

stopping no doubt frequently at this very spot, whose picturesque

beauty could not have escaped her attention.

He felt sad unto death. His feelings boiled within him as the waters

did in the mill-race; his thoughts were whirling around like the

foam-bubbles on the surface. Was his hatred to be as blind as his love?

Was there anything wrong and anything right in the world?--the world to

be a cosmos? Yes, for him whose glance was content with skimming the

surface, where the waters flowed merrily over the level ground in the

shade of beautiful trees--but also for him who sounded the depths,

where all was rushing and roaring chaotically? Up! up! to him, the man

of sorrow! He had sounded the depths of life, he shall tell me what he

has seen there, what masks and spectres, that he should ever after

close his eyes in horror and disgust!

Oswald rose and continued his journey; the path became steeper until it

led to a large building, which lay at a short distance from the

highroad on a moderate hill, amid gardens. Surrounded as it was on all

sides by high walls, it looked too much like a castle to be a private

residence, and yet too much like a prison also for a castle. It was Dr.

Birkenhain's asylum.

Oswald rang the bell by the side of the iron grating, with some

palpitation of heart. A window opened in the porter's lodge; the

gate-keeper looked out and asked what he wanted. Oswald wished to see

Doctor Birkenhain.

"Do you come by appointment?"

"Yes."

"Your name?"

Oswald gave his name.

The man looked at a table, on which the names of those who were to be

admitted seemed to be written; then he put his head out again, and said

through the small window,

"Go straight across the court to the main entrance; there ring again!"

The gate opened, and closed again when Oswald had entered. He went

towards the house across the large court-yard, which was covered with

gravel and adorned here and there with groups of trees and shrubberies.

On a bench under one of the trees, amidst a group of several persons,

sat a young man remarkably well dressed. When Oswald passed him he rose

very politely, and taking off his hat and making a deep bow, said,

"I surely have the honor of addressing the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"

As Oswald answered No! to the strange question, the young man shook his

head sadly, and looking at Oswald with a vacant stare, he added,

"It is very remarkable! the emperor had promised me solemnly to come

for me this summer; and now the summer is nearly gone and the emperor

has not come yet. I shall have to wait till next summer. But then he

will be here most certainly. Don't you think so?"

"I do not doubt it for a moment," replied Oswald. A faint ray of joy

flashed across the pale face of the unfortunate man. He bowed again,

put on his hat, and went back to his seat on the bench.

Oswald went to the front door, rang the bell, and a servant who

appeared at the summons opened the door for him and showed him into a

parlor. Then he took his name, and begged him to wait a few moments.

Doctor Birkenhain would be in directly.

It was a handsome, lofty apartment. A few excellent oil-paintings hung

on the walls; antique heads and busts stood about on brackets, the

Apollo Belvedere, the Zeus of Otricoli, the Ludovisi Juno; upon the

centre-tables lay books and portfolios with engravings. All breathed

the highest kind of enjoyment, and nothing reminded the visitor that he

was in a house of disease and death.

After a few minutes the door opened and Doctor Birkenhain entered.

Oswald had of course formed to himself some idea of the man who had

recently become so very important to him, and was grievously

disappointed when he found that there was not a feature of his portrait

in the man before him. He had imagined Doctor Birkenhain to be a

venerable old man, full of dignity and gravity, and now he found

himself standing before a man little older than himself--he had surely

not passed his thirtieth year--tall and thin, with spare, light-brown

hair and carefully-trimmed moustache and beard, a pale face of a

sickly, sallow color, a lofty brow, and large light-blue eyes, in which

one could instantly see that they were accustomed to read the hearts of

men, and whose intense piercing sharpness became after awhile almost

unbearable.

Doctor Birkenhain greeted Oswald with due politeness, and then

expressed his regret that he should have been deprived of the pleasure

of making Doctor Braun's acquaintance, whom he had wished to

congratulate upon having secured to himself a place among the first

physicians of Germany by his admirable treatise on typhus. Then he

added:

"I have looked forward to your visit with the greatest interest,

because I hope great things for Berger from the effect of your meeting

with him. I know through Mr. Bemperlein, and also from Berger's own

lips, that you are the most intimate friend, and, so to speak, the

favorite, of the unfortunate man--that you were so at least before the

breaking out of his disease. If anything can succeed in reviving once

more the interest in life which has been almost entirely extinguished

in Berger, it is love--not the universal love of mankind, which is only

another kind of egotism, but the special love for a single individual,

with whose joys and sorrows he can heartily sympathize. Love is the

most vigorous of all feelings; it resists annihilation better than any

other and outlives all others. The greatest psychologist who ever

lived, and to whom we physicians are deeply indebted, Shakespeare,

makes Lear say to the fool shortly before insanity overwhelms him: 'I

have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee.' This one part of

the heart is the sound part, where the cure must begin, and so it is

with Berger. I beg, therefore, you will try to interest Berger by all

means in your own fate. Tell him all about your plans and purposes,

your hopes and your wishes--about your joys and your sorrows; speak to

him especially of your griefs, if you have any--and you will pardon

such an indiscretion in a physician--I think your confidences will be

particularly ample in that direction. You smile! Well, perhaps I am

mistaken, and what I thought I read in your face is the result of mere

bodily uneasiness, and not of mental suffering; but, however that may

be, do not conceal from Berger the shady side, and even the night side

of your life. On the contrary, complain--and the more impressively, the

more painfully, you can do that, the better--only mourn and grieve like

a sick man, who longs after health like an imprisoned bird that yearns

after freedom. The sufferings of those we love are a thousand times

more touching to us than our own, and the burden which Berger hardly

feels in his own case will appear to him unbearable when he sees it on

the shoulders of one who is dear to him. For, I repeat it, that is the

only way to approach such a man. He is too deep a thinker, too subtle a

philosopher, not to be clad in impenetrable armor against all

reasoning. If you prove to him the dignity and usefulness of life, he

meets you with ten arguments which prove the contrary; and if you split

a hair, he splits each half over again. On the other hand, you need not

fear that he will involve you, as formerly, in long philosophic

discussions. The science which was once his delight, is now a horror to

him; he will hear nothing of it and see nothing. And now, one thing

more: how long do you propose staying in Fichtenau?"

"Four or five days at most."

"Very well; I was just about to ask you not to extend your visit beyond

that. The purpose is to make a deep impression upon Berger; and after

the pleasure he will feel at seeing you again, he must experience the

pain of parting so soon. Perhaps we may thus lure him back into the

world, from which he now turns away in disgust."

"Has Berger been made aware of my arrival?"

"No. I wished to profit even by the surprise. I shall not go with you,

so that there maybe nothing to diminish the surprise. You can tell me

afterwards how he received you. He generally takes about this time a

walk in the mountains, which he occasionally extends into the night. I

give him perfect liberty, as any restraint would only be injurious. You

know, besides, that his coming here was his own wish and resolution. Go

with him when he takes his walk; heart opens to heart more readily

under the great dome of heaven than under the ceiling of a room."

"One thing more," continued Doctor Birkenhain, as they were rising.

"You will find Berger much changed in appearance; try to influence him

in that direction also, though of course you will have to use your

discretion. Such apparent trifles are of great importance; a missing

glove-button may make a dandy lose his composure, and we have a

different temper in our dressing gown and in evening dress. Now let us

go, if you like; I will show you the way to Berger's door."

The two gentlemen went from the reception room across the hall, with

its tessellated floor, up the wide stone steps, through lofty, airy

passages.

They were met by several persons whom Oswald would not have taken for

patients if Doctor Birkenhain had not told him so; they gave such

sensible answers to the casual questions of the physician.

"This wing is for the slightly-affected patients," said Doctor

Birkenhain; "as it is such fine weather most of them are in the garden

or in the court-yard. How do you do, counsellor?"

"Thank you, doctor," replied an exceedingly corpulent, good-looking

man, whom they met passing with a watering-pot in his hand, "thank you,

I should be perfectly well, if----"

The counsellor cast a glance at Oswald, and then came quite close to

the doctor, whispering something in his ear, of which Oswald could only

catch the words, "bundle of hay"--"in my side." "Oh, that matters very

little," replied Birkenhain, in a tone full of confidence, which

sounded as if it must have been inspiring to the greatest

hypochondriac; "we'll soon settle that." The patient gratefully shook

hands with his physician and went on, evidently quite comforted and

delighted with the probable victory over his imaginary ailment.

"I wish Berger's case were as easy as that man's," said Doctor

Birkenhain, as they were walking down the long passage; "but pills and

ointments have no effect on his complaint. Here we are; now you go to

the end of the passage, and the last door to the left is Berger's room.

I am very curious to hear what you will have to tell me. Will you dine

with me to-morrow? I shall take great pleasure in presenting you to my

wife. At three o'clock. Will you come? _Au revoir_, then!"

Doctor Birkenhain shook hands with Oswald and went into one of the

rooms which they had passed. Oswald went alone to the end of the

passage, full of the deep impression which the man who had just left

him had made upon him, and at the same time very much troubled about

the part which he was to play. He was to help Berger to recover his

interest in life, and he had himself lost all such interest! Was he not

of all men the least fitted for such a mission? And yet he had accepted

it! He must fulfil it!

Oswald came to the door which had been pointed out to him. Upon the

brown panel was something written in chalk, and evidently in Berger's

hand:

"_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate_."

Oswald shuddered as he read it. He remained standing undecided before

the door, and it was some time before he could make up his mind to

knock. He listened to hear if anything was stirring within; he heard

nothing. At last he summoned courage and knocked with a strong hand. As

no answer came, he knocked still louder; again no answer. A great fear

overcame him; he hastily opened the door and entered the room.

CHAPTER VII.

Oswald need not have feared. Berger was sitting in the centre of the

darkened room, all the curtains being closed, before a table covered

with books. He was resting his head in both hands, and seemed to sleep,

for he did not stir even when Oswald stepped up close to the table.

Oswald did not dare wake him. He remained standing by the table and

looked at the poor sufferer, his eyes filling unconsciously with tears.

What havoc these few months had made with the face once so proud, so

full of energy; the dark curling hair was grizzled; the massive brow,

hewn apparently out of the live granite, appeared even more powerful

and imposing, thanks to the increased baldness at the temples. A full

beard, formerly an aversion to Berger, now flowed, silver-gray, from

cheek, lips, and chin, so that the end nearly touched the table. His

hands, once so plump and carefully kept, had become so thin, so

transparent! And what a costume! A blue smock-frock, instead of the

black coat which was never allowed to show a particle of dust; a

coarse, ill-fitting shirt, instead of the fine, dazzling white linen

upon which he formerly insisted. On the table a worn-out slouched hat

and a stick, which had evidently not long ago formed part of a hedge of

thorns, in place of the smooth silk hat from Paris, and the clouded

cane with its gold head! If the outer man could change to such an

extent, what a revolution must have taken place in the lowest depths of

the soul!

Berger stirred. He raised his head, opened his eyes, and looked at

Oswald. His eyes were deep and clear, and looked larger than usual; he

did not start nor betray astonishment, wonder, or fear, at the

unexpected sight.

"I had but just now dreamt of you, Oswald," he said, rising, with a low

voice, from which all former sharpness and energy seemed to have

departed.

Oswald could restrain himself no longer. He sobbed aloud and threw

himself into Berger's arms. Now only, lying on the bosom of this man,

he felt all his sufferings fully, as he thought; now only, in the arms

of this man who had endured so much, he fancied he need not be ashamed

any longer of the tears which his heart had bled when his eyes refused

to weep.

Berger held him in his arms, as a father holds his son who comes home

from a far country in which he has fed with the swine.

"Weep on," he said, "weep! Tears relieve a young, overflowing heart.

When I was as young as you, I wept as you do; now my eyes have

forgotten how to weep."

"Berger, dear, dear Berger!"

"I knew I should see you again. I expected you long ago. I did not

think you would stand it so long in the great desert outside. Weep on!

Tears are the price with which we buy our souls back again, when we

find what a wretched bargain we had made before we knew better. Ere we

give up life we have to learn that it is better not to live. Some learn

that sooner, others later. Be glad that you are one of those who during

the bitterness of the Sansara have already a foretaste of the sweetness

of the Nirvana."

He left Oswald, and took his hat and cane from the table.

"Come!" he said.

Oswald was so deeply moved by this scene that the recollection of

Berger's odd costume only suggested to him the conviction how utterly

impossible it would be to speak to such a man of such things. He would

as lief have reminded a mother who was weeping over the body of her

child of some defect in her toilet, a bow out of place, or a ribbon

which had come loose.

They passed through the long passages, down the broad stone staircase

and out into the court-yard. As they went across the latter, the young

man who was sitting on the bench came up to them and repeated the

question which he had before asked of Oswald:

"I certainly have the honor to address the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"

"No!" replied Berger, "The emperor is not coming; you may rely upon

it."

"Is not coming!" repeated the young man; and his pale face became still

paler, and his eyes wandered restlessly to and fro; "is not coming! how

do you know that?"

"Because, if he should come it would not be for your happiness, as you

imagine, but for your final ruin. Why do you wish him to come? To bring

you gold, which you will gamble away? and jewels, which you will lavish

upon your mistresses; to afford you the means of continuing a life

which you ought to thank God on your knees you have escaped from--if

you believe in any God? What appears to you a star of promise, is a

will-o'-the-wisp from the moors. Do not trust in its glimmer--it lures

you hither and thither, and each time deeper into the moor. Turn

resolutely back from it! I tell you once more, the emperor is not

coming! and it is fortunate for you that he does not come!"

"Do you know his majesty so intimately?" stammered the young man.

"Very intimately," said Berger, and a peculiar smile played on his

features, "only too intimately. I also was misled by his majesty. You

expect from his promise money and lands. I was promised--never mind

what; and thus he promises everybody something else, in order to fool

and trick everybody. The conviction that his majesty's promises are

nothing but wind--that is the beginning of wisdom, and the last

conclusion of wisdom into the bargain."

Berger had uttered the last words with a suddenly-sinking voice, as if

he were speaking to himself. He paid no further attention to the young

man, who was standing there, hat in hand, with an indescribably sad

face. Nor did he seem to notice Oswald, who followed him silently, and

most painfully affected by the touching scene.

Berger apparently felt what was going on in his companion's heart, for

they had left the gate which was opened to them without delay, and

found themselves on the turnpike, which followed first one bank, and

then, after crossing the river on a bridge, the opposite bank, rising

higher and higher into the mountains. He suddenly broke his silence and

said,

"You are wondering why I did not treat the poor fellow more tenderly,

instead of destroying so rudely his absurd illusions? This apparent

cruelty was in reality a great kindness."

"Who is the unfortunate man?"

"A Count Mattan, from our country. He has spent during the last few

years a fortune of half a million in senseless extravagance. Now he

hopes for the fabulous emperor, who is to restore to him all his

losses."

"But if your robbing the young man of his last consolation should

deprive him of the last feeble remnant of sense----"

"You speak like Doctor Birkenhain. It makes me laugh to see how these

optimists blindly try to arrest the power which drives man irresistibly

into destruction, like children who try to stop a river with their

little hands. My study here is the observation of this peculiar

struggle, which would be grand if it were not so ludicrous. These

doctors move in the dark, as if they were playing blindman's buff, and

think they have cured the disease when they have gotten rid of the

symptoms. They do not know, they do not even suspect, that life itself

is the shoe that pinches, the garment of Nessus which burns our living

body--and that to pull off this shoe, to throw away the garment, is not

only the best but the only remedy by which we can escape the

wretchedness of existence."

They had left the highroad and reached a clearing in the forest, which

was thickly overgrown with moss and heather. Before them was a view

over the tops of pine trees into the plain from which they had

ascended, and far into the land of hills; behind them the forest

extended upwards. It was quiet, perfectly quiet, around them. Long

white gossamer floated through the thin, clear air. The flowers were

gone; the birds had forgotten their songs, the locusts their chirping;

summer itself had died, and Nature sat in silent grief by the corpse.

Even the autumnal sunshine had something sad in it, like a widow's

smile; the blue of the sky was sickly, like the tearful eye of a

mourner.

Berger had seated himself on the low stump of a tree, and Oswald lay

down close by him on the thick heather. In this silence of the forest,

which reminded him so forcibly of the woods of Berkow and Grenwitz, and

of the painfully sweet days he had spent there, he felt that

irrepressible impulse to speak which at times overcomes us all of a

sudden. As the Catholic is moved to whisper his deep-hidden secrets

into the ear of the priest, his personified conscience, so Oswald felt

impelled to confess to the unhappy man by his side, in whom he had ever

seen another self, all that he had experienced, tried to obtain,

suffered and sinned, during these last eventful, fatal months. He did

not think of Doctor Birkenhain's suggestion to interest Berger by all

means at his command in his own fate, and thus to play the part of the

physician to his patient. Was he not a very sick patient himself? But,

whatever might agitate his heart--the man by his side had suffered

worse things; what, he hardly dared confess to himself--the man who was

wandering with lowered head in the dark labyrinth of his soul, and

could find no way to light, he could hear all, all. And thus he told

him, first hesitatingly, then with animation, with passionate

excitement, all he had to tell: his love of Melitta, his love of Helen,

his friendship for Bruno, and how jealousy and sickness of heart had

robbed him of the one, and strange circumstances and death of the

other.

Berger had listened in silence, supporting his chin in his hand, and

looking with his large eyes fixedly at the distance, without once

interrupting Oswald. At last, when the young man wound up with the

painful complaint "Why did you send me into this troublesome world? Why

did you let me wander about so long in this darkness?" Berger raised

his head, turned his eyes towards him, and said slowly, thoughtfully,

"Because you had to learn this also; because, as long as you were with

me in Grunwald, you still believed in that great falsehood which we

call life; because the pride with which you insisted upon its being a

truth had to be broken. I have led you the shortest and safest way to

wisdom. I knew you would allow yourself to be dazzled by false

splendor; I knew you would hasten with beating heart, with parched

tongue, through the lonely, white sand of the desert, towards the blue

lake with the wooded shore, which drew back further and further as you

thought you were coming nearer, until you would at last break down,

cursing your sufferings and your existence. Be joyful! You have gone

through with it; you have finished your first and hardest course in as

many weeks as it took me years. You have opened your eyes and looked at

what was there, and behold! it was not good! The value of life, the

purpose of life, has become doubtful to you. You have begun to

understand that the assertion of superficial optimists: Life is the

purpose of life! is hardly correct--unless one could find satisfaction

in striving after a purpose which can never be accomplished, or which,

if it be accomplished, is worth nothing. You have seen how indissolubly

untruth, stupidity, and vulgarity are interwoven with truth, honesty,

wisdom, and majesty. This knowledge, which only the brutalized slave,

grinning under the lash of the driver, receives with indifference, but

which saddens noble hearts unto death, is the beginning of wisdom, the

entrance to the great mystery."

"And the great mystery?"

Berger made no reply; he looked again with fixed eyes at the distance.

Oswald dared not repeat his question.

Deep silence all around. Silently the light gossamer floated through

the clear air; silently the evening sunshine wove its golden net around

the heather and the dark-green tops of the pine-trees.

They sat thus speechless side by side--silent and sad, like two

children lost in the woods. But while the one, who had wound up his

life, and who was fearfully in earnest with his contempt of the world,

suffered himself to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of his grief,

the young, fresh vitality of the other struggled mightily towards light

and air.

"What is this in me which rouses me at this very moment, when I least

expected it, to oppose your wisdom?" he inquired, looking up at Berger.

"My reason tells me you are right, but my eye drinks with delight the

beauty of this evening landscape; drinks it down into the heart, and

there, in my heart, a voice whispers: 'The world is so fair, so fair!

and even if life makes you suffer bitter things without end, it is

still sweet.' Tell me, Berger, did you ever love with all the strength

of your heart? and can love die, as the summer dies, and the flowers,

and the warm sunlight?"

Berger smiled--it was a strange, weird smile.

"Did I ever love?"

He cast down his eyes, and took off with his stick a piece of the thick

crust of moss at his feet.

"What good does it do," he said, "to lift the veil which so many years

have spread over the past? You see what is below--decay and

destruction."

"And yet," he said, after a pause, "it is but right you should learn

that also. Hear, then:"

"It is now thirty years. I was then at your age, but without having

made your experiences; clinging to life in full, unbroken strength, and

thinking it as sweet and precious as a love of my heart. If ever man

was enthusiastic about liberty and beauty--about all those fail fancies

with which we try to beautify our miserable existence here, and to hide

its wretched hollowness--if ever man was raving about those bloodless

images which we call ideals--I was that man. In my madness I fancied

that eternal bliss might be won even here below wherever men were

living in a free country. I believed in my native land, and sealed my

faith with my blood on the battle-fields of Leipzig and Waterloo. I

returned full of burning zeal to complete the great work. But before I

could undertake to heal the wounds which my country had received during

the war, I had to think of healing my own wounds. They sent me, when I

recovered, to Fichtenau.

"In those days Fichtenau was not what it is now. There was no Kurhaus

then, and no asylum for the insane; nevertheless the town was always

full of visitors, for the poetic halo with which the great men of

Weimar had surrounded these valleys attracted the crowd. I kept aloof,

and lived only for my health and my studies.

"I boarded in the house of an old schoolmaster with whom I had become

acquainted, and whose friendship I cultivated because he possessed

quite a large library, and books were not so easily accessible then,

especially in this remote part of the world. But the old gentleman

possessed yet another treasure, besides his library--a most beautiful

daughter. The daughter soon became more interesting to me than the

library. You asked me if I had ever loved with all my heart. If you had

known Leonora, and seen how high and how powerfully my heart then beat,

you would not have asked me that question.

"It was a summer day--a marvellously beautiful summer day. We had gone

out into the woods after dinner--a mixed company--young and old. We lay

down on the swelling moss in the shade of the pine-trees. How my eye

dwelt upon her graceful form as she did the honors of the company with

merry modesty; how my ear drank in the tones of her silvery, sweet

voice! It was the old song of the sirens, which was heard thousands and

thousands of years ago, and which will yet be heard thousands and

thousands of years hence--till the time is fulfilled.

"After the coffee we strolled about in the forest--in groups, by pairs,

as accident and inclination brought it about. I had followed Leonora,

who was gathering a bunch of wild-flowers. I helped her, although I did

not know much of these things, and was often laughed at by the teasing

girls on account of my odd selection. She however became more and more

silent the deeper we went into the wood and the further we left the

others behind. As she became more silent and anxious, I grew more

animated and pressing. Her silence and the blush on her cheeks told me

what I had long since desired in secret, what I had prayed heaven to

grant me, and what I had yet never hoped to obtain.

"Then we stepped out upon this clearing. The same mountains which are

there lying before us looked as blue to us, and the same sun which

looks down from heaven now poured a dazzling light lavishly down upon

us. And the golden light shone brightly on her dark, curling hair, and

played upon her round, white shoulders; and here, on this very place,

we fell into each other's arms and swore each other eternal love, amid

hot kisses and hot tears.

"The stump on which I am now sitting was then a tall, slender, powerful

pine-tree, and I was young and slender, and full of exuberant strength.

The tree has been cut down and burnt in the fire; I--I have become what

I am----"

Berger paused and stirred up the moss at his feet with his cane. Oswald

looked with reverence at the unfortunate man; but he dared not speak,

nor even seize Berger's hand, which was listlessly hanging down by his

side. Lofty calmness rested on Berger's face; not a gesture betrayed

what was going on in his heart; but he did not look like one who

requires sympathy or expects sympathy.

"Not at once," he suddenly continued--"the strength within me was great

and could only be broken by piecemeal. I spoke, after our return home,

to the old gentleman; he liked me and was heartily glad to see our

affection. A few days later I returned to the University in order to

resume my studies, which the war had interrupted. I studied with

increasing diligence, for my thirst of knowledge was hardly less of an

incentive than my desire to be able as soon as possible to carry

Leonora home with me as my wife. I therefore went only rarely to

Fichtenau, and then stayed only a short time to sun myself in Leonora's

love, and to return to my work with new courage and new strength. But I

had another lady-love, whom I worshipped with no less ardor--Liberty. I

shared that passion with many other noble young men. We did not mean to

have shed our blood on the battlefields in vain; we were not willing to

become the prey of so many jackals and wolves, after we had

successfully overcome a lion. But the jackals were on their guard, and

the wolves broke in our fold.

"I had been engaged in teaching for a year; I had prepared everything

for the wedding; the day was fixed; I was counting the days and the

hours. Suddenly, one night, I was seized in my bed by armed men. My

papers were sealed up; and the next night I slept in a casemate of a

fortress.

"Or, rather, I did not sleep--I was enraged, I was maddened; my hands

bled from my efforts to break the bars of my cage. Gradually I consoled

myself with the hope that this captivity could not last long, and

Leonora--well! she would bear her hard lot like a heroine. A second

Egmont, I saw freedom and my beloved hand in hand. Through night to

light! Through battle to victory! That was the mystic word with which I

tried to frighten back the serpent-haired monster. Despair, when it was

pressing upon me and about to strike its fangs into my heart. The

mystic word had ample time to prove its power. I remained in prison for

five years!

"You may imagine if my faith in the so-called divine nature of the

world's government was shaken during this time, which I measured by the

beats of my heart, and the drops which fell, one by one, from the damp

ceiling of my cell. But, I told you before, my strength was great, and

I was sternly determined to live. I had heard, to be sure, in the

silent nights which saw me tossing restlessly upon my hard couch, the

great word that releases us, but I had understood it only half, and

perhaps not quite half. I had but just begun to spell the letters in my

long apprenticeship; life itself was to be my school, before I should

be able to read it fluently.

"I had scarcely been set free when I hastened to this place--you may

imagine with what feelings! In the beginning of my captivity I had

received one or two letters from Leonora, in which she conjured me to

endure patiently, and to remain faithful, appealing to the God to whom

she was hourly sending up her prayers for my release. Her letters had

become rarer, and after about two years none had come any more. That

was my greatest sorrow; but I always believed that it was the cruelty

of my jailors which denied me this consolation, and I ground my teeth

and cursed my tormentors.

"I had done them injustice.

"It was far in the night when I reached Fichtenau. I drove directly to

the familiar house. I jumped from the carriage and pulled the bell. A

window was opened up-stairs; an old woman looked out and asked what I

wanted? I inquired after the schoolmaster. 'He died three years ago,'

was the curt answer. 'And where is his daughter?' 'You must ask the

great gentleman who eloped with her three years ago,' said the woman,

and shut the window with violence. I stood thunderstruck. Then I

laughed aloud; but I was silenced by an intense pain in the heart--for,

Oswald, I had loved Leonora.

"I never knew how I reached the inn. Late in the night I roused the

good people from their slumbers by my wild laughing and furious raging.

They broke open the door of my room--I was in full delirium. The air of

the prison had affected my health, and the fearful blow, finding me

utterly unprepared, had shaken the weakened edifice to the foundation.

I struggled four weeks for my life, but I clung to it fiercely, and

Death had to give up its prey. Woe to me! That death would not have

been the ordinary death to me--it would have restored me to life! If I

should die now I would die for ever!"

Oswald shuddered. What was the meaning of these mysterious words: "Die

forever!" Did they contain that great mystery which was yet hidden from

him by a thick veil?

"My convalescence," continued Berger, "lasted long, for my strength had

been utterly exhausted. I crept through the streets of the village,

leaning on a stick, and rejoiced to find that I could climb, day by

day, a few steps higher, until I succeeded at last in reaching this

spot here--the scene of an oath, which I had fancied to be sworn for

eternity, and which had passed away with the breath of her lips. I came

every day here to weep over my lost happiness, and to quarrel with

Heaven who lets his sun shine upon the unjust, and hurls his lightnings

at the just. For I was, like King Lear, a man more sinned against than

sinning. I had meant well and faithfully in all I had hoped and striven

for in life. I had loved my native land as a child loves its parents,

with a simple, believing heart; and in return it had made me suffer

five years in a dungeon. I had loved Leonora with every drop of blood

in my heart; and in return she had betrayed me. Up to that moment I had

so lived in the world that I could face all and say: Who can accuse me

of a sin?--and yet! and yet! I racked my brain to solve the mystery. I

had never yet understood fully that life itself is the great sin, from

which all other sins flow necessarily, as the stone, once set in

motion, must roll inevitably down the precipice. Thus only I gradually

comprehended that He cannot be a God of love who created and still

creates a world in which the sins of the fathers are punished down to

the third and fourth generation--a world, the whole government of which

rests on the fearful Jesuitical principles that the end sanctions the

means. So far I had always tried to find out only what was good in the

world and in men; now my eyes had been opened by sore sufferings for

the sufferings of my fellow-beings. I now saw how every page of our

history bears the record of some fearful deed that makes our hair stand

on end, and our blood curdle in our veins; I saw that there is a dark

corner in every man's heart which he never dares look into; that no man

yet has lived who did not wish once in his life that he had never been

born; I saw that the life of countless multitudes is nothing more than

a desperate struggle for existence; that sickness and sin, repentance

and sorrow, undermine our life most thoroughly and eat their way to the

core like worms in ripe fruit; that at best our pleasures are a dance

upon graves--that, if life really ever was precious, death, inexorable

death, is forever scorning and scoffing at this precious life. And I

looked around on nature, in which poets see an idyll, and I found that

it was either dead and insensible, or, when it does feel and

sympathize, only repeating the bloody drama of human existence in a

ruder and more shocking form. I saw that the different races of animals

are engaged in fierce, implacable warfare against each other,

uninterrupted by a moment's peace, and that their wars are carried on

with a cruelty by the side of which even the most refined tortures of

the Inquisition appear at times very harmless proceedings.

"And whilst I thus tore the gay rags to pieces, under which cowardice

and stupidity try to conceal the wounds and sores of society, there

arose in my heart a feeling which I had not known before--hatred. It

was only my love in another form, although I tried to persuade myself

that I had forgotten the faithless one; it was only another expression

of my fondness of life, although I had fancied that I had forever

closed my account with life. When we really give up life, we know

nothing more of love or hatred.

"At that time, however, I did hate. Passionately as I had loved, my

whole being was concentrated in the one, burning desire to be revenged.

Revenge! revenge! on him! on her!--this was the cry of a voice within

me, which I could never silence again. They all knew my misfortune in

Fichtenau, and felt for me with that cheap sympathy which is composed

of delight in scandal and the pleasure we take in the failures of

others. They told me, unasked, all that was known about Leonora's

flight.

"About the time when my letters had first failed to come to me, a young

Polish count had arrived in Fichtenau and taken the rooms in the old

schoolmaster's house which I had occupied. Soon the whole town had been

full of him, of his beauty and his wealth. They had teased Leonora

about her handsome lodger, but she had rebuked all such jests on the

part of her young friends with great indignation. Soon, however, they

no longer dared to say openly to her what they thought about her

relations to the young count, but only whispered it about with bated

breath that they had been seen together late at night at such and such

places, and that the gold chain which she was now wearing had not been

in her possession before. And then came a day on which they had no

longer whispered, but proclaimed aloud in the streets, that the

schoolmaster's Leonora had eloped the night before with the handsome

count, and that her poor old father, a confirmed invalid, had been so

deeply affected by the news as to be dangerously ill. A few days later

the old man had really died. Of Leonora nothing had been heard since

that night.

"Fortunately the name of the count was well known, and that was all I

desired in order to carry out my plan of revenge. I took what little

remained of my fortune and began my travels--first to Warsaw. There the

count was very well known; they described him to me as a profligate

young man, who made it the business of his life to seduce beautiful

women. An acquaintance added, that he had seen him about two years

before in Venice in company with a beautiful lady, who might have been

Leonora from his description.

"I went to Venice. There also he was well remembered; he had lived

there several months and had then moved to Milan. From Milan they sent

me to Rome. There I met with a friend of my youth, a painter. He had

seen the count and Leonora very frequently, and pitied the poor girl

long before he knew that she had ever been dear to me. He told me that

the count had treated her very badly, and laughingly told everybody

that no one could do him a more valuable service than by relieving him

of this burden. Then the painter hesitated and declined to say more. I

conjured him to tell me all, assuring him that I was prepared to hear

the worst. At last he yielded, and told me that after some time the

count had really found a successor in the person of a French marquis,

or at least a pretended marquis, who had taken Leonora with him to

Paris. This had occurred about a year ago. The count was said to be

living in Naples. I went to Naples, with my friend the painter. I had

told him my purpose to have my revenge. He thought it would be very

difficult, since the count was as cunning and brave as he was

dissipated and cruel. But when he saw me firmly bent upon my purpose,

he offered to accompany me. I accepted the offer; for the painter had

many acquaintances among the great men of the world, and could

introduce me into the circles frequented by the count, to which I would

not otherwise have found access.

"We reached Naples. The count was still there, the spoilt pet of the

women and the horror of fathers and husbands. The painter succeeded

without any trouble in introducing me in good society. For some time

chance seemed to defeat every effort I made to meet the count at one of

the parties where he was expected. At last I met him at a great soiree

given by the Russian Minister. I saw him standing in the centre of a

group of ladies and gentlemen, and could not deny him the praise of

really superb beauty and an almost irresistible charm of manner. I

approached the group, with the painter by my side.

"'Count,' said the painter, 'Doctor Berger, of Fichtenau, desires to

make your acquaintance; permit me to present him to you.'

"At the mention of Fichtenau the count had turned pale, and changed

countenance in such a manner that all the by-standers were struck by

it.

"'I shall not detain you long, count,' said I, stepping forward, 'I

only desire to learn from you the present place of residence of that

young lady whom you carried off from her paternal home three years ago,

and whom you finally sold to a French adventurer in Rome.'

"I said these words calmly, slowly, weighing every syllable. My voice

was heard all over the room, for at the first words I uttered everybody

had become so silent that you could have heard a pin drop.

"The count had turned still paler, but he soon recovered himself and

said:

"'And what right have you to ask such a question at a time and place

which you have chosen marvellously well?'

"'I had the misfortune of being engaged to the young lady.'

"'And if I decline giving you the information----'

"'Then I declare you before all these ladies and gentlemen to be from

head to foot nothing but a vulgar blackguard.'

"With these words I threw my glove into his face and left the company,

after having asked their pardon for the necessity that had forced me to

provoke so unpleasant a scene.

"An insult of this kind could only be wiped out by blood, according to

the views of the society in which the count moved. To prevent his

pleading too great a disparity in social rank I had taken the

precaution of wearing my officer's uniform; and besides, the well-known

name of my friend, the painter, secured me against the suspicion of

being an unknown adventurer. The very favor which the count enjoyed

with the ladies had, moreover, made him very hateful to the men, so

that everybody was glad to see him thus publicly exposed, and if he had

refused to fight me he would probably have lost his standing in

society. His few friends had, therefore, shrugged their shoulders, and

his enemies had smiled with delight, when he had left the house soon

after my departure, and an hour afterwards I received a challenge for

the following morning. That was all I desired. I was delighted; and the

few hours still wanting till I should see the seducer of Leonora, the

murderer of my earthly happiness, at the mouth of my pistol, seemed to

me an eternity. I could not bear the confinement of my hotel; I wanted

to cool the fever of revenge that burnt in me in the balsamic night

air. My friend begged me not to do so, since I might easily take cold

during my nightly promenade, as he called it, with an ironical smile.

But excited and maddened as I was, I insisted on my purpose, and he

accompanied me, but only after having provided daggers for both of us.

"I was soon to learn how much better the painter knew the character of

my enemy and the manners of the people among whom we happened to be. We

had scarcely gone a few hundred yards from the hotel, and were just

turning into Toledo street from a narrow lane, when four men suddenly

jumped forth from the deep shadow of a house and fell upon us with

incredible fury. Fortunately the painter was a man of gigantic

strength, and I also had my good arm and presence of mind. The

murderers seemed to be surprised by our resistance. After a few moments

they took to their heels. I was going to follow them. 'Let them run,'

said the painter, wiping his bloody dagger; 'I fear I have scratched

one of them rather too deep. But the fellow was really too zealous to

earn the few dollars which the count had given him.'

"I had lost all desire to continue my walk. We returned by the nearest

way to our hotel, and awaited the appointed hour with impatience.

"The painter tried to persuade me that I ought not to fight a duel with

a man who had resorted to assassination, but should knock him down like

a mad dog; but I replied to him that that was exactly what I meant to,

do, and that the duel was only an empty ceremony. We became quite warm

in the discussion.

"Very unnecessarily so. Morning broke at last; we were the first on the

spot; no adversary was to be seen. At last, an hour later, the count's

second appeared--a young Italian nobleman--pale and overwhelmed with

shame. He told us how sorry he was to have kept us waiting so long, but

that it was not his fault. The count had left his house late at night,

after having arranged everything with his second, leaving orders for

his man servant not to sit up for him. Since that moment he had not

been seen again. It seemed to be highly probable that some accident had

befallen him, for of course it would be ridiculous to presume for a

moment that a man of the count's high social position should have

escaped by flight from a duel.

"The painter replied that we could very well afford to wait, and that

delay was not defeat. The young nobleman promised to inform us of

anything he might learn concerning the count's movements. But the count

remained unseen, and I had at last to take the painter's view, which he

had already mentioned on the night of our encounter with the assassins,

that the count himself had led the attack, being in all probability the

very person whose violence had been most conspicuous, and who had been

so severely punished by the strong arm of the painter. Either he had

died in consequence of the wound received on that occasion, or, what

was more probable, he was only wounded and remained concealed in order

to avoid giving an explanation of his condition. Perhaps, also, he

wished to escape the investigation of the affair by the police, who

showed an unusual activity in the matter, as if they had been

stimulated by the enemies of the count, and at the same time to escape

from an adversary who attached such vulgar importance to matters which

in his circle were passed over with a slight smile.

"However this might be, my adversary did not re-appear, and after the

strange affair had been for four weeks the favorite topic of

conversation all over town--for it had created an enormous sensation--I

saw myself compelled to leave Naples without having accomplished my

purpose.

"I went by way of Rome--where I took leave of my friend--to Paris. I

felt that I had fulfilled my duty only half; the hardest part was yet

to be done. I was afraid to meet Leonora again; and yet I wished it

almost as earnestly. You will ask how I could take so deep an interest

in a person who had so frivolously trifled with my happiness, and who

had lost the last relic of respect which might have remained alive for

her after her elopement with the Pole, by running away with the

Frenchman. But I told you I had loved Leonora with an ardent,

demoniacal love, the fire of which had never yet burned out, and which

was to burn, alas! long after all was consumed. Besides, I knew that

Leonora, however recklessly she might have acted, was in reality not

ignoble, but had probably in Rome been forced by a most fearful

necessity to leave the man whom she had followed so far from love. I

felt that now, if she was still alive, she must most assuredly be

wretchedly unhappy.

"I reached Paris. The city was quite familiar to me, for I had already

paid two visits there, in company with a few thousand armed friends.

Moreover, I had provided myself in Naples with letters of introduction

from the painter and several distinguished Italian and French

gentlemen, whose acquaintance I had made there. A few inquiries

confirmed at once the painter's original suspicion, that the marquis

who had carried off Leonora from Rome was an adventurer. A marquis of

that name did not exist, had never existed, at all events not in the

Faubourg St. Germain. I had to continue my search in other less

aristocratic quarters.

"A young Frenchman, an author, whose acquaintance I had made years ago,

was my faithful companion in all my wanderings. He was a pleasant man,

warmly attached to myself, and has ever since remained my best friend.

I had, of course, told him the whole of my sad story; and he, who was

far superior to me in knowledge of the world, and especially of that

little world which makes up Paris, had first suggested to me to carry

my investigations into the Quartier Latin, and other still more modest

parts of the city. 'Paris,' said the Frenchman, 'is a place where men

and things rarely preserve their original value long; they rise and

fall in price with amazing rapidity. During a whole year the poor girl

may have passed through very sad changes. If she has not committed

suicide--and this is hardly probable, as she would probably have killed

herself already in Rome, if she had had the courage to die--she has

certainly sunk very low. I pray you prepare yourself for the very

worst.'

"You may imagine how my heart bled when I heard these words, and felt

how true they were likely to be. I felt like a man who is grappling in

a lake for the body of his drowned child.

"One evening, as we were wandering about at haphazard through one of

the most crowded suburbs, my companion surprised me by asking me: 'Did

Leonora have any talent for dancing?' When I told him that she had

always been perfect in that art, he said, 'We ought to have thought of

that before. How strange that I never thought of asking you before.' He

was so taken up with his new idea that he did not deign to answer when

I inquired what the art of dancing had to do with our search. He hailed

a cab; we went back into the city. We stopped at one of those

dancing-halls which were then less brilliant, perhaps, but certainly

not less crowded than nowadays. 'Look around, if you can see Leonora

anywhere! We searched the whole establishment; Leonora was not there.

'Then let us go on.' We drove to another dancing-hall, and, when our

search was here also fruitless, to a third, and a fourth. All in vain.

I was so exhausted by the sad scenes I had witnessed, by the dust and

the heat which filled these crowded rooms, by the efforts to find one

certain person among so many, who were constantly changing from place

to place, and by the excitement, the anxiety, and the very fear of

finding what I was looking for, that I begged my companion to abandon

the search, at least for to-night. 'Only one more locality,' he

replied; 'I have on purpose left it for the last, because the

probability of finding her there is strong enough, but also very

painful.' 'How so?' 'The establishments which you have seen so far,'

replied the Frenchman, 'are after a fashion quite respectable in spite

of what is going on there. The visitors are beyond measure reckless,

arrogant, frivolous, but after all not exactly vicious. They are

students with their ladies, clerks with their grisettes, well-to-do

mechanics who want to have a frolic, in company with their girls. The

society into which I am now going to introduce you is far more elegant,

but not quite so harmless. It is a house frequented mainly by wild

young men of rank from the aristocratic quarters of the town, who seek

here compensation for the dullness of their own saloons, and by

foreigners who come to Paris to ruin their health and to waste their

fortune. The fair sex is such as suits these people. You find here the

most beautiful, but also the most corrupt of women, men-catchers, who

drive to-day a four-in-hand, and die to-morrow in the hospital--mainly

foreigners: Creoles, English, Italian, or German girls, who here find

countrymen in numbers. Prepare yourself to look for her--I trust in

vain--in this pandemonium.

"We reached the place. Broad marble steps led up. My heart beat

violently; I could scarcely stand, for something within me told me that

I had reached the goal of my wanderings; that the disfigured, swollen

head of the dead body would the next moment rise from the black waters.

"We entered the brilliantly lighted hall. The orchestra played

bacchantic music, and in bacchantic madness the dancers rushed by each

other. The dazzling lights, the loud trumpets, the crowds, the heat,

the narcotic fragrance of exotics, with which the room was adorned, and

the fearful excitement under which I labored, took away my breath. I

had to lean for a moment against a pillar, and closed my eyes in order

to collect myself. As I was standing thus, faint and nearly falling, a

voice fell upon my ear which stung me at the first note like an adder.

The ear is a faithful monitor; it never in all this life forgets a

voice whose notes have once been sweet and dear to it. It had not

deceived me.

"Close before me, so close that I could have touched her with my hand,

stood a girl, talking fast to a handsome young man; she was tall and

slender, had large, brown eyes, which shone with feverish brightness,

and a face far too sharply accented, too much worn out by life for so

young a person, but nevertheless still very beautiful--and this girl

was Leonora.

"Strange! when I had first heard her voice my heart had trembled as at

the moment when I stood at night before the house in Fichtenau, and the

old woman called down to me that Leonora had eloped. But after the

first spasm I felt calm, quite calm. The chord had been stretched too

far, it had broke; it now uttered not a sound of joy or of grief. I

looked down upon Leonora as coldly as if she were a picture on the

wall. I heard every word she said to her partner, as we hear words just

before we are going to faint--as if they had been spoken at the other

end of the hall. I examined her from head to foot, even her costume,

with the calm criticism of an artist. I noticed that she was rouged,

and that her dark eyebrows and lashes were dyed still darker. I noticed

that she wore her hair exactly in the same manner in which I had myself

once arranged it, after an antique, and as she had ever after worn it

as long as I knew her. I heard everything, I saw everything, and yet I

heard and saw nothing; for I had no clear perception of what I saw and

heard.

"My companion, who had looked all around the hall in the meantime, now

returned to where I stood. 'I have not been able to find any one

corresponding to your description,' he said. 'God be thanked! I breathe

more freely; I should not have liked, for the world, to have found her

whom we look for in this place. But, _mon Dieu_, what is the matter?

You look like a corpse!'

"'I have found her.'

"'Where?'

"'There!'

"He took his glass and examined Leonora for a few moments with most

intense interest. She was still perfectly unconscious of those who were

so near to her, and chatted and coquetted with her dancer.

"Then he shrugged his shoulders with pity and dropped his eye-glass.

His face had become very serious.

"'_Pauvre homme_!' he whispered to himself.

"The music was breaking forth louder than ever; a new figure began in

the Francaise, and it was Leonora's turn. She had evidently made great

progress in her art since the day when I had seen her last dance at a

club-ball in Fichtenau. I can candidly say I have never before or

afterwards seen anything more perfect. It was the enchanting

gracefulness of a jet-d'eau swaying to and fro in the light breeze, and

yet at the same time a passionate rapture, such as we find nowhere else

except perhaps among the Zingarellas of Spain or the Ghawazees of

Egypt. At one moment it was the soft longing and yearning of gentle and

subdued love, at the next moment it was the very soul of passion,

trembling in every nerve and vibrating in every muscle, but here as

well as there, a beautiful rhythm of marvellously complicated and yet

ever harmoniously united movements was never wanting. This dance was a

song--a song of love--but not of German love, dreamy, fragrant with the

perfume of blooming lime-trees and softened by the pale light of the

moon, but of sensuous Oriental love, hot with the burning rays of a

Southern sun, and breathing narcotic voluptuousness. And with all that,

her features were calm, not a muscle moving, not a trace of that

repulsive, stereotyped smile worn by so many far-famed artists. Only

her eyes burnt with uncanny fire, which blazed up brighter with every

step, with every motion. Her partner rather walked than danced all the

steps required with much elegance, but with a lofty carelessness, as if

he looked rather ridiculous in his own eyes while performing the

ceremony, and this calm composure seemed to make the passionate woman

almost desperate, and determined to rouse him from his weary apathy by

all the arts of which she was master. Perhaps this was really so;

perhaps it only looked so--at all events this gave to the dance a rich

dramatic interest, and afforded the by-standers a most attractive

sight.

"'_Ah, la belle Allemande_!' cried an enthusiast near me.

"'_Grand Dieu, qu'elle est jolie!_' cried another; '_Brava! brava!_'

and he applauded energetically with both hands till all the by-standers

followed his example. '_Brava! brava! Vive la reine Eleonore! Vive la

belle Allemande!_'

"My friend seized my arm and drew me further back under the pillars

near which we had been standing. 'Come!' he said. 'Where?' 'Away from

here!' 'Never!' 'Why, it is impossible you can feel an interest in such

a creature! What can you do with her? I tell you she is lost!

irreparably lost!' 'We will see that!' I murmured. The Frenchman

shrugged his shoulders. 'You Germans are a strange people. But, at

least follow my advice. Do not make a scene here; you would most likely

have to fight half a dozen duels. Call upon the girl to-morrow, or

whenever you choose. I will find out in a few minutes all about her

residence, and whatever else you may want to know.'

"I saw that his was sensible advice. While he slipped away through the

crowd, I threw myself into a chair and rested my head on my hands.

Those were terrible moments. My temples were beating, my limbs were

trembling--and yet within me all was calm, deadly calm and quiet. And,

Oswald, in those moments, while I sat there alone, my face hid in my

hands, in silent, unspeakable sorrow, amid the noisy crowd; and while

my idol, the beloved of my youth, the woman whom I had worshipped in my

dark dungeon like a glorious saint, was dancing a few steps from me,

after a wicked, voluptuous music, the voluptuous dance of Herodias--in

those moments, Oswald, I bid an eternal farewell to happiness, to life.

It was then that the curtain which had so long concealed from me the

Great Mystery suddenly parted in the middle, and I stood shuddering at

the threshold, which I yet dared not cross, and which I only crossed

many, many years afterwards, for then I had not yet drained the cup to

the dregs.

"The dance had come to an end. It became very lively all around me;

laughter and joking, the rustling of rich dresses close to my ear. They

took seats at the small tables, to cool their fever with ices and

champagne. To my table also came a couple, who either could find no

other place vacant, or thought the sleeper was not likely to be a

dangerous listener.

"'_Et vous m'aimez vraiment, Eleonore?_' said a soft but manly voice.

"'_Oui, Charles!_'

"'_De tout votre coeur?_'

"'_De tout mon coeur!_'

"I thought what an impression it would make upon Leonora if I should

suddenly raise my head from the table and say to her: 'Did you not tell

me precisely the same thing on the meadow in the forest of Fichtenau?'

But I checked myself and listened to the conversation, which continued

for some time. At last the gentleman said:

"'And when shall I see you again?'

"'Whenever you wish.'

"'What does that mean?'

"'That I am always at home for my friends.'

"'And where is at home?'

"'_Boulevard des Capucines, Numero Dix-sept_. You have only to inquire

after Mademoiselle Eleonore----'

"'Or rather _la Reine Eleonore_. _Adieu, ma reine!_'

"'You won't go already?'

"'Unfortunately I have to go.'

"'Why?'

"'My betrothed is waiting for me at her mother's, and she will be

inconsolable if her faithful shepherd keeps her waiting much longer.'

"'You are engaged--oh, poor man!'

"'I hope, _ma reine_, you will help me bear my misfortune?'

"'_Nous verrons._'

"And the two went off laughing; Leonora's silk dress struck me as she

passed.

"My companion came back and put his hand on my shoulder.

"'I have learnt everything,' he said.

"'So have I,' I replied, raising my head.

"'How?'

"'She has told me all herself.'

"My friend thought I was delirious. 'Come,' he said, 'the heat has been

too much for you.'

"You may imagine that I did not sleep much that night. I formed a

thousand plans and rejected them again. Only one thing was certain: I

must save Leonora from this hell. I did not doubt what was my duty for

a moment.

"And yet I rose next morning without having formed a resolution. I was

not afraid for myself, for my heart could not be torn more fearfully

than it had been torn the night before. I was afraid only for Leonora,

that a sudden meeting might humiliate her too fearfully, might kill her

perhaps. A few days passed, and I found no better plan after all than

to go straight to her. My friend shook his head whenever I spoke of my

project. 'But, _mon cher_,' he said again and again, 'don't you see

that you still love her?' Was he right? I do not know. At all events,

this kind of love was very different from ordinary love, for it knew

nothing of humiliated pride, of mortified vanity--nay, nothing even of

the fear of possibly becoming ridiculous, by attempting to save a woman

who did not at all desire to be saved.

"When I had at last decided in my own heart, I went one forenoon to the

house on the Boulevard. The porter smiled as he gave his customary

reply: '_Qui, monsieur, au troiseme!_' to my question if Mademoiselle

Eleonore was living there. But he added: 'Mademoiselle will hardly be

at home for anybody; she only came home towards daybreak.'

"I ascended the staircase covered with costly carpets; in the third

story I read on a china plate near a bell-rope: '_Mademoiselle Eleonore

de Saint Georges._' How many names had the poor girl had, since she had

laid aside the honest name of her father?

"I rang the bell. An ugly woman, half waiting-maid, half companion, and

looking all the uglier because of the neatness of her dress and the

affected respectability of her manner, opened and asked me what I

wanted, I wished to see Mademoiselle Eleonore.

"'Mademoiselle is indisposed and cannot see anybody to-day.'

"'But I must see her.'

"'Impossible,' said the woman, 'I have just sent for a doctor.'

"'But, madame, I am the doctor.'

"'_Ah, c'est autre chose, entrez, monsieur le docteur._'

"She led me through a small entry into a lofty, stately apartment,

furnished with almost princely splendor, and asked me to wait there a

few minutes, until her mistress should be able to see me.

"'Has mademoiselle got up yet?'

"'Yes; I shall be back in a moment.'

"She disappeared behind a thick curtain.

"I remained standing in the centre of the room, and looked upon all the

splendor by which I was surrounded--the luscious paintings by Watteau

and Boucher in their broad, gilt frames; the Chinese pagodas upon the

marble mantelpiece; the vases and cups of finest porcelain, the

luxurious divans and sofas--and I felt like the physician who is

looking upon the lace cuff of a hand which he is called in to amputate.

Had I not come here as a physician? Was I not here now under the

pretext of being a physician?

"The maid returned, and begged me to follow her. She drew back the

curtain to let me pass. I entered a half-dark room, covered like all

the others with thick, soft carpets, and hung with deep red-silk

hangings, the chamber of the mistress of the house, and then through

another curtain into a second room, light and bright. Of the furniture

of this room I saw nothing; I saw only the slender, white form which

rose when I entered from the divan on which she had been resting, and

now advanced a few steps to meet me. And this slender, white form, with

the pale, worn-out, beautiful face, in which the large dark eyes shone

with almost ghastly brightness--this beautiful being, broken in body

and soul, lost for eternity, was my Leonora, whom I had worshipped, and

who had once been blooming like a rose in innocence and youth!

"'I have sent for you, doctor,' she said in a low voice.

"Then she raised her eyes and looked at me. Her lips grew silent; she

stared at me with eyes which seemed to leap forth from their orbits;

then she uttered a piercing cry and fell down, before I or her maid

could seize her in our arms.

"We carried her back to the divan. She was deadly pale and cold; I

thought for a moment the sudden blow might have snapped the frail

thread on which her life was hanging. I should have hailed her death as

a rescue from hell, as a mercy from heaven. But soon I became convinced

that life was not going to let her loose for some time yet. I knew

enough of medicine to remember what was to be done in such an

emergency. While I was busy with the fainting girl, I asked the maid if

Leonora was at all subject to such attacks; what was the general state

of her health? The woman thought it her duty to drop her assumed

respectability before a physician. 'She had been only about six months

in the service of mademoiselle. Since then matters had gone down hill

very fast indeed. But mademoiselle was really living too fast in all

conscience. Dancing every night till three or four o'clock in the

morning, drinking champagne without stopping--no one could stand that

long, least of all a lady of such delicate structure. She was begging

mademoiselle every day to abandon such a life, but she received always

the same answer: the sooner it is over the better. And over it will be

very soon,' cried the woman; 'and I shall lose my poor dear mistress,

whom I love like my own child, although she does not lead a life such

as she ought to lead.'

"The invalid began to recover. I sent the maid away, ordering her to

buy some salts at the druggist's; for I did not want to have any

witness present when Leonora should fully awake. The old hypocrite had

hardly left the room when Leonora once more opened her eyes and looked

at me with a confused, incredulous glance. I noticed that in proportion

as her mind returned her horror at my presence increased anew, and

threatened to make her faint a second time. This painful shrinking from

one whom she used to meet with open arms was harder to bear than all

the rest, and nearly moved me to tears. I felt not a trace of hatred,

of anger, in my heart, not even of contempt--no, nothing but pity,

boundless, unspeakable pity. I do not know what I said--but I must have

spoken good, mild words of love and of forgiveness, for her rigid

features began gradually to become softer; her eyes, dilated with

horror, filled with tears, and at last she broke out into passionate

weeping, hiding her head on my bosom as I was kneeling by her side. It

was a terrible weeping; it was as if all the tears of the last years,

which she had concealed under laughter and jests, were breaking forth

from their deep, deep cells and would never cease to flow; and between

a sobbing as if her heart were breaking, a crying as if her innermost

soul were pierced by two-edged swords. I have never in all my life,

either before or afterwards, witnessed anything like this fearful

breaking forth of repentance in a soul stained with sin, but noble by

nature.

"We seemed to have exchanged the parts allotted to us. It looked as if

she had been offended, and I was the criminal. I exhausted myself in

prayers, in implorations, to pour soothing oil into her wounds, to calm

the terrible grief that was raging with such violence. Gradually I

succeeded in calming her after a fashion. She wept, quietly resting her

head on one hand, while I spoke to her holding the other hand--how

white and slender and transparent her fingers had become!--spoke to her

as a brother would speak to his sister in such a case. I begged her to

look upon me as a brother, to confide in me as her best, perhaps her

only friend. I conjured her by all that was sacred to her, by the

memory of her youth, by the memory of her parents--who were both now

resting under the green turf--to tear herself away from this whirlpool

which must swallow her up sooner or later, and to follow me. I promised

to take her, if she wished it, into a desert--to the very ends of the

world--only away, away from this gilded wretchedness.

"'It is too late; too late!' she murmured. 'You are kind, I know;

inexpressibly kind; but it is too late, too late!'

"I do not know how long this struggle might have lasted if a strange

episode had not occurred, which decided it to my great astonishment

quickly in my favor.

"While I was yet kneeling at Leonora's side, I suddenly heard somebody

say behind me: '_Mais vraiment, c'est superbe!_' I rose, full of

horror. Before me stood a young man elegantly dressed, who examined me

through his eye-glass from head to foot and back again, and then

repeated: '_Superbe! mademoiselle_, I congratulate you on this new

conquest.'

"The young man was one of Leonora's friends, whose lavish liberality

had procured for him the privilege of being looked upon by her as her

only lover. He knew that Leonora was by no means rigorously faithful to

him, and did not mind it much; but he did not like to meet his rivals

at her house, which he had furnished at his own expense, and with

princely magnificence.

"'I beg you will explain this scene, mademoiselle, he said, turning to

Leonora, in a tone of insulting indifference, which drove all the blood

from my cheeks to the heart.

"I was opening my lips to give him an insulting answer, when Leonora

anticipated me. As soon as she had seen the new comer she had risen,

and stood now, pushing me gently back, between him and myself.

"'This gentleman,' she said, pointing at me, 'has a right to be here.'

"'What right?'

"'The right of one who has been unfortunate enough to love me once.'

"'Ah, mademoiselle,' replied the young man, smiling ironically, 'the

gentleman shares that misfortune with many others.'

"'Sir,' said I, 'whatever claims you may have upon mademoiselle, I have

older claims, and I cannot allow you to insult a lady to whom I was

once engaged in my presence.'

"'Ah,' said the young man; 'you were engaged to mademoiselle. It is not

possible! and now, I dare say, you propose to marry her, after I'--with

a glance at the furniture--'have had the folly to provide mademoiselle

with a trousseau. Very well conceived, upon my word!'

"'Stop, sir!' cried Leonora, rising to her full height, 'enough has

been said. You think you can control me, and insult me, because I have

accepted your presents. Here, I return you all you have ever given me.

There, and there, and there!' and she tore with feverish excitement the

gold bracelets and all the jewels she wore from her and threw them at

the feet of the young man.

"The passion with which she did this was too deep to be for a moment

misinterpreted, and evidently made a great impression upon the dandy.

'I have had enough of this.' he said. 'I shall see you again,

mademoiselle, here is my card, sir!' and he hastened to leave the room.

"'Come! come!' cried Leonora; 'not another moment will I stay here.

Rather at the bottom of the Seine than here!'

"'I took her at her word. I begged her to change her dress while I

wrote in her name a few lines to the Marquis de Saintonges--this was

the name of Leonora's lover--and placed the lodging, which he had

rented for Leonora, and everything he had ever given her, once more at

his disposal. We left the house, handed the keys to the porter, and

gave the letter into the hands of a messenger, who promised to deliver

it immediately, and a few hours afterwards I had settled all my

affairs, said farewell to my friends, and the city was several miles

behind us.

"Our journey was for the present not to be a very long one. A few

stations beyond Paris, Leonora became so unwell, we had to stop in a

little town. The physician who was called in was fortunately an able

man, and told me that mademoiselle, my sister (for such Leonora

appeared to be), was threatened with inflammation of the brain. His

diagnosis was unfortunately but too correct. The very next day the

terrible disease showed itself clearly. The poor sufferer raved in her

delirium of the hot orgies in the _Jardin aux Lilas_ and of the cool

shades in her native woods, of the Marquis de Saintonges, and other

Paris acquaintances, and of myself, now appearing as her guardian

angel, and now as an avenging demon, while I sat by her bedside and

meditated on our strange position. During my eager pursuit of Leonora I

had followed rather a blind impulse than very clear motives, and never,

in all my dreams, had it occurred to me that we might be placed in a

situation like that in which I now found myself. But amid all my

troubles one thought rose high above all doubt: I must never again quit

Leonora, if she should recover.

"After a little while symptoms appeared which gave us hope, and one

fine morning the physician brought me the news that a crisis had taken

place in the disease, and that Leonora was for the present out of

danger. 'Nevertheless,' he added, with a very serious expression, 'I

must not conceal it from you that, according to human calculations,

your sister is not destined to survive this attack very long. I

apprehend that her lungs are seriously affected; she must have been ill

a long time before I saw her. I do not know your circumstances, and

cannot tell, therefore, whether you will be able to follow my advice.

My advice is this: Go with your sister to a southern climate--to Italy;

if you can, to Egypt. In a less genial climate mademoiselle would

succumb in a very short time.'

"My resolution was instantly formed. I had nothing more to win and

nothing to lose in Germany, where my political cure was to be completed

by a prohibition to teach publicly during the next five years. My means

had been nearly consumed during my long wanderings; there was only a

small remnant left, but I might spend that sum just as well in Italy as

elsewhere; besides, I hoped to derive abroad some advantages from my

knowledge of languages; and, finally, I had no choice. I would have

rather endured extreme suffering than to omit doing anything that could

benefit Leonora. A few days later we were on our way to Italy.

"I settled down a few miles from Genoa, upon the coast of the glorious

Mediterranean. I was fortunate enough to obtain a few lessons in the

family of a rich Englishman, who had come to the place for the same

reasons which brought me there, and thus I was relieved of all anxiety

on the score of money. All the greater was my anxiety for Leonora.

"Our flight from Paris had been so sudden, and was for Leonora so

entirely the result of a momentary impulse--her sickness, following

immediately afterwards, had so completely broken down all her energies

that she had willingly acceded to all my arrangements, and was only now

coming to a clear understanding of our situation--I had not thought of

it at first, and became aware of it only now through Leonora's manner

towards me--that in this dependence on a man whom she had shamefully

betrayed, and in the constant company of him before whom she would have

loved to hide herself in the lowest depth, she suffered probably the

severest punishment that could have been inflicted upon a person in

whom the last spark of honor and self-respect was not extinguished.

Leonora did not hesitate to say so; but she added, 'the punishment is

severe but just; it was the only way, perhaps, to teach me how

grievously I had sinned against you.' While Leonora found thus a

soothing comfort for her conscience in her deep repentance, I had in my

unspeakable sorrow only one very modest consolation: to act towards

Leonora as my conscience dictated. I was at liberty to drain the cup of

sorrow to the very last drop. That was the fulfilment of all the

precious happiness of which I had dreamt so much in the golden days of

Fichtenau, and even later in the dark nights of my imprisonment in the

fortress! This pale, feeble form--that walked slowly along the

sea-coast in the evening sunlight, hanging on my arm and never lifting

up the weary head--she by whose sick-bed I sat watching day after day,

when sickness confined her in her room, and in whose broken heart it

had become my duty to pour soothing balm, of which I stood so much in

need myself--this was the girl whom I had chosen to be my wife, and in

whom I had worshipped, full of bright hopes, the mother of my children.

Oh, Oswald! Oswald! the most fanatical optimist might have been

appalled--the most orthodox soul might have been led to doubt if there

were not after all a great deal of truth in Voltaire's assertion, that

life was nothing but a _mauvaise plaisanterie_.

"And yet it was good for me to pass through this trial also. It was a

bitter medicine; but it cured me thoroughly of that disease which

others call joy of existence and pleasure in life.

"Leonora's humility in bearing her sufferings put me altogether to

shame. In proportion as the disease was destroying her bodily form, the

original beauty of her soul began to reappear. She had led a sinful

life; when she died, she died like a saint.

"It was late in the evening. I had carried the poor sufferer, who was

specially excited on that day, and anxiously yearned after air and

light, in my own arms from the fisherman's cottage which we occupied,

to the edge of the black basaltic rocks which here hang over the sea.

She was resting on a couch formed of cushions. The sun was setting in

resplendent magnificence, and just sinking into the sea. Not a breath

stirred the smooth surface of the waters, and the emerald and golden

lights which shone in the sky were purely and calmly reflected below,

as in a mirror. Upon the pale face of the patient also fell an

enchanting sheen--a rosy lie--the lie with which the sun and life scoff

at the night and at death. And in that hour Leonora took leave of the

sun and of life. She told me that she had always loved me, even at that

moment when vanity and folly had blinded her; that her whole life since

that day had been but a continuous effort to drown her remorse. She did

not desire to live, even if it were possible that I should ever love

her again. She felt herself to be unworthy of being my slave, much more

so of being my wife. She was shuddering at the mere thought. 'Oh never,

never more,' she continued, and her beautiful eyes shone with a

supernatural fire, 'never upon this earth, where I have so tearfully

sinned against you. But when this desecrated body has crumbled into

dust, and the soul has been freed from the fetters that bound it to the

dust, then I will hover around you, I will wait for you; and when you

come, your soul will kiss my soul, and by that kiss I shall know that

all has been atoned for, that all is forgotten and forgiven.'

"I told her that I had long since forgiven her fully, and that I now

loved her with a purer and holier love than in the days of our

happiness.

"I kissed, weeping, her white hands and her pale lips.

"'This is our wedding-day,' she whispered--'poor, poor man.' She sank

back upon the cushions.

"I carried her, quite exhausted, back to the cottage and to her bed.

"It was the last time.

"That night Leonora died."

Berger had risen, and Oswald had followed his example. The former was

entirely filled with the recollections which had just passed before his

mind's eye, clothed by his powerful imagination with all the accuracy

and clearness of reality; the latter thought of nothing but what he had

just heard; and thus both hardly noticed the road which led them

gradually higher and higher through the dark pine forests.

Thus they found themselves suddenly upon the bare top of the mountain,

which the people of the neighborhood call the Lookout, and which is by

far the highest all around among all the brothers and sisters.

The sun had set, but the western sky was still glowing in all the

splendor of the evening glory, and a faint reflex gave even to the

eastern horizon a faint, rosy tinge. Here and there one of the higher

mountain-tops, steeped in purple, looked after the parting light of the

day; but the larger valleys were already filled with gray shadows of

the evening, and whitish mists floated in the narrower glens. The

pine-trees, whose heads rose from below to a level with the travellers'

feet, stood calm and rigid, like a breathless multitude in anxious

expectation.

Berger gazed into the glow of the setting sun, resting on his stick,

and watching it as every instant some tinge vanished and another turned

pale. Oswald's eye hung upon his features, which seemed every moment to

become more and more spiritual. Was it the effect of the ghastly light,

or merely the expression of what was going on within? Suddenly Berger

dropped his cane, spread out his hands as if in prayer, and said:

"Mother Night, all-powerful original Night, from whose bosom the

creature tears itself away in mad desire to live, only in order to

return after long wanderings, penitent and humiliated, to your faithful

maternal heart, I hail you, even in this faint, earthly image! Yon

bottomless bourn of oblivion, yon sweet cradle of unbroken rest, how I

long for you with my whole heart! Oh, take it from me, this intolerable

burden of life; spare me the daily returning grief to open these weary

eyes to a light which they hate; take from me this remnant of dust,

which weighs me down with its sinfulness, and which becomes only the

more painful as it daily dwindles away! Let it, oh, let it quickly be

consumed! I know I could quickly come to you if I but took a single

step beyond the edge of this rock; but even if my bones were broken

into atoms below, my soul would find no rest, for it has still a few

drops left in the cup of life; perhaps--who can tell?--the very

bitterest of them all. No! no! get thee away from me, Satan, who

allurest me down into the abyss! The abyss is not death; life in all

its splendor, is true death. I know thy old tricks; thou didst try them

with the carpenter's son of Nazareth! But he rebuked thee and thy

temptations--honor, power, and the favor of women--all he rejected, in

order to hunger, to thirst, and not to have where he might lay his

head, to wash off the last remnant of earthly life in the bloody sweat

of the night on the Mount of Olives, and in order to die the death of a

murderer on the cross at Golgotha! Oh that I could go forth into all

the world, to preach the word, the sacred word, that frees us now and

forever--the word that leads us back again to our good, mild, dear

Mother Night, whom we have left in order to suffer infernal punishment

in the bright sun-glow of life, while our tongue is parched and our

temples are beating! The word, the holy, mysterious word, which has

become a mere mummery, a derision, and a mockery, in the vain show with

which they fancy they serve their God. Forgive them, oh Mother, for

they know not what they do; they would willingly come to you if they

had but ears to hear your sweet voice, and eyes to see your mild

beauty. I can see your holy face; its smile fills me with hope and

comfort. I can hear your voice; it whispers, 'wait, wait but a little

while, and you shall sink back into my faithful arms, back to eternal

peace.'"

The rosy hues had vanished from the sky; gray twilight was spreading

over the valleys, and the evening breeze began to whisper and to murmur

in the tops of the pine-trees.

Oswald was seized with vague terror. He felt as if that mystical Night,

which Berger had invoked in his strange prayer, was chilling him

already with a breath from the grave--as if the sun had set never to

rise again But this fear was not without a strange admixture of

delight. The narcotic fragrance of thoughts of death which had been

borne to him on Berger's ecstatic words, filled his heart, together

with the perfume of the heather and the aroma of the pines.

He thought of Helen and of Melitta, but not with the restless anxiety

of the morning, but in calm melancholy, as we think of the departed

whom we have loved. He thought of the troubles and blunders of his gay

drama in the chateau of Grenwitz, but it looked to him like a

puppet-show for children. He thought of the future, but it had no

longer any charms for him; it filled him neither with hope nor with

fear; it was as if his whole life were withdrawing from without, as if

the world were not worthy of so much love or so much hatred.

Thus he sat, resting his head on his hands, upon a large rock, and

looked out into the evening, which was spreading its dark wings wider

and wider over the heavens.

A hand was laid on his shoulder.

"Come!" said Berger, "let us return to the dead!"

They descended from the summit and plunged into the damp darkness of

the forest. Berger seemed to know every path and every stone in the

mountains. He went on, supporting himself every now and then with his

stout cane, at a pace which made it difficult for Oswald to follow him,

though he was considered a good pedestrian.

Thus they had reached a meadow lying in the very heart of the forest.

As they followed the edge of the wood they suddenly saw a light

glimmering on the opposite side. It came from the flame of a pile of

briars which had just been kindled. Within the bright circle of the

flames two persons were visible--a woman, as it seemed, and a child.

Oswald's sharp eyes confirmed him in a suspicion which had entered his

heart at the first glance.

They were Xenobia and Czika.

He hastened as fast as he could across the meadow towards the fire, but

he had hardly accomplished half the distance when he sank up to his

ankles into the morass. He saw that he could not go any further. He

cried as loud as he could: "Xenobia! Czika! it is I! Oswald!"

But his call had scarcely broken the peace of the silent forest when

the fire vanished, and with the fire the two forms he had seen.

All was quiet--quiet as death. Oswald might have imagined that his

fancy had played him a trick.

"What was the matter?" asked Berger, when Oswald joined him again.

"Did you not see the fire!"

"It was a will-o'-the-wisp in the swamp," replied Berger. "Let us go

on."

CHAPTER VIII.

It was completely dark when the two wanderers left the last spur of the

mountain, and reached the first houses of the village. Oswald, who was

for the first time in this region, and whose sense of locality was not

strongly developed, had of course allowed himself to be entirely guided

by Berger, and had expected that the latter would return by the nearest

road to Doctor Birkenhain's asylum. He was, therefore, not a little

surprised when he found out that they were approaching the town from

the opposite direction. There were the huge wagons laden with bales,

there was the wide court-yard with its hospitably open gates, there was

the green lamp burning in dismal dimness over the door of the house,

and casting a mournful light upon one-half of the leaden hat which had

once shone in all the splendor of oil-paint, but which had since passed

through many a storm, losing its youthful freshness under the action of

wind and weather and rain. There they heard in the low room to the

right of the hall, with its four tiny windows and its dim light, the

clinking of glasses, as thirsty guests knocked them impatiently against

each other, and the concentrated noise of some twenty male voices,

which were by no means delicate, and yet insisted upon being all heard

at once.

It would scarcely have needed all these unmistakable signs to convince

Oswald that he was near the hospitable roof of the Green Hat.

The sudden meeting with the gypsies in the forest had reminded him most

forcibly of this whole affair, which Berger's recital had nearly driven

from his mind.

He should have liked much to consult Berger in this matter, as the

latter had in former times given him frequent opportunities to admire

his skill in unravelling intricate situations and problematic

characters; but he was loth to trouble a mind which was constantly

seeking the truth in the mysterious depths of mysticism, with stories

in which Director Schmenckel was playing the most prominent part.

What was his amazement, therefore, when Berger suddenly stopped at the

door of the Green Hat, and said:

"I am thirsty; let us go in here for a moment!"

"Here?" inquired Oswald, who shrank from the idea of introducing the

dreamy, delicate man, with his horror of the mere odor of tobacco, to

such vulgar society. "The company in there is hardly suitable."

"What does that matter?" replied Berger. "Are they not the children of

men?"

With these words he entered through the open house-door into the halls

where yesterday the enthusiastic admirers of art had fought their

battle royal with their adversaries, and through the door of the room

which was also open into the coffee-room.

The appearance of the latter was nearly the same as on the previous

day, before and after the fight, only that the table at which the

artists had their seats was to-day much less sought after by the other

guests. The glory of artists is apt to fade quickly in the eyes of men

who still feel the smarting of the blows which they have received a day

before on account of this very glory, and who are prosaic enough to

recollect the number of glasses of beer which the artists have drunk at

their expense, solely for the purpose of not interfering with the

general good-temper of the company. Thus it came about that many who,

in their enthusiasm for art, had utterly forgotten their old friends in

the blue overalls and the heavy shoes, to-night joined them once more,

and granted to new comers the privilege of listening to Director

Schmenckel's long stories, and of paying his long bills.

Mr. Schmenckel was far too great a philosopher to lose his good humor

and his temper on account of this insulting desertion by his friends.

His fat face shone as bright as ever--it was redder than usual, even,

because its original color appeared still richer and more intense in

contrast with a few patches of black which had become indispensable in

consequence of his fight with Mamselle Adele. His swollen eyelids

winked at everybody as cunningly as ever, his linen was perhaps a shade

less white, but the suspenders had not lost a line of their width, and

none of the embroidered roses seemed to have suffered in the least.

And as rosy as this indispensable part of his wardrobe, was also the

temper of the man whose broad bosom it adorned.

"How do you like the beer, Cotterby?" he said, laying his broad hand

upon the shoulder of the man of the pyramids.

"Sour!" was the laconic reply; for the hero had received but meagre

applause to-day, since the genius in the oak-tree had not been there to

hallow his flight.

"Pshaw!" said Mr. Schmenckel, "you are spoilt, Cotterby. It is of

course not as good as you drink it in Egypt, but nevertheless it is

good, very good indeed. Your health gentlemen."

The director put the glass to his lips, but only swallowed a moderate

quantity, a circumstance which might have convinced the impartial

observer of the correctness of the judgment of the Flying Pigeon, whose

beer had not been paid for to-night by enthusiastic admirers of art.

At that moment Berger and Oswald entered the room and approached a

table at which the artists sat, because it had some vacant seats. Mr.

Schmenckel's observant eye had scarcely seen the new comers--whom he

recognized instantly as the insane young count of the day before, and

an old gray-bearded fellow of curious appearance whom the count had

picked up for his amusement after the escape of the gypsies--when he

rose from his seat, went up to Oswald, bowed low before him, and said,

with a voice which he intended should be distinctly heard all over the

room,

"Ah, your excellency, count, that is nice in you, that you come to call

upon a poor artist in his lowly inn. Sit down here by the side of

Director Schmenckel! Move on a little, Cotterby! That's it! Now,

gentlemen, take your seats; delighted to make your acquaintance, old

fellow, much honor. Two fresh glasses of beer for the gentlemen, and

one for Director Schmenckel! Empty your glass, Cotterby! So, now bring

four glasses! Who would have thought that we should have such excellent

company to-night?" and Mr. Schmenckel rubbed his hands with delight as

Oswald and Berger took seats in his immediate neighborhood.

"Well, here is the beer--fresh from the cask, my angel--well, all the

better! Here gentlemen! Your health, count, and your health also, old

man! Ah! that was the first mouthful I have relished this evening. Odd!

is it not? Bad company spoils good beer; good company makes bad beer

good! Am a lover of sociability, count. See that you are another. Will

you have the kindness to introduce me to the old gentleman? Director

Schmenckel likes to know with whom he has to do."

Oswald glanced at Berger to see what impression was made upon him by

this company and these surroundings, and to judge from that what he had

better do for Director Schmenckel. To his astonishment, Berger seemed

to listen to the prattle of the rope-dancer with some interest. He had

hung his hat upon the back of the chair, placed the cane by his side,

and was now leaning with both arms upon the table, exactly like one who

does not intend to leave the place very soon again.

"My name is Berger," he answered to the director's question.

"Professor Berger," added Oswald, with the good intention of making an

impression upon Mr. Schmenckel by the title, and to put, if possible, a

check upon his familiarity.

"Professor!" repeated Mr. Schmenckel, with a look at Berger's blue

blouse and ill-kept beard. "Ha! ha! ha! Very good! May I make you

acquainted with my friend Cotterby? Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, known

as the Flying Pigeon. Mr. Berger, known as Professor! Ha! ha! ha!"

"Shall we go again," inquired Oswald, who was seriously embarrassed by

Mr. Schmenckel's conduct.

"I think we had better stay a little longer," replied Berger.

"Your fist, old boy!" said Mr. Schmenckel, seizing Berger's small thin

hand and shaking it warmly. "I like you prodigiously. When your tile is

losing its glue, and your blouse is going to tatters completely, you

must come to me. Director Schmenckel will be delighted to receive a man

like you as a member of his company. Your beard alone is an ornament

for the whole land. You would create a sensation in a pantomime. What

did you think of our performance to-day, count?"

"I was unfortunately unable to see it," replied Oswald, encouraged by a

smile upon Berger's lips to continue the strange conversation.

"Oh, you have lost much, indeed very much," said the director in a tone

of sincere regret, shaking his huge head slowly to and fro. "The

performance was by far the finest we have given for a long time.

Director Schmenckel has convinced everybody that the absence of

a few estimable members of his company could in no wise impair the

general efficiency of the same. I do not mean myself--although the

world-renowned Schmenckel-act, with three cannon-balls of forty-eight

pounds each, has never yet been imitated by anybody in this world, and

my _fontaine d'argent_, with ten silver balls, is as yet unequalled.

But, gentlemen, you ought to have seen Mr. Cotterby on the trapeze; I

tell you the ring-tailed apes of the Island of Sumatra are miserable

bunglers in comparison--absolutely miserable bunglers! And then Mr.

Stolsenberg with his gigantic cask! I tell you--come nearer,

Stolsenberg. An artist such as you are need not be so very modest, and

the count here does not mind another glass of beer, or even several he

is not like ordinary men. And then Mr. Pierrot, as contortionist!--come

this way, Pierrot! Artists ought always to keep to each other. I tell

you, count, your penknife is a ramrod in comparison with Mr. Pierrot. I

have said it again and again: Pierrot, if we ever should travel by rail

together, I mean to pay only for myself; I shall put you in my hat-box.

Ha! ha! ha! A clever idea! Is it not, count? But the professor's glass

is empty; and by all the Powers! mine is empty too! I verily believe

that man Stolsenberg has secretly emptied my glass, and his own into

the bargain! You had better drink yours too, Pierrot. You will save the

pretty waiting-maid some trouble. Here, my angel, five fresh glasses;

but really fresh, my beauty--fresh, like the roses on your cheeks. Fond

of pretty women, count?--such a pretty child, with brown eyes, dark

hair, and a slight, graceful person, like Czika? Eh? Just let her grow

a few years older and you'll see something; she'll give you pleasure!"

"Have you any news about them?" asked Oswald.

Mr. Schmenckel, who had not the remotest idea of what could have become

of the two gypsies, but who considered it wrong to destroy all hope of

meeting the last object of his mad fancy in the heart of a man who was

immensely rich and passionately fond of young gypsy-children, winked

cunningly with his swollen eyes, put his fat finger against his nose,

and said: "Are not far from here, in the woods--have certain

information--can get her when I want her--don't want her, though--women

must have time to get over their tantrums--then they come of their own

account, and are thoroughly cured of their fancies. Yes, you have to

know them well! Women are troublesome people to deal with, only they

are all alike--and yet not one is like the other. What do you think

about that, old boy?"

"I think you a great philosopher, from whom one might learn a great

deal yet," replied Berger, looking with a curious smile into Mr.

Schmenckel's face.

"Well, I should think so," said the director, throwing out his

capacious chest and resting his hands on his hips. "Mr. Schmenckel, of

Vienna, knows where the hare burrows, and the man who wants to lead him

astray has to rise early in the morning. But, by all the Powers! it is

no wonder after all if I know rather better than others how the world

wags; I have been shaken about in it, upside and down, round and round

and round, like a cork in an empty bottle."

"An empty bottle," said Berger. "That's a capital comparison; perfectly

correct. How did you get hold of that?"

"How I got hold of it?" replied the director with an air of

astonishment. "How I got hold of it? Probably, because I have an empty

glass standing before me. Ha, ha, ha."

"It looks as if you had not been displeased, so far, with the beverage

of life," said Berger, while Mr. Schmenckel made use of the interval,

till the new glass of beer could come, to fill his short clay pipe.

"Well, and why not?" replied the director, lighting his pipe at the

flame of the tallow candle that stood near him on the table, and

disappearing for a few moments from the sight of the by-standers in

thick, blue clouds. "Life is a prodigiously funny thing for a man who

knows what's what, like Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna. Thanks, my

angel!"

"I am not your angel, sir," said the girl, snappishly, as she pushed

back violently the arm with which Mr. Schmenckel had embraced her

waist, and cast a stolen glance at Oswald.

Mr. Schmenckel's only reply to this insulting correction was this: he

pressed the five finger-tips of his right hand against his thick lips

and cast a kiss after the girl as she slipped out, and then, closing

his left eye, winked cunningly with the other at Oswald, who was

sitting on the opposite side.

"Nice girl, your excellency, isn't she? Pretends to eat me up alive,

and is head over ears in love with me."

"You seem to be very successful with ladies," said Oswald, merely in

order to say something.

"Well, can't complain, your excellency," said Mr. Schmenckel, laughing

complacently. "Women are like the weather. To-day too hot, and

to-morrow too cold; to-day sunshine, and to-morrow rainy weather. Must

take everything as it comes from them, just as from the Great One

above."

"I should think that depended solely upon yourself," said Berger, whose

look dwelt imperturbably upon his jovial companion, as if his mind

could not comprehend so remarkable a phenomenon.

"How so, old fellow? You think I should let them alone, every one of

them? Well, old gentleman, that might do very well for you; but of

Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna, you cannot expect such a thing. The

deuce! Leave them alone? Why, I had rather be dead and buried!"

"That would certainly be the best of all," said Berger.

"Look here, old gentleman," replied the director, with an effort to be

serious, which sat very oddly upon him. "Don't commit such a sin! I

tell you again, life is a mighty good thing, and we must not paint the

devil's likeness on the wall. Oh, pshaw! Why do you let your beer grow

stale, and make a face like a tanner whose skins have been washed down

the stream? Come, drink a glass with Caspar Schmenckel! Well, that's

right! Schmenckel is a merry fellow, and likes to be in company with

merry fellows. Well, gentlemen, what do you say, shall we have a nice

song? Cotterby, you have a voice like a nightingale! Come, fall in!

Does your excellency know the song of the midges?"

"No; but let us hear it."

"Well, here goes; Stolsenberg, Pierrot, fall in!"

And Mr. Schmenckel took the pipe from his mouth, leaned back in his

chair, and began with a tremendous bass voice, while his three friends

sang chorus:

"Good morning, fiddler,

Why are you so late?

Retreating, advancing,

The midges are dancing,

With the little killekeia

With the big cumcum.

"Then came the women,

With scythe and sickle,

To keep the midges

From dancing like witches,

With the little killekeia,

With the big cumcum."

"Well, gentlemen, isn't that a fine song?" cried Mr. Schmenckel, after

having finished off the remarkable air by pummelling the table with

both hands so that the glasses began to dance.

"Very fine," said Berger; "do you know any more?"

"Hundreds," replied Mr. Schmenckel, "but Mr. Cotterby knows the best.

Sing us a solo, Cotterby."

The Egyptian smiled complacently, twisted his small, jet-black

moustache, and passed his hand through his dark, well-oiled hair,

leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes half, and began in quite a

pleasant tenor voice:

"A peasant had a pretty wife,

She loved to stay at home,

She begged her husband by her life,

To go abroad and roam,

Through the grass and through the hay,

Through the grass--alas!

Ha, ha, ha; ha, ha, ha; hideldeedee!

Hurrah! hurrah!

To go abroad, and in the grass."

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the director. "That is a good song--very good.

That reminds me of a pretty story, which I will tell if you say so,

gentlemen. You can finish the song afterwards, Cotterby."

The Egyptian seemed to take it rather amiss that he was thus

interrupted; but Mr. Schmenckel did not notice it, or did not choose to

notice it. He took a long pull at his glass of beer, and said to the

waiting maid, whom the song or the presence of the young, distinguished

stranger had brought back to the table,

"You go a little outside, my angel. The story which Director Schmenckel

is going to tell is not made for young girls."

The pretty girl blushed up to her ears and ran away, looking back for a

moment at Oswald. Mr. Schmenckel cleared his voice, leaned over the

table, and began with a voice which sounded all the hoarser for his

efforts to subdue it:

"Gentlemen, you know that all thinking men divide women into two

classes--such as serve, and such as are served. But love knows no such

distinction, for love masters them all. I have myself experienced this

very often in life, but it has never become quite so clear to me as

some----" Here Mr. Schmenckel looked almost anxiously around, to see

that no unauthorized ear, especially no female ear, should catch the

chronological fact which he was about to mention. "Some twenty years

ago, in St. Petersburg. Have any of the gentlemen ever been in St.

Petersburg?"

They said no.

"How did you get to St. Petersburg?" inquired the hopeful son of a

citizen of Fichtenau, who had in the meanwhile joined the company.

"Schmenckel, of Vienna," replied the director, in a dogmatic tone of

voice, "has been everywhere. You may expect him, therefore, at any

place on earth. St. Petersburg, gentlemen, is a beautiful city, as you

may judge from the fact that the palaces of the emperor and of all the

great nobles are cut of blue and white ice, which shines brilliantly in

the sun."

"How can that be," inquired again the man from Fichtenau; "don't they

melt in summer?"

"In summer," said Mr. Schmenckel, by no means taken aback; "in summer?

Why, what are you thinking of? I tell you, sir, in St. Petersburg there

is no summer. Snow and ice, ice and snow, all the year round, from one

New Year's Eve to the next New Year's Eve. You have no idea, in your

country here, of such a cold; the human mind can't conceive it. I tell

you, the breath from your mouth falls instantly as snow to the ground,

and when two persons have been talking to each other for some time in

the street, a heap is formed between them so high that when they part

they have to climb up in order to be able to shake hands. Why, it is so

cold there that the milk freezes in the cow; and when you say: here,

give me a glass of beer, or a little mug-full, the Petersburg people

say: give me a slice, for the beer freezes into a thick syrup, and is

not poured out, but cut into long, thin slices, put upon buttered

bread, and eaten in that way."

"That must be quite uncomfortable," remarked the oldest guest of the

Green Hat.

"Every land has its ways," replied Mr. Schmenckel.

"But we know that expression, too," said the fat landlord, who had come

up to the table.

"Well, then, just let me have a slice, my good man," said Mr.

Schmenckel, draining his glass and handing it over his shoulder to the

landlord, "but Christian measure, if you please!

"In one word," continued the director, after he had graciously accepted

the applause which his wit received as a tribute due to his

superiority, and after trying cautiously the contents of the new glass,

"in a word, St. Petersburg is a fine city, and when you see how the sun

glitters on all the ice palaces, and how the Russians, wrapped in their

bearskins, drive furiously through the streets in their sleighs with

four reindeers abreast, you feel as if your heart was laughing within

you with delight, and you must go into the nearest shop to take a good

glass of gin.

"Well, then, we were in St. Petersburg, and liked it mightily. We--that

is to say, the famous circus company of my uncle, who was the director,

Francis Schmenckel, and myself, who had the honor to be engaged as

Hercules--I can say that we created a sensation, especially our horses;

for the Russians know horses only from hearsay. The emperor alone has

two or three shaggy creatures that look like big dogs in his stables.

Everybody else, as I said before, drives only reindeer--even the

cavalry is mounted in that way; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that a

Russian cuirassier of the guards, mounted on his reindeer stallion, is

not so bad a sight after all.

"We had immense audiences. The emperor and the whole court were every

evening at the circus. His majesty applauded so furiously that he had

to put on a new pair of white kid gloves every five minutes, because he

had torn the others to pieces. During the entire act I had to be on my

post at the door of the Imperial box, so that I could show his majesty

the way behind the scenes and into the stables, where his majesty

condescended to pat the best animals most graciously on the neck, and

to pinch the cheeks of the handsomest ladies in the company, with his

own hand. But more than anybody else did I enjoy the emperor's favor. I

cannot tell exactly why! I only know that the emperor sent for me to

his box the very first night, and said to me before the whole court:

'Mr. Schmenckel, you are not only the strongest but also the handsomest

man I have ever seen. Ask a favor!' 'Your majesty,' I replied, bowing

gracefully, 'I ask only for a continuance of your favor, which I esteem

above all things else.' 'That you shall have, and patents of nobility

into the bargain,' exclaimed his majesty, most enthusiastically. 'Give

me your strong hand, Mr. von Schmenckel; with a company of men like

yourself, I would dictate laws to the whole world.'

"From that moment we were sworn friends. 'Mr. Schmenckel, come this

evening and take a cup of caravan tea with me! Will you drink a glass

of wutki punch with me to-night, after the performance is over? dear

von Schmenckel. You know, quite _entre nous_, perhaps, a few ladies and

gentlemen of my court. Will you come?' That was the way, day by day.

"Well, gentlemen, Mr. Schmenckel, of Vienna, is not a proud man, but he

likes to be in good company----"

Here Mr. Schmenckel made a courteous bow to the bystanders, and

continued:

"And an emperor is, after all, always an emperor, and it is a pleasure,

which I will not deny, to be on such terms of intimacy with such a man.

"Those were famous evenings which I spent, so to say, in the bosom of

the imperial family. The gentlemen of the court were very pleasant

people, and the ladies----"

Mr. Schmenckel closed his eyes, kissed his hand toward! the ceiling,

and sent a deep sigh after the winged messenger of his love. "The

ladies! I tell you, gentlemen, he who has not seen the women of Russia,

has not seen any women at all. Such hair, such eyes, such figures, such

fire; and if Schmenckel of Vienna, was to live four thousand years, he

would never forget the winter in St. Petersburg!

"The Russian women are beautiful, and you may feel a little twitch of

envy, gentlemen, when I tell you that I had the pick among the fairest

of the fair. You may think that sounds like brag, gentlemen, but I

cannot help it, it was so. They sent me whole wagon-loads of locks of

hair, bouquets and little notes, which always began thus: 'Divine

Schmenckel, or Apollo Schmenckel,' and always ended thus: 'Meet me at

such and such a place, at such and such an hour.'

"But, as it happens most frequently in such cases, she whose favor I

should have valued most highly was not one of my admirers. This was a

young and very beautiful lady, whom I saw every evening at the circus;

but she always assumed a prodigiously haughty and reserved air,

although I invariably made her a special bow when they applauded.

"'How do you like our ladies?' the emperor asked me one evening as we

were walking, arm-in-arm, up and down the reception room.

"'So so! your majesty,' I replied, for discretion was always Caspar

Schmenckel's special gift.

"'You are hard to please,' said the emperor. 'How do you like the

little Malikowsky?'

"'What name was that?' suddenly asked Berger, who had been sitting

immovable, his brow buried in his hand, and who now, for the first

time, raised his head.

"Malikowsky, old gentleman," repeated Mr. Schmenckel. "Another Russian

slice, landlord. With your leave, gentlemen. I'll fill my pipe once

more."

Oswald looked at Berger. He felt as if a strange nervous twitching was

agitating his calm, serious features, and as if the eyes betrayed an

unusual excitement but the next moment Berger had again hid his brow in

his hand. Mr. Schmenckel continued his story:

"'The little Malikowsky?' I asked. 'Who is she?'

"'Have you never noticed a lady in black who sits very near the

imperial box? Pale face, large eyes, chin rather long?'

"'Certainly, your majesty; but she seems to be a shy bird.'

"'Nonsense! dear Schmenckel; sheer nonsense! Between us be it said, the

lady once stood in somewhat nearer relations to our house than I liked.

We have given her a husband, a Polish nobleman who was ruined; her

reputation was not very good, his is very bad; he has nothing, she has

half a million souls----'"

"How much is that in Prussian money?" inquired the fat habitue of the

Green Hat, who kept a grocery-store in the town.

"Five million dollars, twenty-six silver groschen, and fourpence--'thus

they suit each other exactly. When she wants to get rid of him for a

time, she sends him to his estates in Poland. Just now he is again on

his travels. You had better make a conquest of her, and I will say then

that Schmenckel, of Vienna, is not only the strongest and the

handsomest, but also the luckiest man on earth.'

"'Your majesty's wish is my command,' I replied, and went home

considering how I could win the heart of the beauty. 'Only by doing

something which no man ever yet has been able to do,' I said to myself,

and then, gentlemen, it was I invented the famous Schmenckel-act, with

the three cannon balls of forty-eight pounds each. On the first evening

I played with one of them as with a boy's ball--she smiled; on the

second I played with two--she clapped her tiny hands; on the third I

played with all three of them--she threw me a bouquet. I was sure

of my success now. But here, gentlemen, I must beg you to excuse

me if I follow my invariable custom when a lady is mentioned in my

recollections, and if I only suggest, therefore, in a general way, that

the same evening a pretty maid presented herself at my rooms and asked

me to follow her to her mistress who was dying of love for me. I may

add that Schmenckel, of Vienna, has too good a heart to let anybody die

for him, and least of all for love for him, if he can help it, and that

the next four weeks belonged to the happiest of his whole life."

"You are a fortunate man, director," said the native of Fichtenau, who

had been for four years secretly in love with the daughter of an

alderman, and had already triumphed so far over all obstacles as to

have obtained, almost, a kiss from her.

"As you take it, young man," replied Mr. Schmenckel, with paternal

benevolence, "where there is much light, there must also be dark

shadows. I ought properly to let my story end here, but I suppose I

must finish it for the benefit of such young hot-blooded creatures as

you are. Master Miller, and you Cotterby, you abominably fast man, and

you Pierrot, the greatest scamp I know. Well, just listen, gentlemen!

The pretty maid was not less passionately fond of me than her mistress,

for, as I said just now, in that matter of love all the women are alike

What happens, therefore? One fine evening, as I was drinking my cup of

tea with the lady--in all honor and propriety, gentlemen, upon my word

of honor--somebody suddenly knocks with great violence at the door

which leads into the count's apartment, and which was locked from

inside. 'Open the door! open the door!----'

"'Great God, the count!' whispered the countess, pale with terror.

'Nadeska has betrayed us.'

"'Open the door'--and here followed a fearful oath--'open the door!'

"'Well,' said I, 'that's a nice predicament; what's to be done next?'

"'Schmenckel, you must save me.'

"'With pleasure; but how?'

"'I'll slip into my chamber, and lock the door behind me.'

"'Very good; but what am I to do?'

"'You have broken into the house, through that window'--and as she said

this she opened the window, took the candelabra with the lights, passed

through the second door, locked it, and began to cry as loud as she

could--'Help! Help! Thieves!'

"Well, gentlemen, just imagine my position, if you can. Before I could

collect my five senses the door was broken open, and the count rushed

in, holding two pistols in his hands, and five men-servants with lights

and big sticks behind him."

"How did the count look?" Berger asked in a low voice, without raising

his head.

"Well, old gentleman, I had not exactly time to look closely at him. I

only know that he was a fine-looking, tall man, with a pair of eyes

that fairly burnt with fury. 'Ah, I have caught you, rascal?' he cried.

Crack! went a ball past my left ear--crack! and another ball went past

my right ear. Well, gentlemen, that was, after all, a little too

strong, and not exactly the way to make Caspar Schmenckel's

acquaintance. What could I do? I seized the count around the body, and

threw him out of the window; and in case he should have broken

something in falling, I threw one of the servants right after him. The

others were frightened and ran away as fast as they could. I ran after

them through the other rooms across the hall and down the stairs, and,

gentlemen, when I had gotten so far I found the way into the street

easily enough by myself. How do you like my story, professor?" and Mr.

Schmenckel put his broad hand upon Berger's shoulder.

Berger raised his head. His face was deadly pale, his eyes were rolling

fearfully, his gray hair hung down into his face.

"If you can tell the truth, man," he said, with weird-sounding voice,

"answer me; have you told the truth?"

"I believe the old gentleman has taken a little too much," said Mr.

Schmenckel, good-naturedly.

"Yes, I have drunk too much," cried Berger, gesticulating violently

with his hands--"too much of the wretched beverage of this miserable

life, which is utterly good for nothing, and the liquor has gotten into

my head. Ha! ha! ha!"

It was a terrible laughter; but the half-drunk visitors thought it

highly amusing.

"Oh, ho! the professor is taking to it very kindly," cried Mr.

Schmenckel, holding his sides. "Speech, speech! Let the professor give

us a speech!"

Oswald had jumped up and stood by Berger's side. He tried in his

anxiety to calm the over-excited man, and to persuade him to leave the

house.

Berger paid no attention to him. He stood there, leaning with both his

hands upon the table, as Oswald had seen him do so often in his

lecture-room.

"Write, gentlemen," he said, "this is the quintessence of the long

syllogism, the parts of which I have just explained to you:

"I climbed on a pear-tree,

I wanted to dig beets,

Then have I all my life

Eaten no better plums.

"You will say that this is not a speculative idea, but an old drinking

song; but, gentlemen, in a world where good people are made fun of, and

led by the nose by impudent demons--where folly with the fool's cap on

the head is ruling supreme, and causes its lofty conceptions to be

executed by stupidity, vulgarity, and brutality--there speculation

becomes a drinking song, and the idea--the grand, all-sublime

idea--why, you are the idea yourselves, gentlemen, rough, vulgar

fellows as you are."

"Oh, ho! old man, I won't stand that," cried Mr. Schmenckel, who could

hardly laugh any longer.

"Yes indeed, yourself," continued Berger, growing more and more

violent. "You, Director Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna, you represent the

justice of heaven! The idea can do nothing without you; you are the

idea, the incarnate idea. I told you life was good for nothing, but

no--that is saying too much--it is worthy of you. I detest you, but I

honor you; I shudder at the sight of you, but I worship you. Come into

my arms, that I may measure the depths of this wretchedness, that I may

touch with my own hands the incredible."

"Come to my heart, old boy," cried Mr. Schmenckel returning the

embrace. "You are a trump--a perfect brick; let us be brothers."

He let go Berger and seized his glass.

At the same moment Berger fell, pressing his hand upon his heart, with

a fearful cry, and fainted away.

It was a fearful cry indeed--like the cry for help of a drowning man at

the instant of sinking--a cry that was heard high above the din in the

room, that silenced all the chatting and chaffing, and made the

drinkers jump up from their seats in utter consternation. They crowded

around the fallen man, and glared with stupid, half-drunken eyes at

him, as Oswald tried in vain to raise him from the floor. No one lent a

hand to assist the young man. The fright seemed to have paralyzed the

crowd.

"Will nobody help me?" cried Oswald, supporting the burden of the

lifeless body in his arms.

These words were addressed to Mr. Schmenckel, who until now had been

quietly standing near, with open mouth and fixed eyes, his pipe in one

hand, the glass of beer in the other.

Oswald's appeal brought him back to his senses.

"You are right, count," he said, "we must do something for the old

gentleman."

He put his pipe on the table, took Berger, who was still unconscious,

from Oswald's arms, lifted him without effort on his shoulder, and

carried him out of the room as a lion bears off a dead gazelle.

Oswald and the landlord followed him.

"Here, come in here," said the landlord, opening the door of the room

on the opposite side of the hall, where more distinguished guests were

commonly received.

Mr. Schmenckel laid the patient on the sofa.

"The old gentleman had an empty stomach," said Director Schmenckel,

whispering his information gravely into Oswald's ear, while the latter

was busy about Berger.

"Your excellency ought to have made him eat a good slice of ham with

brown bread, and a glass of brandy."

Berger began to stir. He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly at the

by-standers, like somebody who is awaking from a heavy dream. Then he

rose fully, with Oswald's assistance, and said in a low voice:

"I thank you, my friends. I have given you much trouble. We are

dependent one on the other in this life. I hope I shall soon meet you

again; perhaps I may be able then to reciprocate your kindness. Come,

Oswald, let us go."

"Do you feel strong enough? Had we not better send for a carriage?"

"Oh no! Horses and carriages are not for people like me."

He went to the door. Suddenly he stopped again.

"Pay the people what we owe them, Oswald; we must not remain in

anybody's debt on this earth."

Oswald paid the landlord his bill, including in it, to Mr. Schmenckel's

evident satisfaction, all that the ropedancers had consumed.

A few moments afterward he and Berger had left the house and were

walking slowly through the silent streets of Fichtenau, back to Doctor

Birkenhain's asylum.

Berger observed a silence which Oswald dared not break. The young man

reproached himself in secret to have been so imprudent as to have left

Berger so long in such company. He ascribed his exaltation mainly to

the heat and the drinking of the strong beer, to which he was not

accustomed. He had no suspicion of the close connection between

Berger's history and the grotesque adventures of the circus-director,

whose story he had scarcely heard. He only thought of Dr. Birkenhain,

and how little he had attended to his suggestions. He was reflecting

whether his presence was not perhaps rather injurious than useful for

Berger, and thought of leaving Fichtenau as soon as possible, for his

own benefit as well as for Berger's.

Thus they had reached in silence the road which led past the mill to

the gateway of Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, when Berger suddenly said:

"You must leave us to-night, Oswald!"

"To-night?"

"Rather to-day than to-morrow. You have to go out into the desert once

more; I cannot spare you the trial. And I, myself--I have to learn much

yet, and you cannot assist me. It is better for us, therefore, to part.

You go your way, and I shall go my way--it is the same road and

although I am a little ahead of you, you learn quickly and will soon

overtake me. Until then, Oswald farewell!"

Berger embraced Oswald and kissed him.

Oswald was deeply moved.

"Let me stay with you," he said, his voice half-drowned in tears; "let

me stay with you and never leave you again. I hate the world, I despise

the world, as much as you do."

"I know that," said Berger, "but to despise the world is but the first

stage of the three on the road to the Great Mystery."

"And which is the second stage? Mention it, so that I may reach it at

once!"

"To despise one's self."

"And--the third?"

They were standing before the gateway. Berger rang the bell; the door

sprang open.

"And the third--the last stage?"

"Despise being despised."

"And the mystery itself--the Great Mystery?"

"He who has passed all three stages knows it and understands it without

asking any questions. He who asks about it does not know it, and cannot

understand it. Oswald, farewell; we shall meet again!"

Berger pressed Oswald once more to his heart; then he entered through

the gate, which closed immediately upon him.

Oswald remained standing near the gate, like the beggar who has been

refused the refreshing drink for which he has asked; then he went, with

drooping head, back the way he had come with Berger.

The night was dark; hardly a star on the murky, cloudy sky; the poplars

by the wayside were whispering to each other; and the mill-race down

below said in its own way: To despise the world--to despise one's

self--to despise being despised.

CHAPTER IX.

During the time when Oswald and Berger had watched the sun from the

summit of the Lookout Mountain, as he sank slowly into the green ocean

of the forest, a guest had arrived at the Kurhaus, whose arrival caused

a certain joyous sensation in the hotel. It was a fair young lady,

dressed in a dark, remarkably elegant costume, and accompanied by a not

less handsome boy of about twelve years, who looked, however, pale and

sickly. With them came an old man, whose gray moustache and military

carriage gave him a very marked appearance, and who seemed to be partly

a servant and partly a friend of the lady. The lady had spent several

weeks in Fichtenau during the summer, though then without the boy, in

order to attend her husband, who had been for seven years in Doctor

Birkenhain's asylum, and who was now dying. Her sad fate, not less than

her great gentleness and kindness towards everybody, especially the

poor and the sick, had won her the love and admiration of the

inhabitants of the little town to such a degree that even now they were

blessing, in more than one family, the remembrance of the "good lady"

with deep gratitude.

It did not look as if this time, also, a pleasant purpose had brought

the lady to Fichtenau, for she had scarcely been shown by the landlord

himself, amid countless bows and scrapings, into the best parlor of the

second story, when she sat down to write a few lines to Doctor

Birkenhain, which the old servant had orders to carry immediately to

the asylum, a hotel servant showing him the way. In the meantime the

boy, who was exceedingly tired from the journey, had been put to bed.

Two rooms to the left of the parlor had been fitted up for the lady's

use, and great regret was expressed that unfortunately the room on the

right could not at once be added, since it was yet occupied by a

gentleman, who, however, would certainly not stay beyond the next

morning.

An hour later Doctor Birkenhain had driven up before the Kurhaus with

the old servant by his side; he had gone up to the lady in her parlor,

and had been engaged with her in a long conversation, which could not

have been very satisfactory, for Jean, the waiter attached to those

rooms, had seen, when he carried the tea-things into the parlor, that

the lady had been weeping, and was trying to wipe her eyes.

Doctor Birkenhain had, after the conversation was ended, walked up once

more to the bed of the boy, who was fast asleep, had put his hand on

his heart, bent over him, and pressing his ear on the boy's bare

breast, listened attentively for some time. Then he raised himself

again, carefully covered the sleeper, pushed the abundant curly hair

from the fair, pale brow, and turning to the lady with a smile on his

lips which positively lighted up the stern, serious features of the

man, said to her, while she held a light in her hand and looked up to

him with the strained expression of painful uncertainty,

"Calm yourself, madame; I can, of course, not decide positively, but

all that I have seen so far gives me great hope that matters are not

half as bad with our little patient there as my colleagues in Grunwald

seem to have fancied."

A beam of joy lighted up the lady's face, and her large eyes filled

with tears.

Doctor Birkenhain took the light from her hand and escorted her back to

the parlor.

"I shall come again to-morrow morning," he said, taking his hat and

cane; "if it comforts you, you can let old Baumann sit up with the boy.

But you yourself must go to bed early, and take one of these powders.

You are very much exhausted and require rest."

"Stay another moment, doctor!" said the lady. "I have one more question

to ask."

Her features betrayed great emotion, her bosom rose and sank with

agitation; she seemed to be about to give utterance to a thought which

she was unable from great fear to clothe in words.

Doctor Birkenhain laid dawn again his hat and cane.

"Sit down, madame, I pray you!" he said, sitting down by her side on

the sofa. "I know what you are about to ask. I have read the question

all this evening in your anxious eyes and upon your trembling lips. You

do not believe in the disease of the heart, of which the physicians at

Grunwald have said so much; if you did you would not have come to me,

however kindly you may think of my modest knowledge and my experience.

You fear the evil is more serious--in fact, that it is a hereditary

disease, the first germ, the beginning, of an affection which has

already once been so fatal for you. Am I right?"

The lady's answer was a flood of tears, which broke irresistibly from

her eyes, like a long pent-up torrent. Sobbing, she pressed her

handkerchief to her face.

"My dear madame," said the physician, taking her hand in his, "I pray

you, I implore you, calm yourself. As far as I can judge from the

written reports of my colleagues, from your own account, and from my

observation, there is not the slightest ground for your terrible

apprehension. Insanity is hereditary, to be sure; it descends through

many generations, turning up here and there, often after a long

interval; but in your husband's family his own case is the very first

in the whole history of his family, and consequently for many hundred

years. And this exceptional case had its own peculiar and very sad

causes, which could affect only the individual, and could not possibly

have any effect upon his descendants. Herr von Berkow was naturally in

the enjoyment of very good health, perhaps even superior in his

physique to most men; but remember, I pray that it is a physician who

is speaking now--he had ruined this powerful constitution by

dissipation. That which often saves others in his position--the

marriage with a chaste, pure being--became in his case his ruin, for he

felt his own unworthiness--felt it so deeply that he despaired of ever

winning your love or attaining your forgiveness, and therefore

abandoned himself hopelessly to that melancholy in which he quickly

lost all pleasure in life and all energy of mind. The sins of the

father will not be visited on the next generation. If there should

really be an affection of the heart, it has as yet made very little

progress and can easily be cured, with the aid of Julius's youth and

excellent constitution. Therefore I pray you, madame, lay aside all

your anxiety; confide in me; confide in your good fortune; the clouds

that are hiding your star for a moment will soon disappear."

"My star?" asked the lady, with a melancholy smile; "my star? Why,

doctor, I fear, if there ever was such a one, it has set long since and

forever."

"That we shall see," said Doctor Birkenhain, rising. "I believe in

favorable stars, and above all in your good star. One so fair and so

dear and so good as you are must not and shall not be unhappy! Good

night!"

Doctor Birkenhain took the lady's hand, raised it reverently to his

lips, and left the room.

She remained sitting after the physician had left her, resting her head

in her hand, and sunk in deep meditation.

As in a dream, all the scenes of her life passed before her mind's eye.

She saw herself a rosy-cheeked, wild child, playing in her father's

park with a solemn, awkward boy, whom she at times loved dearly and

then again hated bitterly; who, now haughty and imperious, resisted her

caprices, and then, when she was kinder to him, spared no trouble and

feared no danger in order to fulfil her childish wishes. She saw

herself, a few years later, in company with the same boy and a few

other boys and girls, perform very complicated steps in the large room

of her father's chateau, while a poor man accompanied them with the

violin, and the grown people, men and women, expressed their delight

and overwhelmed the little coquette with praises and caresses; and she

saw the boy, whose awkwardness she had ridiculed and derided in her

exuberance of spirits, sit in a distant corner and weep bitterly. She

saw herself again, a few years later, in the fresh brightness of a

beauty of sixteen years, courted and admired on all sides,

thoughtlessly sipping the sweet, precious beverage from the

rose-crowned cup of life with eager thirst; flitting from pleasure to

pleasure, as a light-winged butterfly flits from flower to flower, and

yet feeling, amid all these blissful enjoyments, in her heart's deepest

depth, a continuous restlessness, which made the golden Present appear

gray and colorless in comparison with the bright-colored, glorious

Future, which was to fulfil all her plans and all her hopes. She had

lost sight of the solemn, awkward boy in those days. What could he have

done in the midst of this fairy world, full of brightness and

fragrance, in which nightingales sang, and all were playful and happy.

But the Future had become the Present, and nothing had been fulfilled

of all her promises; a poisonous dew had fallen upon her bright

flowers, and had robbed them of their beauty and their fragrance; the

nightingales had ceased to sing, and the whole spring landscape was

concealed under a gray, dismal veil--a veil through which now and then

fearful scenes became visible--a father kneeling before his daughter

and beseeching her by his gray head, which he must bury in dishonor if

she did not comply with his wishes to marry a man whom she does not

love, and against whom an instinctive feeling warns the pure, innocent

maid; a husband who--away, away with these fearful visions, which make

the unfortunate woman hide her face with shuddering, even now, after an

interval of so many years. And then she sees once more the form of the

solemn, stubborn boy in the shape of a haughty, cold man, who yet,

whenever he meets her, changes his haughtiness into humility, and his

coldness into unspeakable kindness and love; who assists her with

counsel, comfort, and help; who turns aside whatever harm he can avert,

and helps her bear it where he cannot prevent it; who ever tries to

take everything upon his own shoulders. And now the thought occurs to

her, more and more frequently, that, after all, this man is probably

worth more than all her fantastic dreams; but as yet she cannot, by any

effort of her own, abandon all the ideals that once filled her youthful

heart. She treats the man as she has treated the boy; she sends him on

his travels as she used to send him in the garden, when he was not

willing to fall in with her caprices.

And now come peaceful visions of years spent in the green solitude of

her estate, and among them continually re-appearing the forms of a

fair, delicate boy and an old gray-bearded servant in varied and yet

always similar situations--peaceful visions, although a certain

fragrance of melancholy attaches itself to all their bright perfumes,

the effect of unsatisfied longing and vain hopes. She thinks often

enough of the man whom she has sent into exile, but no longer with the

warm heart, which is in truth ashamed of its ingratitude. Some

bitterness has begun to mingle with her feelings towards this man,

since he has dared--it happened during a journey to Italy--to speak

openly of his love for her; since she has rejected him, fancying in her

false logic that she was consistent when she only adhered obstinately

to a caprice; and since he, proud as he was, had at once accepted her

decision, and left the country to travel in Egypt and Nubia. She

imagines even that she has begun to hate the companion of her youthful

years, the faithful friend who has stood by her in every need and

danger; and yet, any one who knows the human heart might have told her

that hatred is only the wild brother of the sweet sister love, and

indifference the only really impenetrable armor for a woman's heart.

And now there appears amid these peaceful scenes the form of a man

whose beauty delights her artistic eye, whose gentle kindness lingers

around her like the breath of spring, whose longing finds in her own

heart, full of vague yearning, an eloquent echo--of a man who in

everything seems to be the realization of all her dreams. And as in a

dream she accepts his love, returns it with thousand-fold fire; she

will not see the danger, she will not wake, she insists upon being

happy once in her life. But morning breaks; it becomes impossible to

keep her eyes closed any longer, and to retain the visions of her

dream. Her friend has returned, contrary to all expectations, and

appears before her, warning her, and the very next hour his prophecy

has become true. Blow upon blow, misfortune falls upon her. Did he

dream of it, when it drove him from the ruins of Karnak to his home in

the far North? The news of the approaching death of the man whose name

she bears summons her away from the arms of him whom she loves; she

hastens to fulfil a duty which is all the more sacred to her because of

the blissful happiness that she has enjoyed during the last weeks; and

she returns, her heart full of sweet hopes, and at the same time full

of painful anticipations, and she hears and sees that the man to whom

she has abandoned herself with boundless love has betrayed her. And, as

if that was not enough punishment for her short, secret happiness, her

only child--that beautiful, lovely boy, who was her delight and her

pride--is taken down with a disease which appears to her the beginning

of an affection such as she has just seen end in the most fearful

manner in the father of that child.

But this second blow is perhaps a blessing in disguise. It stuns her so

that she scarcely feels the wound in her heart. The love of the woman

is swallowed up in the love of the mother. She watches day and night by

the bedside of the boy; she has eyes and ears only for his wants and

his wishes; and as soon as he recovers slightly, she takes a journey to

the man in whose experience she has unbounded confidence, and from

whose lips she means to hear the sentence, the decision of life or

death--no! a thousand times worse than death itself! And he has spoken;

he has left her some hope; he has even encouraged her to hope--her boy

is going to live; he will recover; the sins of the father are not to be

visited on the next generation.

And now that her soul has been relieved of the fearful burden--now she

thinks for the first time again of her betrayed love.

Was not this betrayal a just punishment for having cared so much for

her own happiness, and so little for that of the boy? For having

committed treason against her own child; for was not the love for a man

who filled her whole heart treason against her child?

Here, in this very room, she had during the past summer dreamt so often

of a future which was to be realized in such a sad present, and now the

current of life had floated her back to the same place, almost into the

same situation! Was it not as if Fate wished to give her time to

consider before she acted--before she laid her own happiness, and that

of her child, into hands which were far too feeble to defend such a

treasure successfully?

Here, in this very room, her friend had warned her against these hands

that were grasping with childish eagerness at everything that was great

and beautiful, in order to cast it aside again in childish caprice, as

if it were worth little. Here, in this very room, he had prophesied to

her things which had since come true, word by word.

Here, in this very room, he had spoken to her thus: "And when you lie

crushed by this blow, and wish to die, and yet cannot die; then you

will be able to feel what anguish a heart suffers when it sees its love

betrayed and despised; then you will make me amends in your heart, and

be sorry for the wrong you have done me."

Where was he now? this faithful, noble friend, who--she had often felt

it, though never so deeply as at this moment--was wasting his proud

strength for her sake in idleness or senseless adventures, as a tree

whose heart has been taken out breaks forth in abundant branches and

leaves, but never bears fruit again? Once more he was wandering

restlessly, like the wandering Jew, through the wide, desert world.

And, as if he should never call anything his own, the child whom he had

loved before he knew her to be his child, had vanished again like a

short, fair dream. He had let her go, because his sense of justice told

him that he had no claim upon this child, for whom he had done nothing

but to call it into existence. Was it really to be his fate to sow love

and reap indifference?

No! no! not indifference; although it might not be love such as he

felt, and such as he wished for, but certainly not indifference! Did

she not feel hearty friendship, deep, sincere regard for him? Would she

not have sacrificed whole years of her existence, if by so doing she

could have restored his child to him?

Where was he now? She had become so accustomed to seeing him by her

side, whenever the dark hours of her life were coming, that she missed

him sadly now, when he was for the first time absent. And yet, what

right had she to a love which she had refused a hundred times, and

which she had so grievously insulted by her love for another man?

The fair lady had been so lost in such thoughts that she did not hear a

gentle knock at the door. The door opened, and an old, gray-bearded

face peeped in. Behind the grim, bearded face the form of a tall man

was visible.

"Madame," said the moustache, "a good friend who has just arrived

wishes to present his respects, if possible yet, this evening."

"Who is it?" asked the lady, rising with surprise from her seat.

The tall gentleman entered.

"Oldenburg!" cried the lady; "Oldenburg! Is it really you?"

"Yes, Melitta!" said the baron, seizing the proffered hand of the lady

and carrying it to his lips. "It is I, in person."

The old man had remained where he stood, rubbing his hands and looking

at the two, as they were shaking hands, with an eye full of hope and

apprehension. When he saw the unmistakable expression of joyful

surprise upon the fair face of his beloved mistress, and the tear which

glistened in her eye as the baron bent over her hand, his own eyes

slowly filled with tears. He left the room with noiseless steps, closed

the door very gently, and one who could have observed the old man

afterwards--but there was no one there to see him--would have seen how

he folded his hands, when he was outside, and murmured an ardent prayer

with trembling lips, in his gray beard--a prayer which thanked God for

this meeting between his mistress and the only man whom he thought

worthy of her, and implored Him to turn everything, oh everything, to

the best, in this the eleventh hour, by His infinite mercy and

kindness.

* * * * *

When old Baumann had left the room, the baron had, according to

his old habit, walked silently up and down the room with long

strides, to overcome a feeling which threatened to get the better of

his self-control. Melitta had seated herself on the sofa, since her own

excitement, which was probably not less strong than Oldenburg's had

deprived her of the power of standing.

After a few minutes the baron came and took his seat by her side on the

sofa, and said with a soft voice, which did not show the slightest

trace of the vehemence of his rough manner,

"And you do not ask, Melitta, what has brought me here through night

and storm, across these mountains, to this village and this room?"

"No!" replied Melitta, looking full and clear into his eyes; "no! for I

know it without asking."

"I thank you, Melitta!"

This was all he answered; but the whole heart of the man was in these

few words.

"Yes, and even more than that," continued Melitta. "I was but just

thinking of you--of the faithful friend who has as yet always stood by

me in the hour of misfortune, aiding me by counsel and deed, however I

may have rejected his advice and rewarded the sacrifices he has made

for my sake with bitter ingratitude.

"Sacrifices--ingratitude!" said Oldenburg, and a melancholy smile

played around his lips; "those are words, Melitta, which have no

meaning for us--I mean for myself. At least they have none now,

whatever else I may have thought of them in former years. In the end

everybody submits to his fate; and when the captured lion has come to

an end with his despair, and sees that his strength can do nothing

against the iron bars of his cage, he lies down in the corner and is

for the future as gentle as a lamb. But no more of that; I did not come

here to plead for myself, and to renew a suit which has already been

lost in all the stages of appeal; I did not come for my sake, but for

yours. I was told in Grunwald, where I was on business, that Julius had

been attacked by serious sickness, and that you had gone with him to

Fichtenau. I feared the worst, and followed you at once, travelling day

and night, in order to help you as far as I could. Fortunately our

apprehensions were unfounded. I have spoken with Birkenhain downstairs,

after he left you. He has completely reassured me, and thinks you can

go back as soon as you feel strong enough. That is all I wished to

know; and now, when the purpose of my journey is fulfilled, and I have

been able by a lucky accident, thanks to the gods, to see you and to

hold your dear hand in mine--God bless you, Melitta! and may

misfortune--for good fortune has nothing to do with us--not make us

meet soon again."

The baron said these last words with a smiling air, but in his voice

there was a secret pain, the pain of a noble heart full of love, which

finds no home in all this wide, rich world.

He had taken Melitta's hand in bidding her farewell, and was about to

rise; but he could not do it, for the hand so dear to him not only

returned warmly the pressure of his--he felt, at least he thought he

felt, that Melitta would not let him leave her, that she would be

pleased to see him stay.

This was something so new to him that he looked at her, wondering

whether it were really possible--whether his presence was for once no

punishment to her.

"You must not go yet," said Melitta, with some precipitancy, while a

passing flush colored her pale cheeks for a moment. "I cannot bear to

see that, while all the world praises my kindness and every beggar

leaves me contented, you alone should look upon me as upon a statue,

which never gives and always takes without ever saying Thank you! You

have not told me a word yet about yourself; not a word how and where

you have been all this time. You come from a distance of several

thousand miles to look at my Julius, and you mean to go again before I

have even been able to ask you if you have had any news of your Czika?

Is that generous? Why, it is not even right in you."

The baron looked at Melitta as she said this, almost frightened.

"Melitta," he answered, so seriously as to be almost solemn; "it is not

right to awaken the desire to live, in a man who is sick unto death. Do

not spoil me, from pure pity, with a kindness which does not come from

the heart!"

"Not from the heart!" repeated Melitta in a low voice. "To be sure I

have deserved that reproach; I ought not to complain."

"I did not mean to reproach you, Melitta."

"And yet I deserve it. Yes, Oldenburg, I must tell you, or it will

oppress my heart beyond endurance. I feel deeply ashamed before you.

The burden of gratitude which you impose upon me weighs me down."

"A burden, Melitta! A burden! By God, I did not wish to lay any burden

upon you by the few services I have been able to render you."

"You will not believe me. I cannot measure and weigh my words as you

do. If there is no voice in your heart speaking for me--if you are not

willing to listen to me with your heart, then----"

Her voice was drowned in tears.

"What is this?" said Oldenburg, seizing his head with both his hands.

"Am I dreaming? Is this my head? Are these my hands? Am I Oldenburg?

Are you Melitta? You, who are shedding tears, because I, Oldenburg, do

not understand you, or will not understand you?"

"You shall understand me," said Melitta, drying her tears, with an

impetuosity very unusual in her. "You have seen me so often weak and

irresolute in our intercourse, that you do not think me any longer

capable of forming a resolution. And yet I have the strength to do so;

and that I have it, I owe to you, Adalbert. During the sickness of my

child you have spoken to me, and I have not closed my heart to your

voice. I have heard it very distinctly during the long, anxious night

hours which I spent watching and weeping by the bedside of my child.

Then I have asked my child's pardon with silent, burning tears, that I

could ever forget being a mother. Then I have vowed to myself that I

would never, never forget it again. Then I have----"

She was silent; burning shame flooded her cheeks with deep glowing

blushes; but she made a great effort and said,

"Then I have abjured a passion which humiliates me in my own eyes, in

my child's eyes, and, Adalbert, in yours."

"Stop, Melitta! stop!" cried Oldenburg, rising suddenly. "You are

beside yourself! You are not alone! You are in the presence of another

person--of a man who loves you, Melitta. He does not want to hear what

you ought to say to no one but to yourself."

"Let me finish, Adalbert! I trust in your goodness, as I trust in your

strength. I have not told you all yet; not even all the vows I have

made by the bedside of my sick child. I have often thought of your

child, then, and that a most terrible fate has robbed you of the love

of your child as well as of the love of her whom you love. And then I

vowed that, if I cannot make you as happy as you deserve to be; if

much, far too much, has happened which parts you and me forever; I can

yet help you bear your fate, as far as in me lies. I will try to

reconcile you to life, and live for you as far as I am able."

Melitta had, while she said these words, risen from the sofa. She stood

before him with deep-red cheeks and beaming eyes.

Oldenburg had heard her with breathless excitement, with an emotion

which grew stronger and deeper with every word. His eyes flashed, his

bosom heaved, he pressed his hands upon his heart, which felt as if it

would burst with unspeakable bliss.

When Melitta's last word had dropped from her lips he approached her,

knelt down before her, and said, with a voice deep and firm, like the

sound of an iron shield,

"And now hear my vow, Melitta! As surely as I have loved you ever since

I can think, as surely as the night of my life has been lighted up but

by a single star, as surely as I have wandered about restlessly and

aimlessly in the vast desert of life, only because I despaired that

that star could ever shine down upon me benignly--so surely will I,

from this moment, strive to attain the highest aim of man with all the

power I may possess. I will lay aside all little weaknesses and all my

cowardice; I will try to make up for the time which I have lost in

inactivity. And as sure as my heart is at this moment overflowing with

a happiness which words cannot describe, so surely will I seek neither

rest nor repose till you love me as I love you--till you are mine. Do

you near, Melitta--till you are my wife!"

He had risen, too.

"And now, Melitta," he cried, and his words sounded like shouts of joy,

"farewell! I cannot bear it any longer under this roof; the whole, wide

world has become too narrow for me. Farewell! farewell! till we meet

again!"

He embraced Melitta impetuously, and kissed her on her brow. Then he

hastily left the room.

Melitta had remained standing in the middle of the room, as if she were

petrified. She had not had the strength to keep Oldenburg back, nor to

return his farewell. She placed her hand upon her beating temples.

"What have I done? What have I said?" she asked herself. And the voice

of her heart answered: "Nothing you need be ashamed of, before yourself

or before your child."

She hastened into the adjoining room. She bent over the sleeping boy;

she kissed him amid burning tears.

Then she heard the rolling of a carriage, which rapidly drove away from

the door of the hotel.

"That is he!" she said, listening; and then, pressing her face in the

cushions, "Farewell! farewell! till we meet again!"

CHAPTER X.

While this interview between Melitta and Oldenburg was taking place at

the Kurhaus, and, as by the blow of a charmed wand, the barriers fell

which had seemed to be destined to part two good hearts forever, there

had been sitting in the room on the right hand--which "was occupied by

a traveller who would surely not stay beyond the next morning"--this

very traveller quite near the door which led from one room to the

other, supporting his feverish head with his hands, and suffering in

his lacerated heart unspeakable anguish.

Oswald had returned, on his way from the asylum, along the river,

almost as in a dream; for when he left Berger at the gate of the

institution, the parting with him and the last terrible words of the

unfortunate man had quite overwhelmed him, and kept him from every

effort of thinking calmly.

His brains and his heart were a perfect chaos, filled with all that he

had heard and seen since his arrival in Fichtenau on the preceding

evening--with all the impressions which he had so suddenly received,

all the thoughts that had been stirred up, all the passions that had

been unchained. He had a dim presentiment that such a state of mind

must in the end lead to insanity, if it were not already itself a kind

of insanity.

Ought he not to turn back and knock at the gate behind which Berger had

disappeared? Was not that house, with its high prison-walls, the best

refuge for hearts that were as weary of the world as his was? Or still

better, ought he not to throw himself over the railing into the river

below, where it rushed, deep and silent, between the steep, high banks,

gliding noiselessly along like a serpent? Would he not be sure thus to

cool his heated brow forever, and to silence the hammering pulsations

in his temples for all eternity? How could he hope ever to find an

issue into rosy light from a labyrinth in which so noble, so lofty a

mind as Berger's had lost its way irretrievably? Was not Berger far

superior to him in strength of mind, as well as in nobility of soul?

And yet, and yet--"that I may fully measure the depth of this

wretchedness, that I may touch with my own hands the incredible," the

poor man had said, when he fell into the arms of the rope-dancer. Was

that, then, the last conclusion of wisdom? The high-minded idealist saw

himself excelled by the rude slave of sensuality in courage of life and

joyousness of life! The pupil of Plato acknowledged a drunken clown as

his master! The man who, like the youth of Sais, had striven all his

life only after truth, fraternized with a coarse story-teller, a

charlatan, who defied all rules, of probability even, and lived merrily

and cheerfully on the credulity of others, as the swallow lives on

midges. As old Lear in the tempestuous night on the heath tears the

royal mantle from his shoulders, so as to have no advantage over poor

Tom, the "poor bare-backed animal, whose belly cries for two red

herrings," so Berger also had laid aside the philosopher's cloak, that

did not warm him half as well as the rope-dancer's bare vulgarity.

Berger had learnt from this man that only he can hope to enjoy real

happiness who gives up all pretentions to wealth, to honor, and

splendor, and who sees neither a punishment nor a disgrace in the

contempt of the world. Did those men of olden times think differently

about it who fed on locusts, and exposed their bodies to the heat of

the sun and the chill of rains--Indian penitents. Christian anchorites,

Flagellants, pillar-saints, and ascetics of every kind? Is asceticism

not the consistent pursuit of holiness? Is not contempt of the world,

and of one's self, the consistent effect of asceticism? Can we

reach the Holiest of Holies--the blissful original state, the sweet

Nirvana--unless we first annihilate ourselves, as far as it can be done

in life? And is such annihilation possible as long as we continually

cling to life and to all that makes life dear to us? Is it an accident

that saints appear odd in the eyes of the multitude, and the company of

publicans and sinners is the best in the eyes of holy men? Yes, indeed!

Berger and Schmenckel, arm in arm! Was that the solution of the great

mystery, the squaring of the circle?

Oswald could not get rid of the picture, and the terrible impression it

had made upon him at last brought him back to calmer views. His sense,

of the beautiful was shocked by the abhorrent garb which that ascetic

wisdom had adopted. He agreed with all his heart to join the order of

the threefold contempt, but he could not be reconciled to the costume

of the order. He thought of himself in the dress in which he had seen

Berger--a blue, faded blouse, a coarse slouched hat, a stick cut from a

thorn-bush--and he shuddered all over. He thought of Doctor Braun, and

what he would have said if he had met him in company with Berger--he

who gainfully fastidious about his appearance, and considered it a

fundamental principle, that if we wished to remain physically and

psychically healthy, we must be careful not to come in contact with

bodily or mental uncleanliness. Despise the world!--why not? Despise

one's self! I have done that often enough; and, alas, generally for

very good reasons. But despise being despised! Never!--rather

die!--rather, a thousand times.

And why die? Why not rather live? Is life so very contemptible? Have I

not found in Braun a friend of whom I have every reason to be proud?

Might I not succeed in finding my way out of this labyrinth, if I had

such a friend by my side? May not much come right again, even if

everything does not turn out well? Suppose I were to make up my mind to

abandon this striving after exalted ideals which threaten to ruin my

mind? If I were to turn back, even at this the eleventh hour, from the

way which leads in the end to Doctor Birkenhain's insane asylum? If I

were this very night to leave Fichtenau, where the air is filled with

ill luck for me, as Doctor Braun anticipated.

Oswald was standing before the Kurhaus. A carriage which had just

arrived was waiting at the door. In the dining-room, at the end of the

long table, two gentlemen were sitting in close conversation. He

thought one of them was Doctor Birkenhain. He did not desire in the

least to meet the physician, whose wishes with regard to Berger he had

so lamentably failed to fulful. He would drop him a few lines before

leaving, and excuse himself on the score of pressing business and

Berger's express desire, for his failure to say good-by in person.

He went to his room and rang the bell.

"Is there any mail leaving to-night?"

"In half-an-hour, sir."

"I shall leave by the mail, then. Secure me a seat in the coach, and

bring the bill," said Oswald, already busy packing his things.

"Yes, sir, directly."

"Yes! yes! I must leave here," murmured Oswald, passionately,

strengthening himself more and more in his resolution. "Away from here

before more ill luck befalls me!"

"The bill, sir!" said the waiter, coming back again. "Much obliged to

you, sir. Need not be in such a hurry, sir; you have twenty-five

minutes left; the office is close by here. Thought you would stay over

night, sir. Might have given this room to a lady, sir, if we had known,

who has just arrived; she has taken the parlor next door, and two rooms

on the other side. We had to give her those rooms, although they are

not good enough for such a grand and beautiful lady."

The waiter uttered these words in a whisper, which made it clear that

the doors of the Kurhaus were not exactly impenetrable to sound.

"Who is the lady?" asked Oswald, locking his trunk.

"A Frau von Berkow; old customer of ours. Told you this morning about

her, sir. Will send the porter directly to carry your trunk to the

office. Anything else, sir?"

The waiter left the room, waving his napkin in a most graceful manner.

Oswald rose. His face was deadly pale. He had to support himself on the

table; his limbs trembled.

Had he heard right? Melitta here? In this house? Next door? How did she

get here? What did she come for? To this place, which had such mournful

associations for her? Was it an accident? Was it purpose? Could she

have come for his sake? Could she have found out the purpose of his

journey? Was she looking for him? Had she failed to receive the letter

which he wrote to her after Bruno's death, and an hour before his duel

with Felix--that letter in which he told her with unfeeling cruelty,

though he thought it heroism then, that "his heart was no longer

exclusively hers, that he did not intend to deceive her and himself,

and that he was bidding her--and perhaps life itself--an eternal

adieu?" Or had she received it, and read it with the incredulity of a

loving heart, which does not comprehend faithlessness, because it knows

itself no other love but true love? Had she come to tell him that she

had forgiven him?--that she was still his Melitta? If he were to hasten

to her and to fall at her feet, would she raise the repentant lover and

tell him that all was forgiven and forgotten?--that she had never

ceased to love him?

He listened to hear if anything was stirring in the adjoining room. He

heard nothing--nothing but the beating of his violently-agitated heart.

She was alone. She waited for his coming. Were the blissful days of

Berkow really to return once more? Was really everything to end well,

after all?

He listened. A door opened.

Probably a waiter, who has executed an order.

A deep male voice. The soft notes of a woman's voice.

The soft voice was Melitta's! But the other?

He listened. The voices rose, became more distinct.

A convulsive spasm flew across the features of the listener; a hoarse,

unpleasant laugh broke from his lips. The man who was speaking so

warmly to Melitta was Baron Oldenburg.

The sofa on which the two speakers were sitting, stood close against

the door which led from one room to the other. Oswald could not hear

everything they said, but why was that necessary? The meeting of the

two in this remote little town, which had already once before been the

scene of their stealthy rendezvous, spoke eloquently enough. He had

been right, after all! The two had after all but made a fool of him! He

had done Melitta no wrong which she had not inflicted on him also. They

were quits.

A knock at the door.

The porter came to carry the gentleman's trunk to the office.

"It is high time, sir. The postilion has blown his horn twice."

Oswald followed the man mechanically down the long passages, out of the

house, across the dark street to the coach.

A minute later and the heavy coach was rumbling over the pavement. The

postilion played a merry melody in the silent night-air, and Oswald

furnished a text to the air: to despise one's self, despise the world,

despise being despised.

CHAPTER XI.

It was an early hour of a murky day in autumn. Fogs were brewing in the

mountains around Fichtenau, and hung so low that the traveller on the

high road, which makes a steep ascent close behind the village and

loses itself in thick woods, could scarcely distinguish the pine-trees

on the edge of the forest.

By the wayside, at a place where two roads crossed each other, sat

Xenobia and Czika. Their faithful companion in all their wanderings,

the little donkey, with the red feathers on his head and the scarlet

saddle-cloth on his back, was grazing peacefully in the ditch on the

short, ill-flavored grass. He did not seem to relish it much; he shook

his head indignantly, as if he wanted to say: I am frugal, but

everything has its limits.

Nor did the gypsy woman and her child seem to enjoy the weather any

more. They sat there, each wrapped in a large coarse shawl, silent and

motionless, like a couple of Egyptian statues. This attitude, natural

as it might be to the woman, had something very uncanny in so young a

child as Czika.

And Xenobia herself was no longer the hearty woman whom Oswald had seen

on that afternoon in October in the forest near Berkow. Was it the

effect of the weather, or was it sickness and sorrow--but her features

had little now of that haughty energy which formerly made them so

remarkable. Her brow was furrowed with small lines; her eyes had sunk

deep into their orbits and did not shine with the same brightness as of

old, as she now glanced in the direction from which her sharp ear heard

the noise of a carriage comings from Fichtenau.

"That is not theirs," she said, letting her head sink again. A few

minutes later a well-closed travelling carriage, drawn by two horses,

appeared rising out of the fog. On the box, by the side of the driver,

sat an old man with a long, silver-gray moustache. He turned round

continually, to cast a look at the inside of the carriage, and to smile

respectfully and yet amicably at the occupants--a lady and a boy.

Thus he had failed to notice the gypsy woman, who had stepped forward

as she saw the great lady in the carriage, and asked for alms. What was

his amazement therefore, when he saw that the lady suddenly called to

him to stop the horses, exhibiting all the signs of extreme

consternation, and that she was standing in the road itself long before

the horses could be checked.

"Isabel, it is you! and the Czika! My God, how fortunate!" cried

Melitta, seizing both hands of the gypsy. "Now I shall not let you go

again. My God, how very fortunate!" and the young lady embraced the

gypsy woman with tears in her eyes.

But the latter freed herself almost violently, and stepping back some

little distance she crossed her arms on her bosom and looked at Melitta

with a suspicious, almost hostile glance.

"Do you not know me, Isabel?" said Melitta; "it is I! Have you

forgotten the days at Berkow five years ago? That is my Julius, there!

And how tall and how beautiful the Czika has grown."

Julius had jumped out of the carriage; old Baumann also had climbed

down from the box.

Melitta hastened up to Czika, embraced the child, and kissed and

caressed her over and over again. The others spoke to Xenobia, who paid

no attention to them, but looked with anxious eyes at Melitta, who now

came back to her, holding Czika by the hand.

"Isabel!" said Melitta, "you must, really you must, give me the little

one. I dare not, I cannot, continue my journey without her."

"Why will you not leave us as we are?" said the gypsy. "You are a great

lady, fit for the house; the gypsy is fit only for the forest. You

would die in the forest; the gypsy would die in the house. I cannot go

with you."

"Then give me the Czika?"

"Will you give me your boy?"

Melitta did not know what to answer. She felt too deeply that the gypsy

woman could not act differently, and that she, in her place, would have

done the same. And yet could she let the two go out again into the wide

world? To see Oldenburg's little daughter, whom he yearned after, whom

he was searching for everywhere, disappear once more, after an accident

such as might never happen again in all her life, had brought her right

in her path--she could not bear the thought, and like a child that

feels how helpless and friendless it is, she broke into tears.

The gypsy woman seemed to be touched. She took Melitta's hand and

kissed it.

"You are very kind, I know," she said; "I know it well. I would rather

give you the Czika than anybody else."

She reflected deeply. Suddenly she took Melitta's hand once more and

led her aside.

"Do you know," she asked, "who Czika's father is?"

"Yes."

"And are you doing what you do for the father's sake, or for your own?"

Melitta's cheeks reddened.

"For the sake of both," she replied, after some hesitation.

"Where are you going to now?"

"Home--to Berkow."

"And are you going to stay there?"

"Yes; at least during the winter."

"Then listen to me. I swear to you by the Great Spirit, I will bring

you the Czika as soon as I feel that I am to be gathered to my fathers.

That may be very soon. More I cannot promise; more I dare not say."

Melitta felt that she must be satisfied with this promise. She knew the

character of the Brown Countess too well not to be aware that if she

had once formed a resolution, all persuasion was in vain. She

re-entered her carriage, therefore, sadly, after having embraced

Xenobia and the child once more, and soon was out of sight.

The rattling of the wheels and the trot of the horses were no longer

heard. The gypsies were still sitting by the wayside.

Another carriage came up in the direction of Fichtenau. One could hear

from afar off the cries of the driver, and the clanking of chains which

formed part of the harness.

A few minutes later the wagon appeared out of the mist. It was a huge

box--a whole house on four wheels, stuffed up to the roof and high

above the roof with chests and boxes, kettle drums and trombones, stage

scenery, poles and ladders, and all kinds of kitchen utensils and stage

property. The four horses who drew this Noah's Ark had hard work of it.

Before the wagon a number of men were walking on foot--Cotterby, the

Egyptian; the artist of the gigantic cask, Mr. Stolsenberg; and the

clown, Pierrot. All these gentlemen wore gay-colored shawls around the

neck, and had short pipes in their mouths. From the open windows of the

ark the crying of children was heard, and the scolding voice of

Mamselle Adele. Behind the wagon followed, apparently in eager

conversation, the director, Mr. Schmenckel (also with a bright shawl

around the neck and a pipe in his mouth), and a man in a blue blouse,

with a heavy stick in his hand, and an old slouched hat on his head.

Director Schmenckel had made his acquaintance a few nights before under

very peculiar circumstances, in the drinking-hall of the Green Hat; he

had met him since very frequently at the same tavern, and found him

quite unexpectedly that morning, ready to join the rope-dancers, just

as they were leaving the village.

When the wagon reached the cross-roads the driver stopped to let the

horses breathe.

The gypsy woman with her child stepped up and was vociferously greeted

by the rope-dancers.

Mr. Schmenckel shook hands with her, and patted the Czika paternally on

her brown cheeks.

"That's right, Xenobia! here you are, back again!" he said. "By the

great dickens, we could not get on at all without you. Good-by,

professor! Thanks for the escort! You must turn back here, or you won't

find the way to Fichtenau."

"I'll go a little further with you," replied the man in the blouse.

"All right!" said Mr. Schmenckel; "the further the better. Such a good

old brick, like yourself, we do not meet with every day. Is all right

in there? Well, go on then!"

The wagon was set in motion. After a few minutes the whole

procession--wagon, horses, and men, had been swallowed up by the thick

gray fog.

CHAPTER XII.

The town of Grunwald played, in days previous to those to which this

story belongs, a far more important part than now. It had been an

honored member of the great Hanse League, and rivalled Hamburg, Bremen,

and Lubeck in wealth and power. Its ships sailed on all the northern

seas, and the Grunwald flag was well known even in the ports of Genoa

and Venice. The citizens were a broad-shouldered, hard-headed race,

strong in their love and their hatred, and thorough in all their ways.

They were justly proud of their liberties and their privileges, and

trusted implicitly in their secure position, amid the ocean and

bottomless swamps, and the high walls and ramparts of the city, but

more fully yet in the sword by their side and the brave heart in their

bosom. Even in the Thirty Years' War, Grunwald still proved its ancient

reputation in fierce battle against the Imperialists, and the

recollection of the glorious deeds of their forefathers survives to

this day in the hearts of the present inhabitants.

They must unfortunately fall back upon past glory, for modern times

have done little for them in this respect. The long and tortuous canals

in the great bay on which the town is situated admit only of small

vessels of light draught, and navigation nowadays cannot well get along

with such ships; trade has, besides, sought other roads and found other

markets, and Grunwald has slowly but steadily sunk from its proud

eminence, till it has fallen at last to the level of a small provincial

town of no account in the great world, as far as political influence

and commercial importance are concerned.

The harbor is filled up now, the ramparts are razed, and the once

enormous walls exist only in fragments, and yet there is a melancholy

sheen of former greatness about the old Hanse town which attracts the

thoughtful traveller, as the mouldy smell of an old parchment charms

the book-worm. In spite of all the efforts made by the last generations

to give the town a sober, trivial appearance, they have after all not

been able to straighten all the crooked narrow streets, and to destroy

all the poetry of many an old house, with its narrow, lofty, and

richly-adorned gable-end. And above the labyrinth of streets, lanes,

and courts, with their half-modern, half-mediaeval character, there

tower still the steeples of glorious churches, which are far too grand

for the reduced proportions of Grunwald. But at night, when they cast

their gigantic shadows far over the town which sleeps beneath them in

the pale moonlight, or in the evening as you approach the harbor from

the open sea, and gray mists rising from the water spread over the

whole a mysterious veil, the illusion is yet strong, and the effect

full of grandeur.

Justice requires, however, to add that Grunwald can be called

insignificant only in comparison with former days of great power and

surpassing splendor. The town is still of vast importance for the whole

province in which it is situated. If her flag no longer waves on every

sea, her port is still continually crowded with schooners and sloops,

and near her wharves many a larger vessel awaits completion on the

stocks. If her walls have been torn to pieces by the artillery of the

Imperialists, and her ramparts have been razed by the French, the town

is still a fortress, whose commandant would not sleep quietly unless he

had received from all the guards and posts the report that all is

quiet. If the town has lost her ancient privileges, and no longer

enjoys as of old perfect freedom and sovereign independence, she has

profited on the other hand largely by becoming an integral part of a

great monarchy. Grunwald has not only a numerous garrison of infantry

and artillery, but is also the seat of the highest court of the

province; and above all, as everybody knows, enjoys a university,

although the light shed by this seat of the muses cannot be said to

penetrate far into distant lands. Grunwald is, moreover, the favorite

residence of the surrounding nobility, which is particularly rich, and

enjoys a very great influence on public life. When the magnificent

crops upon their vast domains have been safely housed, when the trees

in their parks lose their foliage in the autumn winds, and the crows

migrate from the bare woods to the towns, then all the counts and

barons and smaller noblemen also come to Grunwald. From the great

island, which lies right opposite the town, and from the whole

surrounding country, they come in their lumbering state carriages, all

driven four-in-hand, and settle down with children, servants, tutors,

and governesses for the whole winter. They own stately houses all over

the town, which in summer are easily known by their utter silence, the

closed curtains, and the grass growing in idyllic happiness between the

flags of their court-yards--far different from the ordinary houses

inhabited by ordinary people, who have to pay taxes, enjoy no

privileges, and are forced to work summer and winter alike.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is autumn. The fields are bare; from the linden-trees in the

court-yard at Grenwitz the brown leaves are falling in showers. Thick

fogs cover the sea, the high shores of the island with their noble

beech-forests, and the low coast of the continent. The towers of

Grunwald rise out of the mist like giants of former days, and around

the lofty steeples crows and blackbirds are fluttering, having left the

unhospitable forests to move to warm cities.

The sun has set for an hour, and the last blood-red streak, just above

the edge of the sea, has turned pale in the shadow of the heavy,

low-drifting clouds. The streets of the town have grown silent, and the

lamplighter is lighting one after the other the oil lamps, whose dim

light is useful only in making the mist still denser and the darkness

still darker. He has just done with two unusually large and bright

lamps before the entrance-gate to a huge, massive building in one of

the streets that lead down to the harbor. It was the first time this

year--a proof that the great family which has owned this house for many

a generation, and which lives on its estates regularly in summer, and

quite frequently in the winter also, has moved into town on that very

day.

Nevertheless the windows of the mansion which look upon the street are

still dark. They are, to be sure, rarely seen lighted up, only on

solemn occasions, when the family gives one of those stiff evening

parties, to which of course only the nobility and the very highest

officials in the government service are ever invited.

Ordinarily these state apartments remain closed, exactly like the lofty

halls and grand reception-rooms of the hereditary castle in the

country, and the family are content to live in the less gorgeous rooms

which look upon the rear. The modest, exceedingly unpretending taste of

the mistress of the house prefers the latter, all the more as the front

rooms can only be heated at great expense, and the woods of the

Grenwitz estate, as far as entailed, are rented out at the ludicrously

small sum of ten thousand dollars.

In one of these rooms, which was stately enough, sits the Baroness

Grenwitz on a sofa before a round table, on which two wax-candles are

burning brightly. She looks as if the last six weeks had added as many

years to her age. Her forehead has become narrower and more angular,

the dark hair shows here and there a silver thread, her eyes look

larger and more fixed and meaning than ever. Her nephew, Felix, is

lounging in a most comfortable position opposite her, in a large

easy-chair, filled with soft cushions. The young man wears his right

arm in a sling, and the sickly pallor of his face contrasts strangely

with his hair, as carefully parted and curled as ever, and with the

whole toilet, which is as perfect as usual. Between the two stands a

table, covered with letters and papers, all of them written in the same

handsome handwriting. The baroness and Felix seem just to have finished

the perusal of these documents, and to be still too busy with the

thoughts which have been suggested by them, to be able to speak. They

are brooding in silence over the impression produced on each one, while

the monotonous tic-tac of the pendulum of the rococo clock on the

mantel-piece is the only noise heard in the room.

At last the young man breaks the silence.

"The thing looks more serious than either of us thought," he says,

raising himself slightly in his easy-chair, and taking up once more the

paper he had been reading last.

"I still do not believe a word of it," replied the baroness.

"That is saying a good deal, _ma tante_! although you have read the

whole story in black and white."

"In Timm's handwriting! In Timm's handwriting! what must the scamp have

invented and written up!"

"Certainly nothing but what is in the original documents."

"And why does he not send us the originals?"

"But, pardon me, _ma tante_, that is rather a naive question. To

surrender the originals--that is to say, the weapons which he means to

use against us--would be an act of generosity or stupidity such as you

cannot possibly expect from my good friend Timm, who is a very sly fox,

I assure you. He evidently does not fear to be unmasked, but only to be

deceived or over-reached by us, else he would not have made the offer

to submit the original papers in the presence of a third party, an

umpire, to our minute examination. No, no, dear aunt; do not give

yourself up to idle hopes. These letters and papers are really in

existence; you may take poison upon that."

"What do you say?"

"I mean, you may rely on that. I, for my part, am as fully convinced

that this Monsieur Stein is related to the family of Grenwitz as of my

own existence, and therefore I hate the man, as one is apt to hate such

an interloper of a relative, especially if he happens to be a

conceited, vain, puffed-up, impertinent, accursed blackguard, like this

scamp of a good-for-nothing fellow."

This flood of names, little suitable to the place, would under other

circumstances have infallibly brought down upon the ex-lieutenant a

severe reprimand from his highly moral aunt. At this moment, however,

the lady was too busy with other things.

"But nothing has as yet been proved," she said, with obstinate

vehemence, "as long as the identity of that man with the child of that

Marie Montbert has not been fully established by the clearest evidence.

I grant the thing is probable--it may be plausible even; nevertheless

we cannot afford to throw away hundreds of dollars for mere

probabilities or plausibilities."

"Hundreds?" replied Felix, with a contemptuous smile. "You may say

thousands! Timm will not let us slip out of his tight grip so cheaply."

"You cannot be in earnest?" said the baroness, raising her eyebrows,

Juno-fashion. "That man will surely not carry his impudence so far as

that!"

"_Nous verrons!_" replied the dandy, laconically, and fell back into

his easy-chair.

There followed a pause in the conversation of the accomplices, which

Felix improved to subject his fingernails to a minute examination,

while the baroness busied herself in arranging the papers on the table

according to their numbers (for they were all methodically numbered).

"The gentleman keeps us waiting," said the baroness.

"He pretends to be indifferent," replied Felix. "I know him from of

old. Whenever he pretended to be tired, and to wish to go home, we

could be sure that he was determined to break the bank!"

At that moment the servant announced: "Mr. Albert Timm desires to pay

his respects."

"Show him in," said the baroness, raising herself upright, with her

accustomed dignity; but her voice was not as firm as usual.

"For heaven's sake keep your temper, aunt!" said Felix in great haste,

while the servant went to show in Timm. "If the rascal sees that our

pulse goes faster, he'll pull the screws tighter, and----"

"I am perfectly calm," replied the baroness, although the unusual flush

on her cheeks and the quick breathing announced just the contrary.

Half a minute's intense excitement on the part of the persons in the

room and the door opened, admitting Mr. Timm, who walked in rapidly.

His appearance was, aside from a somewhat more carefully chosen costume

of fashionable cut, precisely the same which lingered still in Anna

Maria's recollection from last summer: the same white brow, the same

smoothly-brushed light hair, the same fresh, rosy cheeks, and the same

impertinent smile upon the smooth, handsome face. If the baroness

looked at her favorite, in spite of his unchanged appearance, with very

different eyes now, the fault was evidently her own. Mr. Timm was not

disposed to allow the cold reception to have the slightest influence on

his own warm greetings.

"Good evening, baroness! Good evening, baron!" said Mr. Timm, in his

clear, fresh voice, kissing Anna Maria's right hand, which she granted

him most reluctantly, and heartily shaking Felix's left hand (the other

was in the sling). "Delighted, baroness, to see you look so remarkably

well--so cheerful too; and as for you, baron,--well, I may say,

considering the circumstances, not so bad! Permit me to follow your

example----"

And Mr. Timm moved one of the heavy arm-chairs which were standing

around the table, sat down, and looked at the two with eyes beaming

with insolence and intense delight, as far as one could judge, through

his glasses.

"Mighty comfortable!" he continued, stretching out his legs and patting

the arms of the chair with his hands "And the baron stayed at home!

Must be devilish uncomfortable in the big, damp, old box."

"The baron had to attend to some very important business," said the

baroness, merely to say something.

"Business!" cried Mr. Timm. "How can anybody trouble himself about

business when his business is, like the baron's, not to have any

business at all! Incomprehensible!"

"You ought to be able to comprehend that very well, Timm," said Felix,

with very perceptible irony; "otherwise I should not be able to guess

why you have troubled yourself about a certain business."

"A lawsuit is no business," remarked Timm.

"But it may become one," said Felix.

"For instance, if one borrows money from the Jews, and sues them

afterwards, when they want to be paid, for usury," replied Timm.

This recollection from the early life of Felix was so little to the

taste of the ex-lieutenant that he turned over impatiently in his

chair, and said in an audibly irritated tone:

"I think we had better come to the point."

"With pleasure," said Mr. Timm, drawing up his chair close to the

table, with an expression which by no means belied his words.

"You have been kind enough," began Felix, while the baroness stared

with furrowed brow and downcast eyes into her lap, "to send us, at our

request, copies of certain letters, and so forth, which you say you

have found among the papers of your deceased father."

"You mean, which you have found, baron!"

"Very well, then; which you have found. We can admit that without

committing ourselves, for there is nothing in them all to show how this

fabulous son of my uncle Harald can be helped by your aid--as you are

good enough to state in your letter--to the inheritance he may claim."

"That depends entirely upon the _point de vue_ from which you look at

the matter," replied Mr. Timm.

"And may I beg you will inform us of your own?"

"Why not? It gives me special pleasure to do so. According to my view

the thing is this: I have here a number of documents and papers, which

not only shed a light on the relations once existing between Baron

Harald and Mademoiselle Marie Montbert, but which would also, in the

hands of an able, practical man (such as any good lawyer would

represent), give a certain clue to the subsequent fate of the said

Marie Montbert and of her child; that is to say, of the two persons who

according to the last will of Baron Harald are alone entitled to the

possession of the estates of Stantow and Baerwalde."

"What do you call a certain clue, Mr. Timm?" inquired the baroness.

"A clue that can be established upon evidence, madame. It can be

established that the person to whom I have referred, and in whom I

believe I have discovered by a fortunate combination of very remarkable

and almost miraculous circumstances the heir in question, bears, in the

first place, the same name which Monsieur d'Estein (pray look at letter

No. 25) says he intends to assume after the elopement with Marie

Montbert. In the second place, it can be established that a man called

Stein, and accompanied by a young woman who passed for his wife, and by

a child which passed for his son, settled shortly after Baron Harald's

death in the town of W----."

"How do you know that?" asked Felix.

"I have been myself to W----, and have spoken with the old woman in

whose house Mr. Stein lived from the first to the very last day of his

residence in that town."

"Go on!"

"In the third place, it is established that this Mr. Stein is the same

person who eloped with Marie Montbert from Grenwitz, viz., Monsieur

d'Estein, who alone had a right to help the young lady, and who alone

was obliged to do so."

"Why the same person?"

"Because the man who managed the elopement looked exactly like the man

who a few months afterwards settled in W----."

"That might not be so easy to prove," cried Felix with a smile of

incredulity.

"Easier than you think. I have (quite accidentally) discovered the man

at whose house Monsieur d'Estein, then already under the name of Stein,

stayed a fortnight in order to ascertain the opportunities at Grenwitz,

and who afterwards drove in the night of the elopement the couple in

his carriage from Grenwitz to that very ferry on which you crossed

to-day. This man's name is Clas Wendorf; he lives in Fashwitz, and is

well known to everybody (even to the Rev. Mr. Jager) as a perfectly

trustworthy man. If this man were to be confronted with Mrs. Pahnke in

W----, the identity of the man who eloped with Marie Montbert, viz.,

Monsieur d'Estein, with the French teacher Stein in W----, would be

established beyond all doubt."

The baroness and Felix looked at each other, while Timm was making his

statement, in a manner which betrayed but too clearly the consternation

which the irresistible logic of their enemy produced in their minds.

"You have made good use of the last four weeks," said Felix.

"Perhaps so," said Timm, good-humoredly. "The days are getting to be

short now. Besides, I had to be exceedingly cautious in making my

inquiries, since I had promised you not to let anybody into the secret

until I should have communicated the matter more fully to you, and I

meant to keep my promise. Hereafter, when I can go to work without any

such precautionary measures, and when I can avail myself of all the

assistance which the law affords in such cases, I shall probably be

able to do more in four days than I have now done in as many weeks."

And Mr. Timm rubbed his hands with delight.

"Then you really think of making this ridiculous affair public?" said

Anna Maria, in a tone which she meant to be ironical.

"I do not understand you, madame!" replied Mr. Timm, with an air of

ingenuous simplicity which, in a farce, would have earned him the

applause of all the connoisseurs in the pit.

"I mean: do you really intend, contrary to our wishes and intentions,

to expose to common gossip and the scoff and scorn of vulgar plebeians,

an affair which concerns no one but our own family, and which,

moreover, has been forgotten and buried these many years?"

The applause of the connoisseurs would have become louder and louder,

as they watched the peculiar expression in Mr. Timm's face.

"Contrary to your wishes and intentions ... An affair which concerns no

one but your family ... I really have not the advantage of knowing how

I am to interpret the lady's words. I find it impossible to believe

that a lady who is so universally known for her stern sense of justice

as the Baroness Grenwitz should wish anything different from the last

will of a dying man, when chance or providence brings it about, when,

against all human expectations, that last will can after many years be

fulfilled; I find it impossible to believe that. But what am I saying?

You will laugh at me that I have taken a jest, by which you wished to

ridicule my over-great desire to serve you, for a moment in good

earnest. Do I not know better than anybody else that I have acted

exactly according to your views by preserving all the documents, the

sacred relics of departed friends, like a precious treasure, and by

doing whatever I could do towards securing the property to the rightful

owner? Do I not know that your hesitation, your incredulity, your

mistrust even, are only the result of your apprehension to awaken in

the heart of a fellow-being brilliant expectations, which may not be

realized, for, however improbable, it is not absolutely impossible that

we may be mistaken. Do I not know that all the parties concerned are of

one and the same opinion, and that your husband, whom you have no doubt

promptly informed of all the details, is overjoyous to pay off an old

debt which fortunately is not yet extinguished by limitation?"

The position of a captured she bear, whom the increasing heat of the

bars of her cage forces to rise on her hind legs and to dance as

gracefully as she can, while she would like nothing better than to

break out of her prison and to tear her adversary to pieces, resembles

exactly that of the baroness as she was now sitting opposite to Mr.

Timm. The cruel irony with which Mr. Timm appealed to that sense of

justice and equity of which she had boasted all her life, and of which

she after all had nothing but the outward appearance, seized her like a

hot iron. Her cold, selfish heart boiled over with indignation. Rage

and fury filled her soul. She would have liked to strangle Timm, who

sat smiling before her--to stab him, poison him. And she could do

nothing, nothing, but swallow her wrath, and to say with all the

calmness she might command:

"Mr. Timm, you do not look upon the matter exactly as we do; and it is,

of course, quite natural that you, who are standing outside, should

also see nothing of it but the outside. Unfortunately I am too tired

to-night to explain to you my own views of the affair. I have requested

my nephew, Felix, to do it in my place, and I beg you, therefore, to

look upon anything he may tell you as if it were coming from myself. I

am fully persuaded that you will find no difficulty in choosing between

the good will of the family of Grenwitz and the friendship of a

nameless adventurer. Good-by, Mr. Timm!"

"Regret infinitely not to be able to have the pleasure of seeing you

any longer, baroness," said Mr. Timm, accompanying the baroness to the

door; "hope it is nothing but a passing indisposition, which will soon

disappear after a good night's rest. Hope you will rest well, madame!"

And Mr. Timm closed the door after the baroness, came back, sat down in

his easy-chair opposite to Felix, put his hands on his knees, and said,

in a dry, short manner, which contrasted very strangely with the smooth

kindness of his language so far:

"_Eh bien!_"

No answer came for some little time. The two men looked for a few

seconds at each other with sharp, suspicious glances, like two

combatants who try to find out their weak points--like two tricky

gamesters, each one of whom knows how carefully he must watch the hand

of the other, and who yet is not quite sure that he will not be duped.

They both remembered, moreover, that there was an old account to settle

between them, which dated back from the time when Ensign Baron Grenwitz

had treacherously abandoned Ensign Albert Timm in order to save himself

(it was a matter, of security on a bill), and Felix knew perfectly well

that Albert was one of those men who, whenever they can get the law or

the right of the stronger on their side, insist upon being paid by

their debtors to the very last farthing.

He had therefore to summon all his skill and self-control, in order to

overcome an unpleasant sensation which threatened to master him as he

faced his adversary, who was armed _cap-a-pie_ and utterly without

pity. Still he succeeded in assuming a tone of good-natured frankness

(which sat very awkwardly upon him) as he said:

"I think, Timm, we had better treat the whole matter without

reservation or trick, like men who know the world and what they are

about."

"If you know as well what you are about as I do, why, then, the whole

thing is easily settled," replied Albert, dryly.

"Well, tell me then frankly, what do you ask?"

"I am the seller, you are the buyer; it is your duty first to say

distinctly what you wish to buy."

"We want the originals of those papers on the table, and your word of

honor that you will never inform any one, whosoever it be, by writing

or by word of mouth, or in any other way, of the discovery which you

have made."

"_Bon!_ I understand what you want."

"And what do you ask on your side?"

Albert bent over a little, and said in a low but very distinct voice,

with his eyes firmly fixed on his adversary:

"Twenty thousand dollars in Prussian current money, payable between now

and eight days."

"The devil!" cried Felix, jumping up from his chair, in spite of his

feebleness, and running around the room. "Twenty thousand dollars! why,

that is a fortune."

Albert shrugged his shoulders.

"Two years' interest of the sum represented by the two estates of

Stantow and Baerwalde. You must know best, of course, what the legacy

is worth to you."

"But that is atrocious!" cried Felix, still running about in the room;

"atrocious!"

"Don't hollow, Grenwitz; your people might hear you down in the

kitchen. Sit down, if you please, and let us talk the matter over like

men who know the world."

The unconquerable coolness and the cutting irony with which Albert

uttered these words acted like a douche upon Felix's violent agitation.

He sat down, and said, in a calmer tone:

"My aunt will never listen to such a demand."

"I should be sorry, for your sake, and for your aunt's sake, if you

were not to accept my offer. I can only make you both responsible for

the consequences."

"You speak as if it depended on no one but yourself who was to have the

two estates!"

"And on whom else can it depend?" replied Albert, and his lips seemed

to grow thinner, his nose more pointed, and his whole face sharper,

as he spoke: "I tell you, I have made the net so close and so

strong--leaving only a few meshes open on purpose till I should hear

your decision--that I can draw it together at any moment, right over

your head, and you may struggle as you may; it will not break, but you

will die. You know, Grenwitz, that I have rather a good head for such

things, and you know also that I have no cause to show you the shadow

of generosity."

"Me! I have no personal interest whatever in the whole matter."

"Do you think I am a child, Grenwitz? Don't you want to marry Miss

Helen? and are not the two estates to be the dower of the young lady?"

"I marry Helen! Who says so? I don't dream of it."

"Well, then, don't marry her; hand the young beauty over to the man

whom you have more reason to hate than all other men--who is even now

your favored rival--at least evil report has it so--and who will lose

nothing, I am sure, in Miss Helen's eyes, if he can present himself a

second time as her cousin, and the lawful heir of a very considerable

fortune."

Felix had turned alternately white and red as his adversary was

inexorably punishing him with these words. His vanity, deeply wounded

by the allusion to his fatal encounter with Oswald, writhed like a worm

on which somebody has trod. He could not but confess that for the

moment Albert was by far the stronger of the two, and that he, who was

so proud of his cleverness and adroitness, was utterly helpless in the

power of an adversary whom he had in reality always despised.

"Lower your demands a little, Timm," he said, in a subdued voice. "I

must confess it is a matter of the very greatest importance for me to

bury the whole affair in silence, and if it depended on myself alone I

might not be unwilling to pay you the sum which you demand. But you

know my aunt, and you know that she would rather let matters go on to

the last point than to make such an enormous sacrifice. I tell you,

Timm, it can't be done; upon my word, it can't be done. And what do you

want with so much money at once? You will lose it in a few unlucky

nights at roulette, and then you are poorer than you ever were before.

Come, now, I'll make you an offer. We will pay you for one year four

hundred dollars a month, and at the end of the year six thousand

dollars in a lump."

"Altogether ten thousand eight hundred dollars," replied Albert. "Won't

do; and besides, what security can you give me that all the payments

will be made?"

"The documents, which in the mean time you may retain in your

possession and which you are not expected to hand over till the six

thousand dollars are paid."

"Well!" said Albert, "it is not much; but among good friends we ought

not to insist too strictly. I accept."

"Let us make it out in writing."

"Why? If we do not wish to keep our word, we'll break it, anyhow; and

besides, a paper of that kind might, if it should fall into the hands

of the wrong person, commit the family of Grenwitz more seriously than

they would like, and would, after all, but put one more weapon in my

hands. You see I am perfectly candid."

"_Bon!_" said Felix. "Do you want the first four hundred at once?"

"I should think so."

Felix rose, took one of the lights, and went to a bureau which was

standing back in the room, opened a drawer, took a few packages of

bank-notes from it and placed them on the table before Albert.

"Count them!"

"It is not necessary," said Albert, slipping the parcel into his

pocket; "your aunt never makes a mistake in counting. Well, Grenwitz,

that matter is nicely arranged; now let us have a bottle of wine upon

it--I have talked so much I am quite thirsty. If you permit me I will

ring the bell."

"Pray do so!"

Felix ordered the servant who came to bring a bottle of Hock and two

glasses.

Felix was rather pleased to see that Albert was in better humor; he had

another question to ask yet, which no one could answer as well as he

could.

"You have seen, Timm," he said, filling the glasses, "that I have met

you half way, as far as I could. One service is worth another. Will you

do me a favor?"

"Let us hear."

"Then tell me, how is little Marguerite?"

"What interest have you in her?"

"Well, I do have an interest in her."

"And why do you think I know anything about her?"

"Because I have observed you both at Grenwitz, and besides--well, for

divers other reasons."

"For instance?"

"I will be frank with you. From sheer ennui I had begun at Grenwitz

already to pay her some attentions, and afterwards, during my sickness,

I saw still more of the little thing, till it ended in my thinking the

girl really very charming and prodigiously attractive. But she

pretended to be so very reserved that I suspected at once she had a

serious attachment. Now I cannot think of any one else who could have

been in my way but yourself."

"Very complimentary," said Albert. "I am, indeed, as good as engaged to

the young lady."

"But, Timm, are you going to run into your ruin with your eyes open?

You and a wife! and worse than that, a poor wife!--what has become of

your former principles? Upon my word, I should not have thought you

could be so mad."

"Nor I, myself," replied Albert, emptying his glass and filling it

again.

"Are you in love with the girl?"

"There you ask me more than I know myself."

"Look here, Timm, I will make you an offer. We are, it seems, in the

way of speculating. Let me have the girl, and I assume the three

hundred dollars which you have borrowed from the poor little thing."

"Who says so?" said Albert, furiously.

"Your fury just now, for one; besides that, however, little Louisa,

Helen's maid, and my own man's lady love, who happened to see it, when

Marguerite gave you the money in the park at Grenwitz."

"Nonsense!" said Albert, who could not repress his anger at this

inconvenient exposure.

"Don't be angry!" said Felix; "rather be glad that you find somebody

who is willing to relieve you of this troublesome burden. What do you

say?"

"We will talk about that another time," said Albert, rising and taking

his hat. "Farewell, Grenwitz."

"Good-by, Timm! Be reasonable, and come and see your old comrade as

soon as you can."

The worthy pair shook hands, and Albert went away rapidly. His face was

darker than when he came. Either the second part of the conversation

had not been to his taste, or he thought it good policy to assume an

air of being offended. Felix, who knew him pretty well from former

days, was disposed to take the latter view.

CHAPTER XIV.

About the same time, and while these transactions were going on in the

Grenwitz mansion, a young man was impatiently walking up and down in

front of a large house in one of the suburbs of Grunwald. His

impatience looked very much like that of an honest lover who is waiting

on a cool autumn evening in a dense fog for the lady of his heart, whom

he has orders to call for "punctually at seven, but be sure to be

punctual," to see her home from a little party, and whom he sees at

half-past seven sitting near the brightly-lighted-up window, engaged in

most lively conversation. It may be he sees really her whom he loves;

it maybe the shadow belongs to a very different person.

The young man is Doctor Braun; the house before which he patrols,

Leporello-fashion, is the famous boarding-school of Miss Bear; and the

young lady for whom he is waiting is his betrothed Sophie, the only

child of the privy councillor and professor, Doctor Roban, a physician

of great renown in Grunwald, and a distinguished member of the

university.

"What a vague idea of time even the cleverest of women have!" murmured

Franz, pulling out his watch and looking at it by the faint light of a

badly-burning cigar; "it is a psychological fact which I must treat of

one of these days in a monograph."

He throws away the short end of his cigar, which threatened to singe

his moustache, and looks up once more at the lighted window.

"Heaven be thanked, they are getting ready! Dark shadows are flitting

to and fro near the curtains! Now for the cloak, and the bonnet--a kiss

to say good-by then a little bit of a chat of ten minutes about the

next place of meeting--then another farewell kiss. The window is

looking darker; there is a light in the hall; now a final discussion on

the steps--_enfin_!"

"Do you come at last, _ma mignonne_? said Doctor Braun, greeting the

slight maidenly form which had come out of the house, and now hastened

with light steps across the little garden which divided the house from

the street, to the iron gate.

"Poor Franz! You have not been waiting for me," answers the girl,

affectionately leaning on the arm of her betrothed.

"Oh, not at all! Nothing to speak of! Half an hour or so!"

"I really did not know it was so late. The time passed so quickly,

although the whole party consisted only of two persons. Can you guess

who they were?"

"Yourself, probably, for one."

"Very well--and the other?"

"Helen Grenwitz."

"Exactly! She sends you her best regards. Only think, she will probably

stay with the Great Bear, although her friends are coming to town for

the winter, If they have not already come to-day. That will be a fine

subject for gossip. Poor Helen! I pity her with all my heart!"

"Why?"

"How can you ask? Is it not bad enough that the whole town will ask why

a girl of sixteen--no, sixteen and a half--should be sent back to

school when she has hardly been four weeks at home? And as long as the

Grenwitz family was not living in town, there might have been some

explanation; but now--oh, I think it is abominable. People must think

of her--I don't know what; and it is not so much to be wondered at if

they connect Helen in some way or other with the duel fought by her

cousin and your amiable friend, Stein."

"And what says Miss Helen?"

"Nothing! You know how she is. She never speaks of family matters; at

most she occasionally mentions her father, whom she seems to love most

tenderly. She is quiet and serious; but not exactly sad."

"I believe she is much too proud ever to be really sad."

"How so?"

"Sadness is a passive disposition; the disposition of one who sees that

he cannot struggle with fate, and therefore submits to endure it as

well as he can. But there are characters which resist as long as it is

possible, and when nothing more can be done, instead of laying down

their arms, break them to pieces and throw them fiercely at the

victor's feet."

Sophie came up closer to her betrothed and said, after a pause:

"I am not one of those characters, Franz. I am not too proud to be sad;

I have been very often sad these last days. I was sad when you left us

with Doctor Stein, although at that time I had no particular reason for

being so. But since then, when papa was taken sick and I sat by his

bedside, and my greatest anxiety--next to that about papa's life--was

whether you had received my letter ... You might have travelled on and

on, and my heart was all the time breaking with longing for you! You

went to see him, I am sure, before you came to call for me at Miss

Bear's."

"Of course! He is better. I begged him to lie down, but he insisted

upon sitting up till we should come back."

"And I have wasted so much time! Let us go faster!"

"A few minutes, more or less, do not matter; and besides, I should like

to speak with you definitely about our future. We must at last make an

end to this provisional state, which is pleasant to no one--not to

God--I mean Nature--nor to man--and is daily becoming more oppressive.

An unmarried man is a fish; but an engaged man is neither fish nor

flesh. When two people are in their own heart and conscience man and

wife through their mutual love, they ought to be man and wife also in

the world, before men, provided circumstances admit of their marrying.

Now, that is the case with us. We have enough for our support, and for

the present we need no more; whatever else may be necessary will come.

In short, shall we have our wedding day four weeks from to-day?"

"But, Franz, I have not finished half of my trousseau!"

"Then we'll marry with half a trousseau."

"And what will papa say? You know how very hard it is for him to let me

go from him; and shall I just now ask such a sacrifice from him, when

he needs me more than ever? I have not the courage to propose it to

him."

"But I have it; your father knows that I am not less anxious for your

happiness than he is, and he is far too sensible not to see that my

plan is the best. Come, my darling, don't hang your head. To-day four

weeks we are man and wife."

"Ah, Franz! I wish it could be so. But I fear, I fear, Heaven does not

mean it so well with us!"

"Why not? Heaven means it well with all who have the courage to

determine upon their own happiness. For, how says the poet: 'In our

bosom are the stars of our fate.'"

The haste with which Franz pressed her had a very good motive

in the illness of her father. Franz, as a physician, knew best that

the life of the excellent man was hanging on a very slender thread. He

had rallied quickly enough from a stroke of apoplexy, which had

attacked him a fortnight ago, but several bad symptoms announced that

another attack was not improbable, and with his nervous, very

delicately-organized system, this was likely to be fatal. But if the

father died before his daughter had been married, the poor girl would

have been placed in a very painful position, as her mother had been

dead for many years, and she had neither brothers and sisters nor any

near relations. The world with its prejudices would have hardly been

willing to admit that under such circumstances her only home should be

in the house of the man whom she loved, but would have been

inconceivably shocked if the daughter had married "before the shoes

were worn out in which she had followed her father's funeral." The

whole city would have broken out in one cry of indignation against such

a fearful crime against decency and propriety.

Sophie loved her father with a love which bordered upon enthusiasm,

little as enthusiasm generally formed a part of her clear and sensible

character, which shrank instinctively from all exaggeration. And the

father was well worthy of such love.

The privy councillor, Roban, was a man of rare distinction in many

respects. As a man of science he stood very high; he was considered the

very first pathologist in Germany. But a remarkable versatility of mind

enabled him to gather, outside of the studies which his profession

required, information upon the most varied fields of knowledge, and to

attain to a high degree of perfection in more than one of the arts. In

the morning he would take his pupils, hour after hour, from bed to bed

in the hospital, and open to them views into the innermost workings of

nature. Then again he would wander for long hours from house to house,

soothing here a sufferer's pains, comforting others, and exhorting them

to patient endurance. And yet in the evening, when a circle of intimate

friends were gathered under his hospitable roof, he would be ready to

take an active part in an animated conversation about art, literature,

or politics, or perhaps take his favorite instrument, the violoncello,

between his knees, and delight even the best cultivated ears by his

correct and yet deeply-felt playing in a quickly-improvised quartette.

Where there are lights there must be shadows, and where there are

shadows there is never a lack of people who take pleasure in painting

everything in the darkest and blackest of colors. Thus it was with the

little foibles of the excellent man, which his rivals and enemies

subjected to pitiless criticism. Some declared he was a charlatan, who

understood his business tolerably well, but the necessary bragging and

boasting about it still better; others declared his bon-mots were

better than his prescriptions, and a good story more welcome to him

than the most famous case in his practice. Still others said that the

essence of his nature was a restless vanity, which induced him to try

all the arts and to play the Maecenas for all travelling artists and

spoilt men of genius. Still others--so-called practical men, who

laid no claim to any opinion in matters of art and science, but who

demanded in return that everybody should comply with their standard of

morality--shook their heads when people spoke of the councillor's

hospitality, and said: "If everybody would sweep the dust before his

own door, many things would be seen that are hidden now; and if certain

folks would remember the old saying: 'Save in time and you'll have in

need,' they would be better off than they were."

Of all these reproaches none really affected the distinguished

professor, except the last. Money was to him what it is to Saladin in

Lessing's great drama, Nathan: "the most trifling of trifles;" he

looked upon it, as Saladin did, as "perfectly superfluous when he had

it," much as he appreciated the necessity of being provided with it

whenever he was reminded of it by his liberality, his generosity, and

his intense antipathy against all bargaining and all haggling. If he

had lived economically he might have become a very rich man, for his

income was considerable; but Mammon would not stay in his hands, which

were ever open to all who were poor and suffering. He never could force

himself to accept money from the hard hand of a mechanic, even if the

sum had been ever so small. "It is bad enough," he used to say, "that

Nature has not wisdom enough to allow only such people to be sick as

have leisure and money enough for it; but for the poor, sickness itself

is a punishment severe enough, not to sentence them moreover into the

payment of costs." Thus it happened to him very often that he poured

the golden reward he had earned by his attention and his skill in the

palace of rich Sinbad a few minutes later into the open hand of poor

Hinbad, and reached home with a lighter purse than he had carried out.

His house also was an expensive one, although the whole family

consisted but of himself and his daughter. A nature as richly endowed

and as productive as his own was not made to be content with meagre

fare and thin beer; he was fond of rich, savory dishes and fiery old

wines; above all he loved to share the pleasures of his table with

others who were as willing to be pleased as he himself with the good

things of this world, and especially with one of the best among the

good--a pleasant table-talk.

All this might have been accomplished without causing a deficit in the

budget of the privy councillor, if a careful, sensible housewife had

managed the whole, and spent what was coming in properly and

economically. His wife, however, an exceedingly amiable, intelligent

woman, died the second year after their marriage; and her husband, who

had loved her above all things, could not summon resolution to fill the

place in his heart which death, inexorable death, had made vacant, and

to give a stepmother to his daughter, in whom he soon concentrated all

his affections. He remembered too well the old saying, _apud novercam

queri_! He had seen the fairy tale of Cinderella repeat itself in too

many families. Thus he left his child in the hands of nurses and

governesses whom he paid magnificently, and sent her, when she was old

enough, to Miss Bear's boarding-school, in case anything should have

been forgotten in her outward polish or her inner culture. In the

meantime he kept a kind of bachelor's hall, which soon became a very

costly life, owing to the thievishness of his servants and the

incapacity of a housekeeper in whom he placed implicit confidence. He

comforted himself, however, whenever Mrs. Bartsch had forced him into a

very uncomfortable discussion about credit and debt, with the prospect

of the time when his daughter could relieve him of all this _misere_,

and of the answer to the question: what shall we have for dinner, etc.,

which ought not to be allowed to trouble a good Christian's peace of

mind.

The time came at last, but Miss Sophie's return to the paternal home

did not exactly mend matters. Sophie was too young and too

inexperienced to see the cause of the evil and to reform the abuses,

which were deeply rooted after so many years' toleration. Mrs. Bartsch,

who could not adapt herself at all to the new regime, was dismissed, it

is true; but--as the doctor said, "the bad one is gone, the bad ones

have stayed"--the servants stole just as before, and the privy

councillor did not know yet "what in all the world could have become of

the miserable money?" As it could not well be otherwise under such

circumstances, the accounts agreed less and less every year, and

instead of saying, "I must learn to be more economical hereafter," he

only said, "I must work harder." He felt himself yet in the full vigor

of his strength. He saw before him yet long years of energetic

activity, during which he might make up what had been so long

neglected.

But it was not to be so, and the beautiful fruit-bearing tree, in whose

broad, hospitable shade so many who suffered from the burning heat of

life sought shelter and refreshment, and found it too, was to be

irreparably injured by a flash of lightning which fell from a clear

sky. Like wildfire the news flew one morning all over town that Privy

Councillor Roban had had a stroke of paralysis over night, and was now

laid up without hope. People told it one to another with grave faces,

and said it would be an irreparable loss to science, especially as far

as the university was concerned, which had had in Roban its only really

great man since Berger had become insane. But of all who suffered by

the loss, the poor were most seriously threatened, since they lost in

the privy councillor their generous friend and protector. For many and

many a day one might have seen old women dragging themselves painfully

along on crutches, men so old and feeble that they had to be led by a

boy, young pale mothers with a baby in their bosom--all sitting on the

steps of the house, bathed in tears, and asking every one who came out

whether things were not going a little better with the privy

councillor, or whether there was really no hope at all that the good

old gentleman would recover?

In the meantime the patient was lying in that terrible state which is

neither night nor day, but a painful twilight, when the sun is about to

set, and the darkness is rising full of threatenings on all sides. For

a long time it remained uncertain whether life or death would be the

end, and when at last the cruel conflict was decided in favor of life,

death only yielded after having marked his victim unmistakably forever.

One might even have said, that he had taken all the reality away with

it, and left only the shadow of existence.

To-day was the first time that the privy councillor had risen for

a few hours; they had rolled him in his large easy-chair from his

bed-chamber, before the fire-place in the sitting-room. He had insisted

upon it that his daughter, who since the beginning of his sickness had

scarcely left his bed, should go out to her little party; and he had

dismissed his son-in-law, who had taken his practice provisionally in

hand and came to see him every evening--for he wished to be alone. He

felt the necessity of availing himself of the first hour in which the

pressure on his brain was less overwhelming, for the purpose of

thinking over his situation. As a physician, he would probably have

warned his patient against such an injurious excitement; but now he was

physician and patient at once, and made the experience in himself that

the physician may very often demand certain things which the patient is

unable to do with the best will in the world.

Poor, unfortunate man; doubly and trebly poor, because you have been

doubly and trebly rich and happy before, in the fulness of your mental

and physical strength, in the elasticity of your sanguine temper, nay

even in the easy humor which bore you like a bird high over the

greatest difficulties! Where is now your restless activity, which

formerly made it impossible for you to sit still in one and the same

place for any length of time, which induced you even at table

frequently to change your place among your guests? Where is your sharp,

penetrating mind, which used to solve the hardest problems as in play?

Where your brilliant fancy, which threw even upon every-day occurrences

a bewitching light? Where, above all, your Olympian cheerfulness, which

made it so easy for you not to be angry or excited, but allowed you to

fight at most with a humorous smile and satirical wit against the

misery and wretchedness of life, against the stupidity and vulgarity of

men? Where are the thousand arguments with which you often nearly

overwhelmed the pessimist views of your friend Berger, when you tried

to persuade him that this earth was by no means a vale of tears from

the rising to the setting of the sun, but a wide, fair landscape, in

which hill and dale, waste deserts and Elysian fields alternated very

wisely, and that in most cases man was not only at liberty but even

commanded to avoid the one and to enjoy the other? Have you all at once

changed your views? Has a brutal blow of fate suddenly reduced you in

the discussion to an _absurdum_? Has the pressure which weighs on your

brain and paralyzes the elasticity of your mind transformed you all of

a sudden from an optimist into a pessimist, so that you see the world

and your own situation in dark colors, as you are counting the beats of

your pulse mechanically, and sit there, rolled in a ball in your

easy-chair, glaring in dull thoughts at the dying embers of the

fire-place?

And indeed there were reasons why it was hard for the privy councillor

to drive away the gray shadowy form of care, as it pressed more and

more closely upon him the darker the room grew. He who had himself

observed so many similar cases, could least of all disguise from

himself how precarious his physical condition was. He knew but too well

that he was doomed to be henceforth a cripple in body and mind, that he

was only a pensioner on life, and that death might come at any moment

to collect the debt which was long since due. And yet, much as he was

attached to life, this was his least sorrow. The physician did not

struggle against omnipotent fate, which had never yet granted him one

of its victims; the pupil of Epicure knew that joy and grief, delight

and suffering, are inseparably interwoven in our life. But what made

his heart particularly heavy, was the thought of his inability to

arrange his circumstances, that he should have to leave life a

bankrupt, and that after all he should have to rob his creditors of

their rights by his death. Had he not always referred them to the

future, and now the future refused to accept the draft; now the

credulous man was to be denied credit at the very bank on whose credit

he had so implicitly relied.

The unfortunate man sighed, hiding his deep-bowed head in his hands.

And his daughter, his darling daughter! Where was now the hope he had

cherished to endow her with a fortune which was forever to free the

spoilt, tender child from all the vulgar cares of life? which was to

afford her the means always to enjoy a comfortable existence such as

alone seemed to be suitable for the character of the young girl? Now he

could not only leave her no fortune--no! but not even an honest,

stainless name!

She had no idea of the painful pecuniary situation of her father. He

never had the courage to trouble her childlike mind with cares which he

tried to keep from himself as long as he could. She took it for granted

that her father was, if not a rich man, at least well-to-do, and that

she could enjoy the simple comforts by which she was surrounded with a

clear conscience.

And was she the only one who labored under this illusion, and whom he

had allowed to remain blind from fear of an explanation? Did not his

friends think the same? Above all, the youngest and dearest of his

friends, the man who had won his daughter's heart, and whom he himself

loved with hearty, paternal love; who deserved such friendship, such

love, by his upright, noble bearing, by his ability and his goodness;

what would he say, what would he do, if he should learn what sooner or

later he would have to learn--nay, what the father of his future wife

was under such circumstances bound to tell him without further delay,

if he did not mean to renounce all claims to be considered an honest

man?

The privy councillor pressed his trembling hands upon his eyes and

groaned loud, like one who is suffering cruel torture.

And suddenly he felt soft arms embracing him, and a girl's voice asked

anxiously: "Papa, dearest papa, you are surely sick again;" and the

kindly, firm voice of a man who had taken his hand to feel the pulse,

and who now said: "You have stayed up too long! we must try and get you

into bed again."

These voices, these words, fell like a mild, refreshing rain falling

upon a sunburnt plant, upon the heart of the poor man, who was so sick

in body and soul. He put his arms around the slender waist of his

daughter and drew her to his heart in a long, silent embrace. He could

have wept, but he was ashamed. Sophie asked again and again if he felt

worse. Franz, who had ordered lights to be brought in, begged more and

more urgently that he should not risk what had been so painfully gained

by sitting up any longer. But the privy councillor would not hear of

going to bed; he said he felt very comfortable in his arm-chair, and

not in the least fatigued. Besides, he had to talk to Franz, and Sophie

might in the meantime attend to the supper.

Franz, whose clear eye had well observed the restlessness, the

excitement of his patient, considered it best to humor him in his

wishes, and gave a nod to his betrothed to leave him alone with her

father. Sophie went out with an anxious, inquiring glance at Franz,

which the latter answered by a reassuring smile.

The door had hardly closed after the slender form of the young girl,

when the privy councillor seized Franz's hand and said, in a voice

which was in vain striving to be firm,

"I have something to tell you, Franz, which I cannot any longer conceal

from you under the circumstances, and, since I may have to meet death

any moment, without acting dishonorably."

"What is it, my dear sir?" asked Franz, moving a chair close to the

privy councillor's seat and taking his hand into his with a gesture of

great kindness.

"It is this!" said the privy councillor--and now he told Franz, that

partly the want of prudent economy and partly the loaning of countless

sums of money to poor and needy people, which were never returned, had

gradually brought him seriously into debt; that he had hoped to work

himself out by means of increased industry in the coming years, but

that now all such hopes were futile, as he felt but too painfully.

The privy councillor paused here, partly because he was too much

exhausted for the time, and partly because he expected an answer from

Franz. But the young man sat there with cast-down eyes, remaining

silent, and the patient continued with a lower and more trembling

voice:

"Pardon me, my dear Franz, that my perhaps criminal selfishness, for

which I hope you may find some excuse, has made me hesitate so long

before making this communication to you. But it is a terrible task to

have to afflict a man whom we love; to have to impoverish a man whom we

would like to load with all the world can give."

He paused, and tried to draw his hands from those of the young man, as

if the revelation he had just made had interrupted and ended their

friendship. But Franz moved nearer to the sufferer and said, looking at

him with his clear, truthful, bright eyes:

"I have let you finish, my dear sir; and now let me have my say.

Suppose a man were to give the friend he loves best an unspeakably

valuable treasure, a treasure which the other values so much that he

could not live without it, and he were then to say to this friend, 'My

dear, while I was guarding this treasure I had not the time, as you may

readily imagine, to attend with proper care to the management and

settlement of all my other affairs. There are a few creditors who wish

to be paid, and who must be paid. Will you take that upon yourself? You

are younger and stronger, and have no objection to business.' Suppose,

I say, the giver should speak thus to him who receives, and the latter

were to answer: 'The treasure which is to make me immeasurably rich for

all time to come I am ready to take, but as to your other affairs you

can see how you can manage them yourself. I will have nothing to do

with them.' Would you not justly look upon a man who could give such an

answer as a monster of heartlessness, as a horrible instance of

ingratitude? Exactly such is the relation in which we stand to each

other. You are the generous donor; I am the man who receives the costly

gift--the immeasurably precious treasure itself is my own Sophie.

Between us there can be no longer any question of mine and thine; what

I have is yours, for you are to me all in all--my friend, my teacher,

and my father. What I have amounts to about ten or eleven thousand

dollars, left me by an aunt whom I have never seen in my life, and they

are entirely at your disposal. I know that this sum will not suffice to

free you from all responsibilities. But it will be a relief to you, a

help; and I beg, I conjure you to make any use of it you may choose.

No, my dear sir, don't shake your head! You can't help it. You owe it

to me to Sophie, to yourself, not to refuse me. And then, I am not

going to ask you to do this favor without asking one for myself in

return. We have never yet agreed upon the day for our wedding. We were

afraid to speak of it, because we feared you would refuse, or at least

give your consent only with reluctance. Now I have become bold, and ask

neither for Flanders nor for liberty to think, Oh, King Philip, but for

your permission to make your daughter, Dona Sophie, my wife, this day

four weeks. Look! there she is herself! Kneel down, darling, and thank

your lord and father for his kindness. He consents to our marriage this

day four weeks."

Sophie, who had entered the room during the last words spoken by Franz,

hastened to her father.

"Good, dear papa! dearest darling of a papa!" she cried, embracing the

privy councillor and kissing him tenderly on brow and lip. The privy

councillor was deeply moved. His trembling lips tried in vain to utter

a word; his tear-flooded eyes turned now towards his daughter, who was

kneeling before him, and now towards the noble man, who stood by his

side leaning over him and looking at him with tenderness. His mind,

weakened by his sickness, could not at once overcome the chaos of

conflicting thoughts, but in his heart he heard a voice assuring him

that he could die now in peace.

Franz, who had his reasons for fearing that the violent emotion might

change the condition of the patient for the worse, hastened to make an

end to the scene. He rang the bell and asked the servant to help him

carry his master to his room. The privy councillor suffered them to do

as they chose. Franz and the servant rolled the chair to the door of

the adjoining room, which had been opened by Sophie, lifted it over the

sill, and closed the door behind them, while Sophie remained alone in

the sitting-room.

After a few minutes Franz returned. He was moved as Sophie had never

yet seen him; but she saw also that his emotion was not painful. His

eyes shone brightly, his step was elastic like that of a conqueror, and

his voice, generally rather sharp, sounded softer and fuller, as he

said, folding his betrothed almost violently in his arms,

"Rejoice, my girl; all goes well, excellently well. I have won your

father's consent by gentle means and harsh means. Did I not tell you we

should be man and wife four weeks hence? Did I not tell you, 'In our

heart are the stars of our fate?' Oh, I feel a whole heaven in my

heart! dear, dear Sophie!"

"Dear, dear Franz!"

And the lovers held each other embraced in that bliss for which the

ordinary language of earth-born men has no words.

Then, when the torrent of glorious feelings had sobered down to greater

quiet, they walked up and down in the room, arm in arm, and their

voices grew low like their steps on the carpet, and what they whispered

to each other was sweet and cozy, like the dim rosy light of the lamp

under its veil, and yet as hot and as glowing as the coals shining

through the light covering of ashes in the fire-place.

It was a lovely pair, the two lovers; and Zeus of Otricoli, whose

lordly face with the god-like brow beneath the ambrosiacal curls that

shade Olympus, looked majestically down upon them from a niche in the

wall, must have enjoyed the sight as they walked again and again past

his bust, although neither the young man nor the girl could lay claim

to a beauty exactly classic. Their tall forms were too lithe for that,

wanting in the voluptuous fulness of the Grecian ideal; their faces,

full of expression, were wanting in that architectural regularity, that

indelible antique harmony, which knows no struggle, at least no

struggle that excites the soul to its innermost depths.

Sophie Roban had, if you examined her strictly, nothing that could be

called beauty, except a graceful, delicate figure, though connoisseurs

would have objected to her arms as too thin, and a pair of large, soft,

deep-blue eyes, of which connoisseur and ignoramus spoke with equal

delight. Her mouth is rather large, and it is fortunate for her that

her teeth, which are in consequence seen very frequently, are, if not

literally "two rows of pearls," at least beautifully white and regular

The cheeks are round and full, the nose belongs to no special category.

The best feature of the whole is, probably, next to the large blue

eyes, the abundance of chestnut-brown hair, which forms a frame of soft

waves for the somewhat low but smooth and most intelligent brow, and is

very artlessly but tastefully arranged. Sophie is so tall that Franz,

who is above medium size, scarcely rises a head's length above her--a

proof, as Sophie says, that she has some claims to be counted among

Jean Paul's "lofty beings," an opinion which Franz is by no means

disposed to accept. He says, on the contrary, that she falls short, if

not in everything, yet in much of that great honor, especially in that

exuberance in thought and sentiment which the author requires for

"lofty beings," and of which Sophie has not a trace, unless it be when

she plays on the piano, and the genius of Beethoven, her favorite

composer, lends her soul the wings which are otherwise wanting. Franz

mentions besides, in his diagnosis of his betrothed, a certain cool

sobriety of views and judgment, a kind of shyness to go beyond her own

self, and a mistrust of all who do not possess this shyness and are too

ready to sing their own praises or their own complaints, without

inquiring whether the gods have given them a talent for stating what

they suffer or not. Sophie, on the contrary, is disposed to be very

quiet in moments of great enjoyment or great sorrow, on which account

Franz prefers classing her with Jean Paul's "silent children of

heaven." Besides, he attributes to Sophie the following qualities and

peculiarities, all of which are more or less incompatible with the

character of "lofty beings." She is particularly fond, he says, of

canary birds, dogs, tree-frogs, rabbits, horses, and even of donkeys,

which evidently shows a predilection for Dutch pictures of still life;

she betrays a highly improper indifference for literature, unworthy of

the daughter of a man of science, and the betrothed of a man who may

possibly yet become famous in the world; she will not condescend to use

a dictionary, even in cases of necessity, when she reads French or

English authors; and as to the productions of her mother tongue, her

indifference is so great that she has actually dared to fall fast

asleep when Franz has been reading to her aloud the most beautiful

chapters from Goethe's Truth and Fiction or his Italian Journey. Then

she has a decided fancy for putting on her hat on one side, and to

catch her dress when walking out in all the thorn-bushes by the

wayside, both of which habits indicate a dreamy, twilight life, utterly

incompatible with the manner of "lofty beings." She is even suspected

of clairvoyance, for she had actually once told her maid, when she was

dressing her for a ball and wanted a pin, that there was one lying way

back in the parlor under the fourth chair from the window.

The conversation of the two lovers had gradually approached this topic

of the little weaknesses of his betrothed, which Franz was apt to play

upon in countless variations. He had a talent to jest gracefully, and

to conceal the sober face of a well-meaning preceptor under the smiling

mask of a good-natured but ironical critic. Sophie, who was not fond of

ample explanations, felt grateful to her lover for this mode of

instructing her, and Franz adopted this method all the more readily as

it gave him an opportunity to admire the cleverness and the wit with

which Sophie knew how to defend herself against his insidious attacks,

and to deny her faults, or even to pretend that they were in reality

nothing but very lovable virtues.

They were so deeply engrossed in their conversation, now playful, now

sober, occasionally interrupted by a half-suppressed laugh or a stolen

kiss, that a person who was in the habit of coming every day at this

hour to the privy councillor's house, and of entering unannounced, had

to knock three times at the door before they answered with an unisonous

"Come in!"

CHAPTER XV.

"Good evening, most honored friends and betrothed," said he, as he

entered the room; "do I disturb your devotions?"

"Good evening, Bemperlein," replied Sophie, loosening Franz's hold and

cordially offering her hand to the little man, who came with careful

steps to her side; "you are just in time to protect me against this

arch-scorner."

"Good evening, Bemperlein," said Franz; "you are just in time to help

me in my efforts to convince this obstinate sinner."

"Before I can do the one, and not the other," replied Mr. Bemperlein,

drawing off his gloves and folding them up carefully, "I beg leave to

inquire, as in duty bound, after the privy councillor's health."

"He is much better," replied Franz.

"I hoped so from your joyous disposition," said Bemperlein; "well, I am

delighted. Then we can at least take our supper to-night without

feeling as if every morsel would stick in our throats from sheer

melancholy and mourning, as has been the case for the last fortnight.

_Ad vocem_ supper; is it ready. Miss Sophie? I--who am not lucky enough

to be able to satisfy my hunger with the ambrosia of confidential talk,

and to quench my thirst with the nectar of love--I feel an unmistakable

longing after earthly food and drink."

"I believe supper has been on the table for half an hour," said Sophie;

"I had forgotten all about it."

"Then let us lose no more time," said Bemperlein, offering Sophie his

arm, and leading her the familiar way into the adjoining room, where

supper was regularly laid out.

Miss Sophie and Mr. Bemperlein were great friends. The excellent man

had at every epoch of his life found somebody to whom he could offer

his devotion and his love. When he had come over to settle in Grunwald,

he had felt for a few days unspeakably lonely and wretched. Unable to

live in solitude, and full of childlike trust, he had no sooner been

introduced into the house of Privy Councillor Roban than he had poured

out his complaints into the willing ear of Miss Sophie; whose large

blue eyes encouraged him wonderfully. Sophie had not only listened to

the little, lively man, who opened his whole heart to her with Homeric

_naivete_, as if he could not help doing so; but after following him

with great attention to his last words; "that is all over now! over,

and forever!" she had given him her hand with most cordial kindness,

saying: "You must come and see us very often, Mr. Bemperlein. Papa is

very fond of you and so am I. We'll try if we cannot make some amends

to you for the loss of Berkow."

It was a strange friendship that bound the two to each other. Sophie,

although twelve years younger than Bemperlein, was the admonishing,

reproving, directing Mentor, and he the obedient, attentive, and docile

Telemachus. She had aided him in arranging the modest lodgings which he

had rented at some little distance from the privy councillor's house,

and she made with him, and sometimes without him, the necessary

purchases. Her attention went even beyond that. She trained him, after

a fashion, for his entrance into society, for there was much to be

done. She made him aware that it was not exactly the thing to hold

gentlemen with whom he conversed continually by a coat-button, or to

turn his back persistently upon ladies by whose side he had found his

seat at table, however tedious they might appear in his eyes. "You must

not do this, Bemperlein! You must stop doing that, Bemperlein!" the

young lady continually said to him, and the good-natured man obeyed her

implicitly, and was but too happy and proud if she said another time,

"Bemperlein, that was well done! You played quite the cavalier

to-night, Bemperlein!"

Bemperlein was soon even fonder of Miss Roban than he had been of Frau

von Berkow. The latter remained, with all her kindness and goodness,

after all, the great lady, the benefactress, the mistress; and the

impression she had made upon him when he, a poor, bashful, awkward

candidate for the ministry, had arrived one summer afternoon at Berkow,

and been presented by old Baumann to the great lady, had never been

wholly effaced in the seven long years which he had spent at her house.

But Sophie was not grand; she laughed as heartily as any one of them;

she looked at him so trustingly with her big, blue eyes; she made no

pretensions; you could speak to her as to an equal, you could love her

like a brother, without being all the time filled with awe and

reverence.

And such paternal love Bemperlein felt for the hearty girl. Even if she

had not been already engaged, it would never have occurred to him to

fall in love with her. But to sympathize with all that interested her;

to declare that her betrothed, whose acquaintance he made soon

afterwards, was the most amiable and excellent of men; to render her

any service which he could read in her eyes, and, when the privy

councillor was ill, to watch with her till Franz should come back, day

and night, with womanly patience and tenderness, by the bedside of the

sufferer; and now, when he heard that the latter was better, to rejoice

like a child to whom a father is restored, and to conceal this joy

under a hundred innocent tricks and teasings--that was in the power of

the ex-candidate of divinity and actual student of philosophy, Mr.

Anastasius Bemperlein.

* * * * *

"I fear the potatoes are cold," said Sophie, raising the cover off the

dish.

"Then they have exactly the temperature of this fish," said Franz,

presenting her his dish.

"Or of this sauce," said Bemperlein, handing her the sauce-dish from

the other side.

Sophie shrugged her shoulders.

"Nothing is eaten quite as warm as it is cooked, gentlemen. I must know

that best, as future housewife!"

"For we are to be married in four weeks from to-day, Bemperlein," said

Franz; "that is to say, if your dress-coat, which you have intended to

order ever since you first came to Grunwald, can be ready by that time,

Bemperlein, otherwise it cannot be."

"The coat shall be ready! The coat shall be ready!" cried Mr.

Bemperlein; "even if I have myself to cut it out, to sew it, and to

press it."

"That would make a nice coat, Bemperlein."

"Not so bad, perhaps, as you think. At all events it would not be the

first dress-coat I have made with my own hands."

"Impossible, Bemperlein!" cried Franz, with amazement.

"As I tell you. It is a long time since, to be sure--perhaps fifteen

years; and I was, during that Robinson Crusoe period of my life, much

more inventive and industrious than I am now; but still I do not think

I should find it impossible even now."

"But how did you come to make such a funny experiment?"

"Through the author of all inventions--necessity. You know, Miss

Sophie, that I belong to those of God's children, or rather did belong,

for now I have been promoted to another class, to whom the heavenly

kingdom is promised, because they call nothing their own upon earth.

This compelled me, when I left the Elysian fields of my native village

and came to this town, to lead a life like a cicade, and to avoid all

unnecessary expenses. Thus it occurred to me also, after long and

painful meditation, that it might be feasible, even in this century of

ink-consumption, to manufacture my own clothes, like Eumaeus of old,

the god-like keeper of swine. No sooner thought than done. I had formed

a great intimacy with a boy--his name was Christian Sweetmilk, the son

of the old tailor Sweetmilk in Long street--who was to be a tailor and

wished to be a doctor. We made a covenant that I should teach him every

evening, when papa Sweetmilk's stentorian voice announced the closing

of the shop, his Latin and Greek grammar; while he in return should

instruct me in the use of the needle and the goose. Our studies were

carried on with equal secrecy and industry, for I had good reason to

fear the jibes of my school-mates, and he the never-missing yard-stick

of his father and master. Oh! those were precious hours which we thus

spent together, hours never to be forgotten again! I can see us still

sitting by the light of a miserable train-oil lamp in our diminutive

garret, on an autumn evening like this to-day, when the rain was

pattering down upon the tiles right over our heads, and the gutter was

overflowing, and the owls and rooks in the steeple of St. Nicholas were

crowing and croaking. We were not cold however, although there was no

fire burning in the little cast-iron stove, for the sacred flame of

friendship warmed the blood in our veins with a gentle glow, and I was

sewing till the thread smoked, and he was learning his grammar till his

head smoked; and when I had finished a seam in masterly style, and he

could tell his _typto_, _typteis_ without a mistake, we fell into each

other's arms and envied no king on his throne in all his splendor."

Mr. Bemperlein paused and looked deeply moved into his glass.

"Hurrah for old times!" said Franz.

"Hurrah for the new ones, too!" replied Bemperlein, touching glasses

with the betrothed.

"But how about the dress-coat, Bemperlein?" asked Sophie. "I hope it

was not the coat in which you were confirmed?"

"You have guessed it, fair lady; it was my confirmation coat. The time

for the ceremony was drawing near. A merchant, to whose children I had

given lessons in reading and writing, and at whose table I dined every

Friday gratis, had presented me with the cloth for a dress-coat. The

good man even told me to have it made at the tailor's at his expense.

But I thought it would be abusing his goodness if I should avail myself

of that offer too, and I asked his permission to have the coat made by

my own tailor. Well, you may imagine who 'my own tailor' was. But alas!

Papa Sweet milk had found out our 'abominable tricks,' as he called the

sacred hours devoted to friendship and hard work, in his vulgar

language. He had discovered the Greek grammar, which Christian used to

throw quickly into 'hell,' the place of remnants and rags, when the

Boeotian father suddenly entered, and the effect of this fatal

discovery was, that he first used up his yard-stick on the shoulders of

the attic youth, and then ordered him peremptorily to give up all

intercourse with me hereafter, under penalty of being immediately and

permanently banished from the paternal house, and of being disinherited

besides. My faithful friend told me of the fearful sentence, weeping

bitterly, as I met him the next day at the corner of the street. 'But I

will not submit any longer to such tyranny,' he cried, flourishing a

pair of trousers, which he was ordered to carry to one of his father's

customers, with more energy than grace. 'This one more slavish service

I will render (and he struck the dishevelled inexpressibles with his

closed fist in wild fury) and then I will go into the wide, wide world.

Will you go with me? 'It took me some time to quiet the boy. I knew

that nothing pained him more than the thought that he would now be

unable to help me with my dress-coat. I reminded him of the

commandment, that we must honor father and mother, if we wish to live

long in the land which the Lord our God has given us. I told him

his father would probably give way after a while; and as for the

dress-coat, I promised him that the pupil should do credit to his

master. Christian shook his head sadly. 'You can't do it, Anastasius,'

he said; 'you will not get it done, even if you had any idea how to cut

it out.' 'What will you bet, Christian?' I cried. 'You shall see me

to-day week at the confirmation in church, wearing the coat I have made

without your assistance, and you shall have to confess that it fits me

well. If I win, you shall give me your bird; if you win, I'll give you

the Odyssey, Heyne's edition. What do you say?' 'Done!' said Christian,

laughing, in spite of his troubles. 'I ought not to bet, because you

are sure to lose, but since you will have it so, let it be so.'"

"Well, and who won the wager?" asked Sophie, full of interest.

"On the following Sunday, at St. Nicholas," said Mr. Bemperlein, and

his voice trembled, and the glasses in his spectacles were dim, "on the

following Sunday I was kneeling amid a number of youths before the

altar, and the music of the organ was floating through the vast

edifice, and the minister proclaimed God's blessing over us; but I

heard nothing of all that. I only looked up to the gallery, to a boy

with long, brown hair and brown eyes, who kissed his hand to me, and

whose dear face was beaming with pride and joy that his friend should

look so well, contrary to all his expectations. When my turn came that

'the Lord might bless me and preserve me and let His countenance shine

upon me,' he folded his hands piously and prayed for me earnestly with

bent head."

Bemperlein paused again. He had taken off his glasses, which had become

dimmer and dimmer, and was now rubbing them bright again with his silk

handkerchief.

"And what has become of Christian?" asked Franz.

"He is now professor of ancient languages in one of the best lyceums in

Belgium; his grammar of the Doric poets is considered a most valuable

work for philologists. I had a letter from him day before yesterday,

sixteen pages long."

"And what has become of the dress-coat?" asked Sophie.

"It hangs still, as a valued memento of former days, in my wardrobe,"

replied Bemperlein, replacing his spectacles, and looking with a smile

at Sophie; "and what is more than that, it still fits me so well that I

can present myself in it at any time, if my gracious lady should

entertain any doubts as to the truthfulness of this veracious story."

"Will you do me a favor, Bemperlein?" said Sophie, with unusual

seriousness, offering him her hand.

"Anything!" said Bemperlein, enthusiastically, and seizing the girl's

hand.

"Then don't order a new dress-coat for my wedding, but come in the old

one, which has become very dear to me through your touching story."

"Are you in earnest?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"Well, then," said Mr. Bemperlein, kissing Sophie's hand reverently, "I

will be at your wedding in the coat which I have made myself for my

confirmation."

The little company finished their cold supper and then went back to the

cosy sitting-room, where Sophie made tea, while Franz went to inquire

after the privy councillor. He returned with the welcome news that papa

was, for the first time since the beginning of his sickness, lying in

quiet, refreshing sleep, and that the servant who was watching by his

bedside said "he had fallen asleep almost immediately after having

murmured a few unintelligible words, with folded hands."

Franz assured them that the recovery would now progress with rapid

strides, and that he felt very little doubt any more of a perfect

restoration. Sophie embraced and kissed him as a reward for this good

news, and Bemperlein vowed he would hereafter acknowledge a fifth most

profane evangelist, besides the four in the Bible--namely, a St.

Franciscus.

They were sitting around the fire-place. The steam of the tea-kettle

and the smoke of the cigars which the gentlemen had lighted, rose in

clouds up to the Olympic Zeus, who now became a comfortable Zeus

Xenius. Franz was in a peculiarly elated humor, which Sophie placed on

the ground of the favorable turn in her father's disease, but which had

a very different reason. It was the nervous excitement which overcomes

even the bravest before the beginning of a battle; for Franz felt and

knew that to-day the battle of life had commenced for him in good

earnest. He had assumed most serious obligations, which might have

incalculable consequences for his own future and for Sophie's future.

The very heaviest responsibility was henceforth resting on his

shoulders. He saw of a sudden the ocean, on which the vessel which

contained their joint fortunes was sailing, filled with most dangerous

reefs, which it would require an always clear head, an always bold

heart, and an always steady hand to clear successfully. Sophie did not

suspect what her betrothed was then experiencing; she began, with

Bemperlein's aid, to draw a picture of the future--a little paradise,

full of peace and comfort, quiet and sunshine.

"You must get married too, Bemperlein," she cried.

"With the greatest pleasure," replied Mr. Bemperlein "if you will find

the main thing."

"What is that?"

"A girl who is willing to love me, and whom I can love."

"I'll pick you out one, Bemperlein. I know your taste, and I know

exactly what the future Mrs. Bemperlein must be like."

"I am rather curious to hear," aid Mr. Bemperlein, comfortably

ensconcing himself in his chair.

"In the first place," said Sophie, "as regards the exterior--for you do

attach some importance to appearances, Bemperlein, do you not?"

"Certainly," said Bemperlein, eagerly.

"Well, then, your future wife must not be tall."

"Why not?"

"Because you are not a giant yourself Bemperlein; and, you know, like

and like ... I therefore submit that she ought to be delicate and well

made, a nice little figure, with dark hair and dark eyes, clever,

active, gay, and mobile. Are you content?"

"Hem!" said Mr. Bemperlein. "Not so bad! not so bad! Go on!"

"Then, as regards fortune; she must not be rich. You know why."

"Because I would not know what to do with the money."

"Exactly so. Am I right?"

"Perfectly. But now tell me why said lady must necessarily have brown

hair and brown eyes?"

"As far as I recollect, I have only spoken of dark hair and dark eyes;

but if you have a decided preference for brown, Bemperlein----"

"Preferences" said Bemperlein, almost anxiously "I have a preference!

What do you mean?"

"Bemperlein, you blush! That is a very suspicious sign. Do not you

think so too, Franz?"

"Very suspicious," replied Franz. "I propose that the accused be

examined most rigorously, and persuaded by every available means to

make an open and full confession."

"Yes, he must confess! he shall confess!" cried the overjoyous girl,

clapping her hands; "he shall give an account of that treacherous

redness on his cheeks. Accused! I ask you, upon your conscience, do you

know a lady with brown hair and brown eyes?"

"But how can you ask me that, Miss Sophie?" replied Mr. Bemperlein,

blushing deeper than before.

"Let your words be Yea, yea! or Nay, nay! accused, and nothing else!"

"Well then, I have!" said Bemperlein, laughing.

"And when you spoke of brown hair and brown eyes, did you think of this

lady?"

"Yes!" replied Bemperlein, after some hesitation.

"Now we have him! He has thought of her! He has thought of her!" cried

Miss Sophie, and laughed with delight.

"But who is _she_?" asked Franz.

"We shall learn that presently. Accused! does she live in this city?"

"Yes."

"Franz, take that down: she lives in the city. Accused! do you see her

frequently?"

"No."

"Then, have you seen her to-day?"

"But, Miss So----"

"No subterfuges! Have you seen her to-day?"

"Well, I see I shall fare better by confessing everything at once,"

said Mr. Bemperlein, who in spite of all his efforts to appear

unconcerned had become more and more embarrassed. "Hear, then, oh

severe judge, and you, grave assistant judge, with your diabolic smile,

the strange story which has happened to me to-day, and which seems to

be specially intended to lead me from one trouble to another."

"Tell us, Bemperlein; tell us!" cried Sophie. "The affair begins to

look romantic."

"Well, then, you know, Miss Sophie, that the Grenwitz family has come

to town to-day."

"We are aware of that. Go on, accused!"

"But you do not know that the baroness wrote to me immediately after

her arrival, and asked me to call on her in the course of the day. She

said she had to confer with me on a matter of the utmost importance."

"The affairs of the baroness are always of the utmost importance," said

Franz.

"That I knew; and therefore I did not exactly hasten to pay my visit.

Towards evening, however, just before I came here, I went to the

house."

"Well, and what was the great trifle?"

"I never found it out, for I was not fortunate enough to be admitted.

In the house-door I met Mr. Timm, who was in such a hurry that he

nearly ran over me, and he had barely time to say to me 'What on earth

are you doing here, Bemperlein?' In the ante-chamber to which the

servant had shown me I found Mademoiselle Marguerite."

"Has she brown eyes, Bemperlein?"

"She has brown eyes. Miss Sophie; very fine brown eyes; which appeared

to me at that moment all the brighter as they were filled with tears."

"Oh," said Miss Sophie, unconsciously dropping her gay tone; "why so?"

"Do I know it? I had entered without knocking, as I did not expect

there would be anybody inside. When I came in, the young lady, who had

been sitting with her head on a table and sobbing, jumped up and did

her best to hide her tears. When I asked if I could see the baroness,

she replied that she would go and see. But she did not go, at least not

beyond the nearest door, where she stopped and again broke out into

tears. You may imagine how embarrassed I was. I cannot see anybody

weep, much less so young, poor, and helpless a creature as Mademoiselle

Marguerite. I went up to her, took her hand--upon my word I could not

help it--and said--what else could I say?--'why do you cry,

Mademoiselle?' Her tears flowed only the faster. I repeated my question

again and again. '_Je suis si malheureuse!_' was all she could utter

amid her sobs. That was all I heard. I pitied the poor child, with all

my heart. I asked if I could help her. She shook her head. I tried to

comfort her, and said whatever can be said in such a state of things.

Gradually she calmed down, dried her eyes, pressed my hand, and said,

'_Oh, que vous etes bon!_' Then she stepped out at the door. I was as

wise as before. After a few minutes there came, in her place, Baron

Felix, to tell me that his aunt was exceedingly sorry not to be able to

see me to-night. She was too much fatigued from the journey. I might

call again in the morning. As Baron Felix also seemed to be in a great

hurry, I took my leave very quickly. When I was in the door he called

after me, 'Apropos, Mr. Bemperlein, do you happen to know when Doctor

Stein will be back again?' 'I believe in a few days,' I replied, and

left. There you have my romantic story."

"Which is full of suggestions," said Franz. "For instance, I should

like to know myself when Oswald will be back. He ought to be here by

this time."

At that moment a maid came in, to hand him a card.

"Is the gentleman still there?" asked Franz, rising quickly.

"No, sir. He asked if you were alone? I told him, 'No, Mr. Bemperlein

was in the room.' Then he said he would call again, and left."

"Who was it?" asked Sophie.

"Oswald!" replied Franz. "What a pity! I should have liked to see him."

CHAPTER XVI.

Oswald had reached Grunwald a few hours ago. The early autumn evening

was coming on apace, as he approached the old town on the turnpike--for

this part of the Prussian Vendee was then not yet in possession of a

railway. The high towers rose dimly like Ossian's giant bodies in the

floating gray mist; mists hung low upon the meadows between the

causeway and the sea, and mists hovered over the wide waters between

the island and the firm land.

Oswald wrapped himself, shivering, more closely in his cloak, and fell

back in the corner of the coupe. What was he to do in Grunwald? What

did he want in Grunwald? He did not know it himself. Even the low trees

by the wayside, bent by the northeast storms, which slipped by in

wearying monotony as he drove on, did not know it; the raw-boned stage

horses, dripping with wet and trotting mechanically along with drooping

heads, did not know it; even the old, bearded guard, who was pulling

out the list of passengers for the hundredth time, from sheer

weariness, and was conning it over once more, even he did not know it.

Nobody knew it, unless it was the crow, which had delayed too long in

the woods and was now flying lonely and sadly above the stage-coach

towards town, and vanished in the mist. And the trees danced by, more

like spectres than ever; and the horses shook more impatiently the

heavy collars, and the mist rolled up in closer and darker masses, and

through the close and dark mist a few lights become visible; and now

the coach rolls across the drawbridge, through the narrow town-gate,

into the narrow, ill-paved, tortuous street, and stops before the

post-office. The sudden quiet after many hours' shaking, jolting, and

rattling, is indescribably sweet for one who reaches the end of his

journey, but indescribably painful for him whose journey has no end, or

for whom the end is not the desired goal. He would rather the jolting,

shaking, and rattling should begin once more and carry him further and

further away from all men into eternal night.

But he is now in a civilized city among civilized men, who have no

sympathy with eccentricities of any kind, and who hold to the opinion

that a gentleman who arrives in Grunwald by the express stage-coach at

the appointed hour, half-past seven o'clock, is bound to give the guard

a fee, to ask him respectfully to pick out from the other boxes and

trunks his own trunk and hat-box, marked in legible letters with a

"Doctor Stein, passenger for Grunwald," and then to send these things

by a porter to the Hotel St. Petersburg. Here Doctor Stein thought he

would be kindly remembered from the time when he studied and passed his

examination here under the auspices of Professor Berger, and used to

drink many a bottle of wine at said hotel in company with the latter;

but now nobody knew him, for the old landlord had died several months

ago, and the new landlord had engaged new waiters.

This had the effect that the clerk looked upon him as a stranger in the

fullest sense of the word, and treated him as such, presenting to him

at once the large book in which he was to enter his name. "Mr.

Drostein? Thank you!... Doctor O. Stein? Ah! I beg pardon; thought it

was all one name. Are you going to honor us with your presence for

any length of time, sir? No? Much life in town just now: theatre,

horse-fair, student's ball.... Doctor Braun? Know him very well,

practices in the house since the privy councillor has been paralyzed.

Was here to-day.... Where he lives? Quite near here. Post street,

second house on the right, close by the privy councillor's. Are you

going to order supper, sir? No appetite? sorry to hear it! Very fine

fresh oysters! Natives! Anything else? water to drink? Pitcher of

water? Directly, sir, you shall have it at once!"

An uncomfortable-looking room; two lighted candles on the table before

the sofa; a trunk on a low trestle; a hat-box on the chair close by;

all around silence, when the step of the waiter is no longer heard in

the long, narrow passage. Oswald did not think the situation calculated

to cheer up a melancholy man. He made haste to leave the room and the

house.

It had been his first intention to call on Franz, the only one in

Grunwald from whom he could be sure of receiving a hearty welcome--a

friend's reception; but he soon abandoned the plan and wandered aimless

and purposeless through the streets. He had never felt at home in

Grunwald; but yet he had not found the town looking so utterly strange

to him, even in the first days of his former residence here. Was it

only the effect of his melancholy humor? Was it the dark, misty

evening? He did not recognize the streets--the squares through which he

used to walk so often; and when he thought he recalled one or the other

feature, it was only like something seen in a dream, where we confound

the near and the far chaotically in some great unknown distance. At

last he found himself in one of the streets leading down to the harbor.

Here he was more at home, for the harbor with its crowd of boats and

ships, its smell of the sea and of tar, its monotonous sailors' songs,

and its ceaseless hammering and knocking and sawing, had ever been his

favorite part of the town, and the almost daily end of his walks.

But to-night everything was deserted and death-like, even in this the

only lively portion of the old Hanse town, every other part of which

looked as if it had been fast asleep for centuries, and was at best

murmuring in a half dream something about its past glory and power.

Here and there a light was visible through a cabin window, now and then

a dog barked on the deck of a vessel, or a sailor's hoarse call was

heard; otherwise all was silence and darkness.

He walked upon the wharf that stretched far into the sea, and along

which vessel lay by vessel, out to the uttermost point. Here he stood

for some time, sunk in silent meditation, and looked with folded arms

out into the darkness which rested on the waters, and listened to the

low, monotonous splashing of the waves which were all the time kissing

and caressing the massive blocks of the breakwater. Was this his

dearly-beloved sea, on which his dreams and his hopes had so often

taken wings in company with countless gulls? Was this the dark abyss,

in which his hopes and dreams had been irretrievably swallowed up for

all eternity, like the treasure of a shipwrecked vessel?

Beyond, on the other side of the black waste of waters, lay the island,

so near and yet so far off, like the time which he had spent there--the

short span of time that held all he had ever known of happiness and

peace in this life. A ferry-boat, which came from the island across,

sailed close by the outer end of the wharf on which he was standing. He

heard the measured dip of the heavy oars as they struck the waters, and

the peculiar low screeching which they cause as they rub against the

gunwale; he heard the confused voices of the passengers; he could even,

as they came nearer, distinguish single words; he thought he heard

Helen's name. Perhaps it was only an illusion, or an echo in his own

heart; but it struck him with peculiar force, and all of a sudden a

desire overcame him to seek out the house where, as he knew, the fair

maid was staying at the time.

He went back into the town; he crossed the market-place. He stopped

before the house where Berger had lived. There was no light in the

windows. He could see by the light of a street-lamp that the green

blinds were closed, as in a house whose owner had died. From the

steeple of St. Nicholas the solemn music of a choral was heard, in

which, according to an ancient custom, Grunwald bids every evening at

nine o'clock farewell to the day that has gone by. Ordinarily the

organist only sends four men up to sing; but on days when a citizen of

distinction has been gathered to his fathers, he sends half, or the

whole of the choir, according to the desire of the survivors, who wish

to give an expression to their grief in this extraordinary manner.

To-day all the voices were fully represented--the deceased must have

been a man of very uncommon importance.

Oswald listened till the last note had died away. He thought of death,

and the Great Mystery which the grave does not solve, but makes only

darker, and how happy the men are, after all, who find their trust in

believing in a Saviour and a Redeemer.

The long-drawn summons of the sentinel before the main-guard awaked him

from his dreams. The squeaking voice of a youthful hero gave the

command: "Carry arms! Ground arms! Helmets off for prayer!" Piety by

order--effusions of heart, according to the paragraph of the

regulations! In a well ordered state everything must go by rule.

"Why," said Oswald to himself, while he was walking towards the

town-gate, "why are you not a pedant among pedants, since fate does not

permit you to be a Roman among Romans? Why do you kick against the

pricks to which all the cattle patiently submit? You might be as well

off as the others. After all, it may not be so bad a thing to sit, as

Berger used to call it, in the easy-chair of an office; the night-cap

of a sinecure may protect one against many an attack of rheumatism--the

effect of a draught in this windy outside world; and he who has a

virtuous wife lives twice as long; and when he is compelled to die,

like everybody else, they play and sing from the steeple, that the

whole town hears it and prays for the peace of his soul."

Above him it rustled in the tall trees with which the street was lined

that led to the suburb and to Miss Bear's boarding-school. The evening

breeze has torn the dense veil of fog, and the crescent of the

increasing moon was dancing through the clouds in their spectral

flight. A horseman galloped past him towards town. The horse snorted;

sparks flew. A moment later, and the noise was scarcely audible, and

soon ceased altogether. "Somebody, I dare say, who rides for the

doctor; a husband, perhaps, whose wife is taken ill; a father, whose

son is lying on his death-bed." Oswald thought of the night when Bruno

died, and of his fearful ride across the heath from Grenwitz to

Fashwitz. If Bruno had only lived! Oswald thought everything would have

happened differently then. It seemed to him as if the death of the boy

alone had made him so miserably poor--as if he could have challenged a

world in arms, with him by his side. With him and good fortune! no

sacrifice would have been too great for Bruno's sake; not even the

sacrifice of his love for Helen. He would have willingly and cheerfully

given the fair girl to Bruno--but to him alone, in the world. Given?

What had he to give--he the beggar?

Now he was standing before the house he had come to see, and supported

himself against the iron railing of the garden. There was not a window

lighted up in the whole house. The inmates had probably all retired to

rest. He thought of the summer nights when he had stood looking by the

hour at the open window with the curtains lowered, from which the music

of a piano was wafted to him through the soft, silent air; and hours

afterwards, long after the light had vanished behind the red curtains

and the music had ceased, and he had still wandered up and down between

the flower-beds and under the tall beech-trees, sometimes till the

first purple streak of morning-dawn appeared on the eastern horizon,

and the birds in the thick bushes began dreamily to twitter above him.

A breath of wind rushed through the two tall poplar-trees on both sides

of the lofty portal and whispered mysteriously in the dry leaves, a

window-shutter flapped in the house, a dog in a neighboring house began

to bark.

Oswald shivered as if he had a fever. The momentary excitement after

his long journey in the stage-coach had passed away; he felt tired and

sick. He buttoned up his overcoat and turned to go back into the city.

A carriage came rapidly towards him. A horseman with a lantern in his

hand galloped before it--probably the same who before had galloped

madly through the dark night into town.

Could it be Doctor Braun, who was going away? The thought that he might

possibly not find his friend at home, awakened in Oswald the desire to

see him and to talk to him. In a few minutes--for the distances in

Grunwald are not considerable--he stood before the house which the

waiter had told him was Doctor Braun's house. The girl who opened the

door said her master was at the privy councillor's, adding that he

spent all his evenings there. Here Oswald was told that Bemperlein was

in the sitting-room--Bemperlein, the only one, with the exception of

old Baumann, who knew his relations to Frau von Berkow--the only one

whom he feared to meet; whose reproachful glance, in case he should not

yet have been informed of the most recent events, must be painful to

him.

He only remembered, when he was in the street again, that his going

away in such a manner must have appeared extraordinary, if not

ridiculous. This disturbed him and made him feel worse than before. He

would have liked best to hide himself in the lowest depth of the earth;

to forget in sleep the misery of life. In sleep? Why not in wine, when

sleep is not to be had? "The best of life is but intoxication," says

Byron; and there where a solitary lamp shines dimly between two stone

pillars, is the entrance to the cellars of the old city hall. Down the

long, broad staircase with the low steps, down into the bowels of the

earth, where nobody cares for sentiments that make the heart heavy, and

for thoughts that confuse the head!

CHAPTER XVII.

The city cellars of Grunwald cannot rival those of Bremen, but

nevertheless they are very respectable cellars. The low, spacious

vaults stretch far under the city hall, and extend even below the

market-place, on which it is situated. There are rooms enough that have

in former days served as drinking rooms of every size, and may even

to-day be used for larger and smaller companies, but what is most

needed is wanting--the guests. The good old times, when Grunwald was

wealthy and powerful, are no longer. Those who built these vaults and

filled them with ringing of cups, with songs of cheerful converse--the

honorable sober-minded burgesses with their broad shoulders, their

full, well-trimmed beards, and the broad-swords by their sides--they

sleep, all of them, sound, good sleep in the old graveyards, or under

the huge slabs of stone with which the churches are paved, if they were

members of the council, or otherwise great men, and there "await a

blissful resurrection." Their grandchildren crowd together in dark,

narrow chambers, and drink stale brown beer, instead of fiery, golden

wine; many a one, whose ancestor went down these steps day by day,

whenever the rosy summer evening was lying on the high gable roofs, or

the storms of winter were careering through the dark, narrow streets,

hardly knows how it looks down there in the city cellars.

Nevertheless they do not seem to be entirely deserted by the good

people of Grunwald. The dim little lamp at the entrance burns

night after night--often far into the small hours, sometimes till

daybreak--and the solemn citizen who has been belated at some

Christening feast or other great festivity, and now walks home with

wife and daughter in the silent night through the deserted streets, and

past the city cellars, often sees a dim light shine through the

unwashed windows, and hears perhaps low confused voices, which seem to

rise from the bowels of the earth and make an uncanny impression at

that hour and in that place.

But there are no gnomes carrying on their wicked doings below there,

only gay companions, jovial, or at least not very pedantic fellows, who

can fully appreciate the value of a good glass of wine, taken from a

good cask, and enjoyed in good society. There are men who do not relish

all of life so very heartily that they should not at times desire to

wash the dusty, unpleasant taste down with a glass of wine; others who

have neither chick nor child at home, and get tired at night among

their silent books; still others who, wearied of the monotony

of married life, want to have a merry night for once; and still

others, who have quite accidentally found their way down the broad

cellar-steps, and cannot very well get up again a few hours later,

however broad the steps may be. There are young professional men,

artists, actors--if there happen to be any in town--young literati, now

and then a farmer from the neighborhood, or an official--these make the

main ingredients of the public which is apt to assemble every evening

in the great vault to the left of the entrance, and sometimes, when

they wish to be still more exclusive, in a smaller room on the other

side of the building.

Oswald knew the place very well from his former residence here,

although he had never reached the dignity of an habitue. He had been

occasionally at the cellars with Berger, without taking much notice of

the rest of the company that might be there. Thus the damp, cool air,

filled with the peculiar odor of marvellously-ancient walls, and the

fragrance of last year's wine, greeted him pleasantly, and he found

without much trouble the way to the low door which opened into the

drinking-hall.

Except the waiter, there happened to be at that moment nobody in the

long, vaulted, and badly-lighted room, but a single guest, who sat with

his back to the door, and did not allow himself to be disturbed in the

least by Oswald's entrance. He was pleasantly engaged in discussing

fresh oysters, and Oswald, who had taken his seat not far from him at

one of the small round tables, noticed with some astonishment what a

mountain of shells the indefatigable worker had already accumulated.

And yet he did not look tired. At least he leaned only now and then

back in his chair, in order to sip with evident satisfaction a glass of

wine, and then renewed his labors with a zeal which certainly spoke as

eloquently for the good quality of the oysters as for the excellency of

the digestive powers of the consumer.

The last shell was dropping from the mountain, and the last drops were

flowing from the bottle into the glass.

"_Sic transit gloria mundi_," said the man; "nevertheless, we can

easily renew this _gloria_. Carole, bring another dozen of these

excellent dwellers in the deep, and half a bottle of this most

praiseworthy hock."

Oswald listened. The voice was familiar to him; it reminded him of

by-gone, happy days. That fresh, clear voice had refreshed and

encouraged him more than once, as the wind does the prisoner blowing in

through the open windows of his prison; it did not fail to-day to have

the usual effect on his darkened mind. Of all men this was the one

whose company was by far the most welcome to-night.

He rose, therefore, approached him, and greeted him with unusual

animation.

"_Ah, dottore, dottore!_" exclaimed the oyster-eater, rising at once

and seizing the proffered hand. "You here? Well, that is a most

sensible notion of our stupid friend's accident. Carole, a whole bottle

instead of half a bottle, and several dozen oysters instead of one."

"Am I really at this moment a _persona grata_ to you, Timm?" said

Oswald, taking a seat by Albert's side.

"_Persona grata!_ at this moment!" cried Albert Timm. "Don Oswaldo! Don

Oswaldo! I have missed you sadly, upon my word, ever since we parted at

Grenwitz, and I am as delighted as a snow-bird to see you here again.

Where on earth have you been hiding all this time? I have inquired of

everybody. Since when are you back?"

"Three hours ago."

"And, of course, you are hungry and thirsty, just as you were when you

left the stage-coach; at least you look so. Carole, Carole! Why does

the fellow not come? At last! Here, dottore, is food for a sound

stomach, and drink for a sick heart! Here's your health! Welcome in

Grunwald!"

And Mr. Timm's face smiled so kindly as he said these kind words that

it would have looked like blackest ingratitude to doubt the sincerity

of his sentiments.

Oswald at least was most pleasantly affected by this cordial reception

of a man whose friendship he had never tried to win, whose amiable

frankness he had often met with repulsive coldness, and he felt this

all the more deeply as he had suffered a few moments before acutely

from a sense of loneliness in the world.

"One service deserves another, Timm," he said, while the latter was

filling the glasses again. "I can tell you that I am heartily glad to

have met you the very first night I spend again in this town. Let us

have another glass! Here's our good friendship!"

"With pleasure!" cried Mr. Timm, heartily grasping Oswald's proffered

hand. "We will hold together honestly. Heaven knows this wretched

old-fogy place does not have an abundance of men with whom one can

hold together, or like to do it. But this league of two noble souls

ought to be celebrated in a nobler beverage. Carole! A bottle of

champagne--Clicquot and _frappe_--else, by the bones of my fathers, the

lightning of my wrath falls upon your bald pate. And now come, _dottore

mio_, tell us something of your wanderings; or, rather, tell us that

some other time; and let me know, first of all, for that is most

interesting to me, has Fame told us falsely in making a most wonderful

mixture of great and small things of the last scenes of your farce,

your drama, or your tragedy at Grenwitz?"

"Before I can answer that," said Oswald, whom the oysters, the wine,

Timm's company, and the whole atmosphere, were gradually putting into

better humor, "I must know what it is Fame has reported."

"Do you really wish to know?"

"Certainly."

"Well, there were two readings; but you must not blame me, Stein, if I

touch a sore place in your heart without knowing."

"But, Timm, do you think I am a child?"

"In some respects all men are children, and remain children, dottore,

and you are no exception to the rule. Whatever flatters our self-love,

goes down as easily as a rich oyster; whatever hurts our vanity, tastes

like wormwood and quinine. _Eh bien!_ Some say you had favored an

understanding between Bruno--what a pity, by the way, the poor boy had

to bite the grass so young!--and Miss Helen; that Felix had come to you

to hold you to an account about this in the name of the parents; that

this had led to a difficulty between you, which had ended in a scuffle;

that Felix had slipped, in his endeavor to turn you out of the house,

and that he had broken his right--some say his left--arm, once; some

say twice."

"The accursed rascal," murmured Oswald, between his teeth, hastily

throwing an empty oyster-shell to the others.

"Did I not tell you I might annoy you, Oswald? Come, don't be a child,

and wash your anger down in a glass of this famous wine. The other

reading is not half so bitter."

"Let us hear!"

"According to this variation it was not the pupil, but the teacher,

whom the young lady looked upon with favor; and the broken arm of the

baron was not the effect of a fall, but of a pistol ball, which was

applied to his aforesaid extremity in the presence of witnesses, and

according to all the rules of art."

"Well, and which reading do you prefer?"

"Of course the latter, my brave Knight of La Mancha. Here,

Oswald--nobody hears us in these halls, sacred to friendship and

love--fill your glass and drink! Drink it to the last drop of silvery

foam! Her health!--the health of the only one, the sweet, the fair, the

beautiful one, with the blueish-black hair and the dark sea-deep eyes!

Drink! I say, by the bones of the eleven thousand virgins at Cologne!

Drink! How, noble Don, are you ashamed to confess the lady of your

overflowing heart? and to deny her before me--me, the wise Merlin, who

can hear the grass grow and the eyes sigh? Have I not heard the sighing

of your beautiful eyes in those sunny days which are no more, when you

and she, two children of a rare kind, played innocently under the

rose-bushes and thought that no one saw you, not even the Creator of

heaven and earth who gave you the warm breath with which you playfully

whispered to each other the sweet mysteries of love? And did I not hear

how serpents' tongues hissed around you? Did I not see with what

intense hatred basilisk eyes glared at you? Oh, I have seen and heard

all that, and I knew before that it would come thus, but I said

nothing; for speech is silver, but silence is gold, and he who meddles

with love affairs would do better to go and sit down in a bed of

nettles."

"Tell me, Timm, have you--have you seen her since she has come to

Grunwald?"

"I have seen her, my master!--not once, but many times, by the side of

other fair beauties, among whom she looked like the rose of Sharon amid

dandelions, gliding over the pavement of Grunwald, through dismal

streets; and the paving-stones in the streets and the bricks in the

houses received speech, and they spoke and sang: Blessed art thou among

women!"

"She is at Miss Bear's house, is she not?" Oswald asked, who thought it

would be folly to try and conceal his attachment from a man of such

sharp observation as Albert.

"Yes, she is at the She Bear's--this pearl of an argus-eyed female.

There she dwells, and sits at the window and sees the clouds drift over

the tops of the poplars; and if you pass by there at noon, between

twelve and one, you can see her sit there yourself, as I have seen her

every time I have passed there at that hour. And always she raised her

beautiful eyes, and always she looked at me inquiringly: Can you bring

me no news of him--of him, the only man I love dearly? Why, Oswald,

I--a prosy old fogy--I speak in verses whenever I think of the maid;

and you, who are a poet, mean to deny that you love her with all your

heart, with all your soul, with all your mind? Fie upon you; you do not

deserve that I take so much trouble about you--that I have thought of

you these last weeks more frequently than you have done during the

whole time. But ingratitude is the reward of the world, and--Carole,

another bottle!--I shall hereafter not trouble myself about you and

your fate any further."

Timm rested his head in his hand, as Oswald had been doing these last

ten minutes. A pause followed, while bald-headed Charles placed a new

bottle of champagne into the wine-cooler, turned it round a few times

in the ice, and then left them again as noiselessly as he had come.

This sudden transition from exuberant hilarity into such melancholy

silence, in an elastic nature like Surveyor Timm's, was somewhat too

sudden to be perfectly natural. Oswald, however, was too busy with his

own thoughts to notice this. He thought Timm was sincere, and he was

flattered by the lively interest which he had excited in a man whom he

had heretofore looked upon as altogether frivolous and selfish. He

filled his own glass and Albert's from the new bottle, and said,

"I am not ungrateful, Timm; I am really not so; and least of all in

this case. And if I have heretofore not put full faith in your

friendship, it was only because I felt how little I had deserved it.

Let us have another glass together! You know you must not be exacting

with a melancholy man like myself!"

"Well, I should think I knew that," said Timm, with his usual merry

laugh, pushing back the long fair hair that had fallen down upon his

forehead, and emptying his glass at a single draught. "And I have often

wondered how a man like yourself, who has a right to enjoy life more

than any one else, can look upon the world in a way which seems only

fit for sick canary birds and like invalids. I should say nothing if

you had never commenced to enjoy it from mere bashfulness, or if you

had wasted your strength in enjoyment; but as neither the one nor the

other is evidently the case with you--as you are not an enthusiastic

saint nor a worn-out roue--as you suffer neither from an exuberance of

strength nor from too great weakness, I really cannot tell what is the

matter with you, except one thing."

"And what is that?"

Mr. Timm rested his elbows on the table, and the smooth face in his

white hands, and smiled craftily at Oswald.

"And that is--what, Timm?"

"Ten thousand dollars annual income." Oswald laughed.

"A very prosaic remedy for contempt of the world."

"But a very radical one, and in your case infallible."

"Why exactly in my case?"

Timm filled the glasses once more, lighted a fresh cigar, and said:

"Heine, you know, divides men in two classes: fat Grecians and lean

Nazarenes. I have found this distinction as acute as true. The former

believe in Our Lady of Melos, the latter worship the Virgin Dolorosa.

The former enjoy the good things of life in cheerful happiness; the

latter prefer a grumbling resignation and meditative asceticism. In

order that both classes should be right, that the Grecians should be

able to live well and the Nazarenes pray well, the former must have an

abundance of money, and the latter must be poor, very poor indeed."

"Before you go on with your exposition, Timm, tell me first to which of

the two classes you belong yourself."

"To both, or to neither of the two, as you choose. I have the good

digestion, the sound teeth, the fine perception--in a word, the desire

and the capacity to enjoy which belongs to the Grecians; but I have

also the tenacity and frugality necessary to the Nazarenes for the

practice of their peculiar virtues. I have the invaluable talent of the

camel to be able to thirst a long time without losing heart or

appetite; on the contrary, abstinence only serves in my case to sharpen

the appetite and to season the next drink more attractively. When I

have travelled through the desert, and--as just now, for instance--the

branches of mimosas and the fans of palm-trees wave over me, and the

icy-cold well--as just now, for instance, from the bottle--I meant to

say, from the rock--foams and purls--then I bend my long camel's neck

and drink and drink and drink, and bless the dry, brown desert which

has led me to such a delicious well."

And Mr. Timm poured down a full glass of champagne with the hasty

eagerness of a traveller whose tongue is glued to the palate.

Oswald watched the exulting companion who sat opposite to him with a

peculiar sense of pleasure, not unmixed with envy. How sharp and

bold, and yet how fine and intelligent, were the features in this

smooth, almost boyish face! How well that haughty superciliousness

suited him, which played around his delicate nostrils and curved the

sharply-accented red lips! How the words flew from these lips, swift as

feathered arrows, each one of which hits the bull's-eye! What a

sovereign contempt for mere phrases, for any kind of ornament, for all

those rags with which hypocrites and fools try to cover their

nakedness! How eloquent the whole bearing of the man, his head thrown

boldly back, as he blew the smoke of his cigar from him, or as he took

the bottle from the cooler, shook it, and filled again and again his

empty glass to overflowing! How light the burden of life seemed to be

to this man, light as to the lion who leaps with the colt in his teeth

swiftly over hedges and ditches!

Oswald was not inclined at that moment to cast a glance into the

bottomless abyss of selfishness which lay concealed under the surface

of this humor, dancing about in merry waves. The time and the place

were not favorable to such an analysis. He felt down here, in this

deep, quiet cellar, with its dim, mysterious light of two small

candles, as if he were thousands of miles away from the rest of the

world. He had come here to drink himself into oblivion; he had

succeeded in his wishes. His brow was all aglow, as he followed the

example of his companion and poured down glass after glass. He had not

felt so free and so happy for a long time as he did at that moment.

"As for you, now, noble knight," continued Timm, "you are a Grecian,

without the means of being so at all times, and without the gift of

simply transferring the time during which you cannot be so to the

account of the future. Instead of doing that, you play the Nazarene,

and feel just as happy during the time as the eagle whose wings and

claws have been clipped, and who wears a chain around his foot. The

exuberant strength, which you cannot employ outwardly, turns within and

checks the normal growth of your nature, which has once for all been

intended for enjoyment. This is not the first time I call your

attention to this contradiction in you. Do you recollect what I told

yon already at Grenwitz? You hate the nobles, you hate the rich, you

hate the powerful, because the ten fingers of our hands itch with a

desire to be noble and rich and powerful yourself. Do not talk to me of

your moral humbug of the nobility of mind, the wealth of a pure heart,

and the power of truth! All that is mere stuff for those who know what

merchandise is sold in the market of life. Pshaw! what has a man like

you to do with poverty--a man of your youth, your charms, your pretty

face--for, by heaven, Oswald, you are a handsome fellow, a man whom the

women embrace without his asking, A man of thoroughly aristocratic

tastes and tendencies! It is simply ridiculous! You ought not to be a

poor schoolmaster, but a wealthy baron, like those Grenwitz people with

whom, by the way, you have a most striking resemblance; then you could

enjoy life, and afterwards blow out your brains with some show of

reason; then you could marry the fair Helen; could do, in a word, or

not do whatever you liked! That is why I say again: you want an income

of ten thousand dollars. I wish I could get it for you, I would do it,

and were I to take them I know not where."

"I really believe you were capable of doing it, Timm."

"Why not? And if it were only from curiosity to see how you would act

in such a case towards your old friend."

"I would do with the mammon, you may rest assured of that, as I did

when I was a boy with the cherries people gave me--I would share it

with my friends."

Albert looked fixedly at Oswald, as he said these words with flushed

cheek and raised voice. Suddenly he said, as if awaking from a dream:

"I am a curious fellow, Oswald; as sceptical as a heathen, and yet as

fond of all sorts of omens as an old woman. As I was sitting here alone

eating my oysters, I said to myself: you happen to have a few dollars

in your pocket and you would like to spend them with a friend. And then

there occurred to me, as to Wallenstein, the question: who of all those

whom I meet here evening after evening meant it best and most honestly?

and that it should be the one who would first enter at the door. But,

strange enough, contrary to all the customs of the place, not one of

them came. Instead of that, you came--you, of whom I had not thought at

all. Oswald, I do not know how you think about such matters, and it may

be that my request will offend you, but I should like to drink with you

to our future, our intimate friendship. What do you say?"

"With all my heart!" cried Oswald. "There is just one more glass for

each of us in the bottle."

"And no one shall ever drink again out of this glass!" cried Albert,

and threw the empty glass on the floor.

Oswald did the same; but the noise of the breaking glasses sounded

shrill and painful to his ear, like the laughter of delighted demons.

Bald Charles, who had sat behind his counter at the other end of the

hall, nodding, started up when he heard the noise, and came gliding up,

drunk with sleep, thinking they had called him.

"How is it, Oswald," cried Timm; "I think we had better have another

bottle. We shall not meet again as young as we are now."

"No," said Oswald; "let us be content. My head burns. And I have to

call, to-morrow, on Tom, Dick, and Harry. What is to pay?"

"Stop!" cried Mr. Timm, holding Oswald's arm. "Mine is the helmet, and

it belongs to me! Carole, if you accept a red cent from this gentleman,

I break this empty bottle on your bald skull! Come! Make yourself paid

out of this rag for to-night and for the last nights; and what remains

over, why you can buy yourself on the way a wig with it, my Carole!"

With these words Timm had drawn a twenty-five dollar note from a bulky

parcel which he took from his coat-pocket, and handed it to the waiter,

who seemed to be not a little astonished at this sudden wealth in the

hands of one of his very worst customers. At least he grinned in a very

peculiar manner as he took the note, while Mr. Timm put back the

package with an air of perfect indifference, and tilting his hat on his

head, sang:

"I am the last of guests to-night,

Come show me out of the house!

And we wish each other good-night,

I take a kiss from my little mouse!"

They were standing outside in the street. The mist had disappeared

entirely, and the moon was shining brightly on the dark sky. The lamps

had gone out, and deep shadows alternated with broad streaks of light

in the narrow streets between the high gable-ends. A watchman standing

at the corner with his long spear and antediluvian horn, called out the

twelfth hour. Nothing else was to be seen in the death-like streets

through which Oswald and Albert were now walking home, arm in arm, as

it became such good and intimate friends: Oswald unusually heated and

excited, Albert as cool and fresh as if he had been drinking nothing

but water in the city cellars at Grunwald. They talked over the members

of the town council and of the college on whom Oswald had to wait the

next day, and Oswald's career at the college especially, which Albert

declared was a fabulous idea, such as no one could have conceived but a

Knight of La Mancha. Thus they reached the door of the hotel, then they

wished each other good night. Oswald went in; Albert lounged down the

main street, his hands in his pockets. But suddenly he stopped and

seemed to meditate for a while. Then he turned into a by-street and

vanished in a labyrinth of lanes and courts, formed by rheumatic little

cottages, whose exterior did not belie the reputation enjoyed by this

part of the town.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The official dwelling of the rector of the college, Doctor Moritz

Clemens, was shining to-night in unwonted splendor. They had not only

removed the covers from all the sofas, sofa-cushions, and chairs, in

the best room and the sitting-room, so that the luxurious light of two

lamps and half a dozen stearine candles poured in floods over the

displayed magnificence; but even the rector's study, on one side, and

the sitting-room and chamber of the two daughters, on the other side,

had been changed into salons by removing the writing-table in the one,

and the beds in the other, while each was lighted up with a lamp and

three candles. The aromatic fragrance which always rises when incense

is strewn on the hot-plate of the stove, perfumed all the rooms,

and sufficed in itself to produce a festive excitement in every

well-regulated mind.

The Clemens family is in grand gala, and awaits the guests who are to

come. The Clemens family consists of four persons: father, mother, and

two grown daughters. Rector Clemens is a man of fifty years, who must

have been very handsome in his youth, and who may still pass for very

good-looking. He wears his curly brown hair very long, and, contrary to

all fashion, his collar turned down _a la Byron_ over a loosely-tied

handkerchief, which gives him, in connection with a somewhat vague

softness of his features, an ideal, not to say an effeminate

expression. He is fully conscious of the soft character of his

appearance, and does all he can to heighten the effect. His speech is

soft, his voice is soft, his movements are soft. "I am called Clemens,

and I try to do honor to my name," he is accustomed to say, modestly,

whenever anybody compliments him on the "perfect humanity" of his

manner and his appearance. "Humanity" is his pet word. The learned

world knows him as the author of a moral philosophical work

"Purification of Man towards Perfect Humanity;" and the public at large

through his dramatic poem, "John at Patmos," which has appeared in a

second edition in the bookstores of the University of Grunwald, and

bears the motto, "_Homo sum, nihil humani mihi alienum puto_."

Mrs. Rector Clemens is, at least in her outward appearance, a perfect

contrast to her husband. Her figure rises far beyond the ordinary size,

and is broad and strong. The features of her face are proportionately

heavy and massive; her voice is a tolerably deep bass, and her

movements and manners remind you forcibly of a vessel rolling in a

trough of the sea. She is indeed the daughter of a captain of a mail

steamer, and has made in her young days twice the voyage to the Indies.

It is hard to understand why her etherealizing husband with his

enthusiasm for Hogarth's line of beauty, should have chosen her above

all others, and the only explanation is to be found in that mysterious

affinity which unites the strong and the weak, the stern and the

gentle. The contrast between the two characters, however, does not

appear quite so striking upon closer observation. The husband has

succeeded in lending short wings to the somewhat clumsy psyche of his

wife. He has talked to her so much about true humanity, that she is

determined to become aesthetic in spite of her colossal size, and to be

refined in spite of her defective education. She reads a good deal,

although she does not understand it all; and she is the founder and

manager of a dramatic club, although she has never been able to

distinguish very clearly between a dative and an accusative.

The two Misses Clemens are eighteen and nineteen years old, and enjoy

the beautiful old German names of Thusnelda and Fredegunda. The latter

resembles her mother, Thusnelda her father, but the difference in

character, which the common longing after humanity has nearly effaced

in the parents, is still very perceptible in the daughters. They

quarrel very frequently, are almost always of different opinions, and

resemble each other only in one point--the very high opinion they

entertain of themselves.

"It seems to me our dear guests keep us waiting rather long," said

Rector Clemens, looking at his watch for the twelfth time in the last

twelve minutes, as he nervously walked up and down in the room.

"I cannot comprehend why the good people don't come," said Mrs. Rector

Clemens, sitting down for a moment on the sofa and wiping her heated

brow with her handkerchief. "I had asked Doctor Stein expressly to be

sure to come before seven, because I wanted to read his part over with

him."

"Will he be able to read the Captain?" said Miss Fredegunda Clemens

from the adjoining room, where she was busy with her dress before a

mirror.

"He'll read it at least as well as Broadfoot," replied Miss Thusnelda

in an irritated tone.

"But, children, surely you are not going to quarrel now," said the

mother, trying to appease them.

"Fredegunda cannot stop teasing me," said Thusnelda.

"And you are always trying to be better than everybody else," said

Fredegunda, appearing in the door.

"For heaven's sake, children, I pray you, keep quiet," cries Doctor

Clemens, with imploring voice, raising his hands as if in prayer; "I

hear somebody in the passage."

The door was really opened at that moment by a maid, and in walk

Professor Snellius, Mrs. Professor Snellius, and Miss Ida Snellius.

The broken peace of the Clemens family is immediately restored. They

receive the new-comers as heartily as people who have worked their way

to genuine humanity are apt to welcome their friends.

Professor Snellius, teacher of the first form and con-rector, a man of

some forty years, aspired, like Rector Clemens, and perhaps even more

energetically, to the ideal, and was perhaps even more favored in these

efforts by his outward appearance. While the beauty of Rector Clemens

had something vague about it, the character imprinted on the clear

features of Professor Snellius was unmistakable; even the most

malicious critic could not have denied that he bore a more than passing

resemblance to his favorite poet, Schiller. His admirers found in him

the same boldly-curved nose, with the electric spasms around the

nostrils, the same earnestness, the same majesty, the same tall form,

which, however, was not dressed in ideal costume, but yielded so far to

the demands of the time as to submit to a plain black suit, in which

the painful neatness is interrupted only by the spotless white of a

somewhat tight cravat. Professor Snellius is a pedagogue in the fullest

sense of the word. His erudition is literally overwhelming. He teaches

all the modern languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and is not

quite unacquainted even with Chinese, which he reads in his leisure

hours. He is enthusiastic about the young and his vocation as a teacher

of the young. He has proclaimed his views on this most important task,

and his propositions how to solve its problems in the best manner, in

his voluminous work: "History of Education among the West Asiatic

Nations prior to the times of Rhamses the Great." The motto of this

work, and at the same time the professor's own motto, is: "Through

struggle to victory!" Professor Snellius looks soberly upon life, and

stammers a little whenever he becomes excited, as very frequently

happens to him, about the want of ideal enthusiasm in his pupils, or

about any other of his favorite subjects.

Mrs. Professor Snellius is a little lady who would be insignificant if

she were not the wife of such a very great scholar. Miss Ida Snellius

is an exceedingly tall and exceedingly awkward girl of sixteen, who

looks marvellously like her father, and has the reputation of having

inherited largely the erudition of her father. She likes to converse

with highly-educated gentlemen--with others she does not speak at

all--of comparative philology, and of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and is

reported to have read through the twelve volumes of her father's famous

work. This report, however, is so monstrous, that its truth may well be

doubted.

The long-drawn salutations between the families Clemens and Snellius

had not yet come to an end, when the door opened once more to admit Dr.

Kubel with wife and daughter. Kubel teaches the third form, and is a

round, jovial little man, with a smoothly-shaven face, and white,

well-kept hands--so round and so jovial that our days no longer produce

the like, and that they were found only in the peaceful, stagnant

waters of the period from the Congress of Vienna to the year 1848, in

out-of-the-way colleges and other quiet districts of quiet Germany. His

voice is loud and squeaking, and reminds you, as the figure of the man

himself does, of the harmless dwellers in morasses. His erudition is

not remarkable. Scoffers maintain that his only merit as a philologist

consists in his having a very pretty daughter. Mary Kubel is indeed a

very pretty, brown-eyed girl, ever cheerful and ready to laugh, who is

unspeakably despised by the Misses Snellius and Clemens; by the former

because she has once confounded Alexander and William von Humboldt; and

by the latter because she has no idea of reading dramatic compositions.

To-day she especially roused the indignation of Thusnelda and

Fredegunda, because she arrived at the same time with the two doctors,

Winimer and Broadfoot, and therefore has the appearance of having them

in her train. Now Thusnelda and Fredegunda are accustomed to claim the

attentions of these two gentlemen as their own exclusive right, and

that not without reason, for Mr. Winimer has already worn a lock of

Thusnelda's hair near his heart for about six months, and exhibits it

in sentimental moments to his intimate friends, threatening them with

fearful disgrace if they should ever, ever betray him; and Mr.

Broadfoot has lost at least a dozen philippines, and, some say, his

heart with them, to Fredegunda, during the six months since he received

his appointment at the college. Doctor Winimer is a slender young man

of medium size, whose tact in the intercourse with the fair sex is a

proverb among his colleagues, and who is always in more or less nervous

excitement--thanks, no doubt, to the many delicate relations in which

he stands, and of which he speaks in mysterious terms. Doctor Broadfoot

is a gentleman whom a stranger might take for a butcher, and who is the

continual butt of his friends, on account of his enormous hands and

feet, and his ordinary manners.

"Now, our club is nearly assembled," says Rector Clemens, rubbing his

hands softly and raising his voice moderately. "Our dear guests alone

have not come yet."

"Our guests, dear _collega_?" says Professor Snellius. "I thought the

question was in the singularis of _hospes_?"

"_Minime!_" smiled the rector. "I have prepared a dual, yes, I may say

a plural of surprises for you to-night, gentlemen and ladies. There

will be two new guests here, besides our new colleague, of whom I

expect great things for our social intercourse. Can you guess who they

are?"

"But, Moritz, it was to be a surprise!" says Mrs. Clemens, in a

reproachful tone.

"I think, my dear, it is better to prepare the club beforehand. Is it

not our wish to receive the persons in question, not only as our guests

for to-night, but to win them permanently over for our little club; and

for that purpose, you know, we must have the consent of all the

members, according to the regulations which you have prepared

yourself."

"Who is it, rector." asked Doctor Winimer. "You torture us."

"A gentleman whose name has a good sound in the republic of letters,

and a lady who will be of special interest for you, _Collega_ Winimer,

in your capacity as lyric poet?"

"A lady?" cried Mr. Winimer, passing his hand through his

carefully-arranged hair, his pride and his ornament, a gesture for

which he receives his punishment immediately in a reproving glance from

the lady whose lock he wears upon his heart.

"Yes; a lady, a highly-gifted lyric talent."

"No doubt, Primula; I mean Mrs. Professor Jager!" cries Mr. Winimer.

"You have guessed it; the poetess of the 'Cornflowers' and the

interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos, will appear to-night as

stars, and, we hope, be willing to accept a permanent engagement

hereafter," said Rector Clemens, with his softest smile.

A long-drawn, unisonous "Ah!" of astonishment, testified to the

interest felt by the company in this announcement.

"I had another reason, besides, why I invited Mr. and Mrs. Jager

to-night," continues the rector; "it was, so to say, a consideration of

humanity for our new colleague, Doctor Stein. He is an entire stranger

in our circle, and seems to be remarkably shy, embarrassed, and little

accustomed to move in larger circles. Mr. and Mrs. Jager, he told me

himself this morning, are old acquaintances of his--from the time when

he was a tutor, I believe--and he will no doubt be glad to meet

to-night among so many strange or nearly strange faces, at least a few

old friends."

"This delicate attention does you honor, _collega_," says Professor

Snellius, pressing the rector's hand, and displaying in the act the

elegiac feature near the nostrils.

"But I think, Mrs. Clemens, the parts have all been distributed," says

Doctor Winimer, who is to read "Max," and is all the more opposed to

any change of programme, as his beloved Thusnelda reads the "Thekla,"

and he has spent four weeks' arduous study upon learning his part.

"I have given Doctor Stein the Captain, who was not yet given out,"

says Mrs. Clemens, in the tone of one not accustomed to contradiction,

and allowing no opposition. "That is a very nice part, and he can show

to-night whether he can read or not. I should have liked, to be sure,

to read it over with him, but he must look but for himself now. As to

Mr. and Mrs. Jager, I have given them the Devereux and MacDonald, who

were still vacant."

"But, my dear Mrs. Clemens," squeaked Doctor Kubel, "do you really

think those parts are quite suitable for our new friends at their first

debut?"

"Why not, dear doctor?" asks the manager, with a frown of impatience.

"I only think they will hardly like it particularly to make their first

appearance among us as murderers," says Doctor Kubel.

The lady manager, whose brow has become darker and darker as her jocose

guest speaks, is about to reply, but is prevented from doing so, for

the door opens at that moment in order to admit Mr. and Mrs. Professor

(ex-pastor) Jager into the room.

The noble pair have not left the "lowly roof" and the "country fields"

behind them without a change which might possibly escape the careless

observer, but which the sharper eye would at once discern in many a

characteristic symptom. Professor Jager knows but too well the use

which the mask of humility, of modesty, and unpretending simplicity has

rendered Pastor Jager, to lay it aside now when he has barely reached

half of his ambitious end. He has only aired it a little, and he who

has eyes to see, can at times very clearly discern underneath, his true

face, marked with the double impress of the scholar's conceit and the

priest's pride. Mrs. Jager affords the same sight, only translated into

childish and foolish words. The author of the "Cornflowers" has the air

of a person who expects every moment an effusion of overwhelming

praise, and is quite determined to deprecate it. If the appearance of

the professor reminds one of the well-known wolf in sheep's clothes,

and one cannot very well feel quite safe in his neighborhood, his

wife's appearance recalls the familiar crow, who thought herself Juno's

own bird, and it requires an effort to remain serious. The change in

the outward appearance is less perceptible; the interpreter of

Chrysophilos has exchanged his plain glasses in horn for a pair of gold

spectacles, and Primula wears in her golden hair a few artistic

imitations of those blue flowers that have furnished her with a title

for her poems. Both hold in their hands a copy of Wallenstein, full of

joyous anticipations, hoping to carry off the honors of the evening by

their masterly declamation, and without the most remote suspicion of

the mortal insult which is to be inflicted upon their pride during the

next ten minutes.

Full of hope and free of suspicion they enter the room, welcome the

"highly-honored landlord and landlady," and greet the younger gentlemen

of the college, who are formally introduced. This is the first large

party at which they appear since their triumphant return to Grunwald.

Rector Clemens is known for the intelligent and interesting company he

has at his house; he surpasses in this the other professors of the

university even, unless it be Privy Councillor Roban, whose parties,

however, do not consume half as much poetical sentiment. Mr. and Mrs.

Jager are determined that this circle shall soon be only the nebular

preparation for the brilliant light of their own superiority.

"Ah! my worthy friend," says Professor Jager, after having saluted

Clemens and Snellius, to Doctor Kubel, under whom he has been sitting

as pupil, pressing the fat, white hands with great warmth; "how

delighted I am to meet you, my highly esteemed teacher, and to see you

in such excellent health! Indeed, one might say of you as of

Wallenstein, that the swift years have passed over your brown hair

without leaving a trace. Indeed, indeed, _mens sana in corpore sano_. I

learnt that from you, but you have practised what you taught, Doctor

Winimer, I rejoice exceedingly to make your personal acquaintance; both

myself and my wife have known you long and held you dear, through your

charming 'Mayflowers.' Permit me to present you to my wife; I should

like to see the Cornflowers and the Mayflowers bound up in a bouquet,

ha, ha, ha! Doctor Broadfoot, I am happy to meet a man of science, of

your great merit. Your admirable monographs on Origens and Eusebius

have rendered me essential service in writing my Fragments. I am glad

to be able, at last, to thank you in person."

While Professor Jager was thus making the round, winding snake-like

through the circle of the gentlemen. Primula flitted sylph-like through

the circle of ladies. She had, like the "maiden from afar," a gift for

every one. She pays a compliment to the elder ladies. She envies

Thusnelda and Fredegunda their "charming, highly-poetical" names; she

congratulates Ida Snellius on her progress in Portuguese, and pats Mary

Kubel on the blushing cheeks and calls her a dear, sweet child.

"But our colleague comes really a little too late," says Rector

Clemens, looking at his watch. "I think, Augusta, we might have tea."

"Whom do you expect, my dear sir?" asks Professor Jager of the rector.

"Whose foot did not yet cross this threshold?" asks Primula, who is

full of reminiscences of Wallenstein, of the lady manager.

At the very moment, when the professor and his wife are about to answer

these questions, the door opens and Oswald's tall form appears in the

frame.

CHAPTER XIX.

When the last comer at a party enters the room he always excites a

certain sensation in the assembled company, especially when, as was

here the case, the arrival of the guest has been looked for with some

curiosity. Oswald was a perfect stranger to the whole circle. His only

acquaintance was the rector, whom he had met officially. The other

gentlemen and ladies, belonging to the college, he had perhaps seen now

and then in company during his former residence in Grunwald, but

without noticing them or being noticed by them. When he had paid his

visits during the day, he had found nobody at home except the Kubel

family. The gentlemen were curious to see their new colleague, the

older ladies the young man who might possibly become one of these days

their son-in-law, and the young ladies the new acquisition for their

social meetings--all were ready to examine him and to criticize. Thus

there followed a pause in the merry conversation, as he entered, and he

had to encounter the eyes of the whole company.

Undismayed by this cross-fire of glances, Oswald approached Mrs.

Clemens, kissed her hand, excused his late arrival, and begged her to

present him to the other ladies, whom he was not yet fortunate enough

to know. After this ceremony had been performed in due form, he begged

the rector in like manner to make him acquainted with the gentlemen;

then he turned again to the ladies to pay a few compliments to his

hostess, and at last to Primula, who immediately entered upon a lively

conversation with marked eagerness. Primula had taken Oswald from the

first moment into her poetic heart, on account of his "fair,

chevalieresque, and truly romantic appearance," as she called it, and

all the admonitions of her husband had not been able permanently to

arrest the current of her sympathetic sentiments. She had, to be sure,

paid due respect in the country to existing circumstances, and dropped

the fallen greatness, but she had determined in her heart to follow the

impulse of her soul freely whenever she should be able to let her

captive psyche fly with untrammelled wings. That moment had come now;

she greeted Oswald, who had become more interesting than ever to her

through his "exceedingly romantic catastrophe at Castle Grenwitz," with

the double warmth of friendship and of admiration. Oswald, however, who

was determined, if possible, to make himself acceptable to all the

ladies, could not be kept long by all the charms of the poetess; he

talked seriously with the elderly ladies, he teased the younger ones,

and after ten minutes he seemed to have accomplished his end.

In the meantime he had been carefully watched by the gentlemen, who had

gathered around Professor Jager. The interpreter of the fragments of

Chrysophilos hated Oswald with a very hearty hatred. Oswald had never

paid the vain man the attention which he claimed, and had even treated

him with undisguised contempt, especially during the latter part of his

stay at Grenwitz. Professor Jager had never forgotten the insult

offered to Pastor Jager, and waited only for a suitable occasion to pay

off the long accumulated debt. He was, however, far too clever and too

cowardly to come out with it openly, as the gentlemen of the college

now questioned him about Oswald, whom he declared he knew perfectly. He

contented himself with mysterious hints, as: "a young man, about whom

much might be said--you will see yourselves, gentlemen--I only hope he

has grown more prudent in the meantime; hem! hem! You know he is one of

Berger's pet pupils. Well, Berger is a remarkable man, a brilliant man;

but he is at the asylum in Fichtenau, and we see once more that 'all is

not gold that glitters;' hem! hem!" These and similar words fell like

poisonous malaria upon the harmless souls of the pedagogues.

"If we had known that, _collega_!" said Rector Clemens secretly to

Professor Snellius.

Professor Snellius shrugged his shoulders, and replied,

"I hope much from the advantages he will have in his intercourse with

us. The acquaintance of really well-bred, learned----"

"Truly humane," supplied the rector.

"Truly humane men," continued the professor, "is the best training for

genuine culture and erudition----"

"And humanity," supplied the rector.

"What do you think of our new colleague, Winimer?" asked Doctor

Broadfoot, who had noticed with great disgust how merrily Miss

Fredegunda, who generally distinguished herself by a certain morose

reserve, was now chatting and laughing with Oswald.

"I believe the gentleman is a great dandy," replied Mr. Winimer,

passing his hand through his hair. "He has a way of bending over ladies

in their chairs which is downright intolerable. I am afraid we shall

never be good friends."

"But that is too bad," cried Mr. Broadfoot, and advanced with the

intention to interrupt the conversation between Oswald and Fredegunda,

but he lost his courage on the way; and in order to mask the

unsuccessful attack, he took a cup of tea from the waiter which a maid

presented to him, and then, cup in hand, he remained standing in the

centre of the room, the picture of helpless embarrassment.

He was fortunately soon relieved by the question of the lady manager,

whether they should now begin the reading of Wallenstein--the original

purpose of their meeting--and the invitation to follow her into the

adjoining room.

"In which part will you, madame, give us an example?" asked Oswald.

"But why do I ask? There is in Wallenstein only one part for you, as in

this company there is but one lady fit for that part--yourself!"

"You are jesting," said the poetess, tapping him gently on the arm with

the book which she was holding in her hand; "why should I have any

privilege?"

"But, surely, there can be but one opinion about this that the most

poetical character in the piece ought to be represented by the most

poetical character in the company; and again, there can be but one

opinion as to who that is."

"And who--ha! I will try to overcome my childish bashfulness--who could

that be?" asked Primula, with melting voice, raising her eyes in sweet

anticipation to Oswald.

"Permit me to take the copy you are holding in your hand, a moment.

Thanks! I see there is a mark. Let us see where it is. 'Act

Third.--Scene First.--Countess Terzky: Thekla, Fraeulein von Neubrunn.'

Thekla under-scored. I thank you, Thekla!"

"That is an accident," cried the blushing poetess, pressing the book,

which Oswald handed back to her with an ironical bow, to her bosom. "I

swear it to you by the nine Muses, it is an accident."

"And I swear by father Apollo himself, and by all the other Olympians

besides, that I believe in no accident, at least only in the most

fortunate accident which has led me to-night once more into the company

of--may I venture to say so--of a friend."

"If you may say so!" cried the poetess, tenderly pressing Oswald's arm

with her own; "if you may say so! Oh believe me, Mr. Stein, I have been

your friend ever since you put your foot on our humble threshold; I

have always taken your part when prosaic minds, without reverence for

the Great and the Beautiful----"

Primula was forced to arrest the overflowing waters of her tenderness,

which Oswald had called forth so suddenly by his coarse flattery; for

at that moment they had reached the adjoining room, where a part of the

company were already seated around the long table, which was covered

with a white cloth, and lighted up with two lamps and two candles. At

the upper end stood Mrs. Rector Clemens, the founder and manager of the

"Dramatic Club," looking at her company like a herd at his flock, and

appointing to the still homeless guests their seats, gesticulating

fiercely with her arms, and letting her deep voice out more fully than

seemed absolutely necessary.

"Sit down by Fredegunda, Doctor Broadfoot. Will you take a seat by my

daughter Thusnelda, Doctor Stein? Mrs. Jager, you will please take a

seat by Professor Snellius. Professor Jager, you by Mrs. Kubel. Well,

now we are all seated."

Mrs. Manager seized a bell, which stood before her on the table, and

began to ring it for half a minute with all the energy of a president

of a parliament who wishes to drown the mad voices of a few hundred

furious representatives of the people. As the absolute silence reigning

in the whole assembly furnished no pretext for this display of

energetic efforts, Mrs. Manager at last put the bell down on the table,

and seized instead a sheet of paper, on which, as on a theatre bill,

the parts in the piece and the names of the company were arranged in

double columns.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" she said, examining the faces of the audience,

as they looked up to her, with satisfaction. "You know that we have

chosen at our last sitting 'Wallenstein's Death' for this meeting with

universal acclimatization; I meant to say, acclamation. As

unfortunately the piece has more parts than we have members, I have

been forced to leave out several which did not appear to me essential.

But even then there remained a few which I could not well fill, and

which would have remained blank if some of our dear guests who give us

the pleasure of their company to-night had not put it into my power to

complete the bill to the general satisfaction of all, I hope. Although

most of you already know which part has been allotted to you, I will

for the sake of regularity, and especially for the benefit of our dear

guests, read the whole list from the beginning once more. Listen then,

I pray, attentively!"

Mrs. Manager cleared her voice and read, amid the attentive silence of

the company:

Wallenstein, Rector Clemens.

Octavio Piccolomini, Professor Snellius.

Max Piccolomini, Doctor Winimer.

Terzky, Fredegunda Clemens.

Illo, Doctor Kubel.

Butler, Doctor Broadfoot.

Gordon, Mrs. Kubel.

Seni, Miss Ida Snellius.

Duchess, Mrs. Snellius.

Countess Terzky, Myself.

Thekla, Thusnelda Clemens.

Fraeulein Neubrunn, Marie Kubel.

Swedish Captain, Doctor Stein.

Devereux, \ Mr. and Mrs. Jager.

MacDonald, / Captains in Wallenstein's army.

Oswald, who had been not a little amused by this original distribution,

had to bite his lips not to laugh loud, when he saw the foolish faces

made by the last-named persons as they heard their names coupled so

intimately with the names of the murderers of the hero. Professor Jager

drew down the corners of his mouth lower than Oswald had ever seen

them; and Primula, who had turned as white as the lace collar on her

pale-yellow dress, seemed to be on the point of breaking into tears.

That was, then, the triumph which she had hoped for from this night!

Was this the hospitable house of dear friends, who were so proud of

their perfect humanity? or was it a blood-dripping cave of brutal

Troglodytes? Was he the interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos,

or was he not? Was she the famous author of the "Cornflowers," or was

she not? And no cry of indignation broke forth from the throats of all

who had heard with their own ears this desecration of names so renowned

in science and in art!

The professor and his wife looked at each other across the table with

eyes in which an attentive observer might have read these and other

questions; then they glanced around the company at the table to see

what impression such blasphemy must needs have produced upon the

audience. But no one seemed to think any harm about this disgraceful

insult to scientific and poetic fame; no one, with the exception

perhaps of fat Doctor Kubel, who replied to an interrogative glance of

the professor with a friendly grin, and Oswald, who stealthily pressed

Primula's hand under the table as a sign of his sympathy, for Primula

sat on his left, while Thusnelda was his right-hand neighbor. Otherwise

nobody troubled himself about the insulted sufferers, each one was busy

only with his own part, and the impression he hoped to make upon the

others, and all awaited now the signal for beginning. The lady manager

gave it at once, with the same grace and the same noise with which, in

a menagerie, the docile elephant rings the bell for dinner, and the

bear or the monkey for supper.

Mrs. Clemens presented next, in a neat little speech to Miss Ida

Snellius, the offer to "come down, as day was breaking and Mars in the

ascendant," whereupon the young lady begged her to "let her observe

Venus first, that was just rising and shining in the east like a sun,"

but her voice was so indistinct as to be almost inaudible, either from

the great remoteness of the astronomer or from the embarrassment of the

performer.

The rest corresponded with this interesting beginning, and they

inflicted upon the unlucky drama all the horrors which art-loving

ladies and gentlemen are apt to practice when they assemble for the

purpose of reading a drama with "distributed parts," as they call it.

Rector Clemens changed Wallenstein into the gentle member of a Moravian

brotherhood; Professor Snellius, the clever, intriguing Octavio, into a

wooden pedant; Doctor Winimer howled and groaned as the noble son of an

ignoble father, so that unspeakable horror befell every heart; and

Doctor Kubel seemed to take Illo for Chamisso's washerwoman; while

Doctor Broadfoot read silent Butler's words as if he had been a

charlatan dentist at a fair. Countess Terzky became one of Pappenheim's

Cuirassiers; and Thekla, in the hands of Miss Thusnelda, a love-sick

seamstress.

And with all that, there was a holy zeal animating them all and

inducing them to turn over the leaves long before their turn came

again, and thus to produce a continuous rustling; and with all that, an

unvarnished enthusiasm which rewarded the performances of some, as

those of Doctor Winimer; and with all that an unselfish modesty with

which less gifted members, like Marie Kubel, submitted to correction on

the part of Rector Clemens, who enjoyed, by the regulations of the

club, the privilege of interrupting the reader and of pointing out to

him or to her the mistakes made in reciting.

Oswald enjoyed this Babylonian confusion, this nibbling of mice at the

club of Hercules, until gradually disgust overcame him, and even the

sight of Mr. and Mrs. Jager was no longer able to cause him to laugh

heartily. The professor sat, lost in his large easy-chair, immovable,

the corners of his mouth drawn down so low that its outline presented

the form of a horse-shoe, while he looked with his small, green

eyes over the frame of his large, round spectacles at his wife, his

fellow-sufferer, his companion in his disgrace. The conduct of the

poetess was, of course, far more striking, as might have been expected

from so eccentric a character. Now she would throw herself back in her

chair with crossed arms and fix her eyes on the ceiling, and now she

would lean forward and support her head, with the golden hair and the

wreath of blue cornflowers, in her hands. Then again she smiled a smile

of supreme contempt, or she yawned as if overcome by intolerable ennui.

Oswald was very curious to see what she would do when her turn came,

for she had whispered to him at the beginning, in feverish excitement,

"I will not read; rely upon it, I will not read!"

However, his curiosity was not to be so easily satisfied, for after Mr.

Winimer had declared himself at the end of the third act, with a final

effort of all his voice, "ready to die," Mrs. Clemens once more began

to ring with all her might, and gave thus the signal for a long pause,

which, according to Sec. 25 of the statutes, occurred in a drama of five

acts invariably after the third act, and in a piece of four acts after

the second, and during which, according to Sec. 26, wine and cake were

handed round.

In order to comply with the tenor of these paragraphs, the company left

the table and returned to the sitting room in the highly excited

condition in which people come from a finished artistic performance.

They sat, and stood about, with glasses in their hands, and talked of

the piece and the declamation. They all agreed that Doctor Winimer had

this time, as always, surpassed them all, and that Miss Marie Kubel had

not yet spoken loud enough, although, generally speaking, she might be

said to have made some progress. The gentlemen gave each other marks,

as they did with their school-boys, and of course all received the

highest number. The ladies spoke of the sublime poet, of the chaste

nobility of his verses. Miss Ida Snellius insisted that Schiller

reminded her frequently of Euripides, whereupon the circle fell into a

learned discussion, in which the words Sophocles, Goethe, Schiller,

Aristophanes, AEschylus, Euripides, Don Carlos, Oedipus upon Colonos,

and Wallenstein, were tossed to and fro like snow-flakes.

Oswald looked for the author of the "Cornflowers," whom he had

lost sight of since the beginning of the pause. He found her in a

window-recess of the second room (otherwise the chaste bed-chamber of

the two Misses Clemens), whispering eagerly to her husband. He was

about to withdraw modestly so as not to disturb the _tete-a-tete_, but

Primula rose as soon as she saw him, seized his hand and drew him into

the recess.

"Speak low," said Primula, with the hollow voice of a ghost.

"What is the matter?" asked Oswald, in the same tone.

"You shall tell me whether I ought to read!" breathed Primula; "Jager

has no sensibility for such a disgrace."

"Oh! yes, dearest Augusta," whispered the professor; "but I should

like to avoid a scene; I pray you, darling, what will the people say

when--oh, I cannot think of it."

"I should be disposed to agree with the professor," said Oswald. "I do

not see how you can be saved after being once entrapped into this

lion's den."

"Is the author of the 'Cornflowers' a murderer--a wretched assassin?"

whined Primula. "Never, never!"

"It is disgraceful," chimed in Oswald; "but the interpreter of

Chrysophilos is in the same position, and you see he bears his hard

fate with dignity."

A pressure of the hand from the professor rewarded Oswald for this

flattery.

"Oh, you men have no feelings for insults," sobbed Primula. "Well, I

will try, but if----"

The stormy ringing of the president's bell from the adjoining room cut

Primula short. She stepped ahead of the two gentlemen with the air of

one who has formed a resolution, happen what may.

"Now it will soon be our turn," said Doctor Winimer, as they took their

seats under continued ringing of bells, to Oswald; "don't be afraid,

and read bravely on. Even if you do not do very well the first time, it

will be better the second time, and practice makes the master."

"Whom I admire and revere in you," replied Oswald, bowing.

"Well, well," said Doctor Winimer, rubbing his hair, with a smile; "it

might be better. To be sure when I recently heard Holtei, who is

probably the best reader in Germany, the old saying _Anch' i sono

pittore_ came at once into my mind."

"I believe it," said Oswald.

The bell ceased to ring, and Doctor Broadfoot, as Colonel Butler,

raised his voice, and cried so that the windows rattled:

"He is inside. Fate led him hither."

The murderous night at Castle Eger progressed now rapidly from scene to

scene. Oswald was so curious about the manner in which Primula would

take her fate, especially since he had seen her excitement grow apace

as the fatal moment approached, that he could hear the words of

Fraeulein Neubrunn, "The Swedish captain is here," without excitement.

He actually asked Princess Thekla--Thusnelda, quite coolly, and without

the slightest palpitation of the heart, to pardon him for his "rash,

inconsiderate words." Nor did he notice the uncalled-for warmth of

feeling with which Miss Clemens recited the words:

"A fatal chance has made you,

A stranger, quickly my familiar friend,"

although her tone made Doctor Winimer feel bitter pangs in his heart.

Miss Fredegunda looked most significantly at her Doctor Broadfoot. He

did not notice the murmured applause which followed his recital of the

death of the cavalry-colonel; and the following scenes also passed

unnoticed, till at last the fatal net encloses Wallenstein altogether

in its meshes, and dark Colonel Butler distributes, in the secrecy of

his rooms, the parts to be taken by the murderers. Already Major

Geraldine has hurried off with his bloody commission, and--now the

moment comes, when (on the stage) the curtain parts and the grim

captains Devereux and MacDonald present themselves in collar and tall

riding-boots, and long swords at their side, before the commander of

their regiment.

"What is she going to do?" thought Oswald, as he saw the face of the

sufferer turn pale and red by turns; "she is not going to read."

But Primula overcame the noble indignation which made her heart swell,

cleared her voice, and said, with the soft voice of a saint who

surrenders himself into the hands of the executioners:

"Here we ARE, general!"

The lady manager, who thought the accent ought to have been upon the

word _we_, because there were two murderers, availed herself of the

right conferred on her by Sec. 73 of the regulations, and said:

"Here WE are, general!"

That was too much. The string was overstrained; it snapped asunder; the

insulted poetess rose, closed her book with a jerk, and said with pale

lips:

"I am sorry if I disturb the company by my declaration that I am unable

to read any more. But as I--can--not even--read a part--which--I must

force myself--violently--to read--"

She could say no more, but fell back into her chair and broke into

convulsive weeping.

The consternation which this scene produced in the harmless company

could not have been greater. They rose suddenly from their seats; they

crowded around the sobbing poetess; they asked one another what was the

matter with Mrs. Jager? and the professor if his wife was subject to

such attacks? Nobody suspected the true cause of her condition, which

the gentlemen tried to remedy by persuasion, and the ladies by Cologne

water. But Primula would accept neither the one nor the other. After a

few seconds she rose from her chair, declared decidedly that she must

go home, and went out without saying good-by to any one, hanging on the

arm of her husband, who had made a very foolish face during the whole

scene.

At the moment when the company, extremely surprised by the

disappearance of such honored guests, were still standing about in the

sitting-room and discussing the facts, a letter was handed to Oswald,

which, as the parlor-maid said, "a young man had brought, who was

waiting for an answer."

Oswald opened the note, which contained only the words:

"Make haste and come away. I am waiting below.--Timm."

Oswald did not neglect such an admirable pretext to escape from a

company which became every moment more and more intolerable to him. He

said he had received news which required him to return home instantly.

The next moment he had joined Timm in the street.

"Heaven be thanked that I could get away," he cried, seizing Timm, who

was delighted to see him, by the arm, and dragging him with him.

"Thought so," said Mr. Timm, "thought you were suffering infernal

pains; meant to help you, poor fellow. Come, let us wash down the

learned dust which you have swallowed, with a bottle of golden wine."

Book Second.

CHAPTER I.

"The Boarding-School for Young Ladies," in the suburbs of Grunwald, was

not exactly a house of correction for young girls who were incorrigible

at home, as the students of Grunwald and other wicked people

maintained; nor was the principal of the institution, Miss Amelia

Bear--known as the She Bear--altogether the female dragon which

malicious tongues represented her to be. It is true, no one could deny

that during the day the curtains were almost invariably down in the

windows looking upon the street, and that after nine o'clock in the

evening no light was to be seen in the whole house. The boarders were

never seen in public, except in solemn procession, walking two and two,

and with a teacher at the head and a teacher at the end; no letter

passed the threshold of the house, going out or coming in, which was

not first subjected to a close scrutiny in Miss Bear's study, and

stamped there, so to say, with the official seal; but these and similar

regulations are either common to all "boarding-schools for young

ladies," or there was, in certain cases, a special reason for them. The

institution was intended for the "higher classes," whose female

offspring was counted upon for its support; this meant almost

exclusively the high nobility of the district, as the daughters of

persons not noble rarely sought admission, and still more rarely found

admission. Now it happens that young ladies of rank born and bred in

the country, and enjoying the twofold privileges of country life and an

exceptional social position, accustomed to manage from their twelfth

year their ponies with the skill of circus-riders, and at thirteen

often more familiar with the humbugs of society than other girls ever

become--that such girls are not to be treated as leniently as other

daughters of Eve. They are used to the society of busy idlers as their

only male companions: young land-owners, officers on furlough, and

other men of frequently very loose morals; and great is the danger,

therefore, that this inborn and inbred sovereign haughtiness may bloom

forth abundantly, and bear equivocal fruit, unless they are restrained

in time and with method.

This was the excuse which Miss Bear's friends made for the draconic

laws of her institution; she was the responsible keeper of this

precious but fragile ware, and who could wonder at the stern glance of

her once perhaps beautiful eyes, and the crowd of wrinkles on her brow,

which seemed to deepen and to multiply every year? Like so many among

us, she was what she was, not because she wished to be so, but because

she was forced to be so. It was her vocation to look stern, and to

frown, as it is the vocation of others to smile forever, and to wear as

smooth a face as they can produce. But as the greatest psychologist of

our day has taught us that one may smile and smile forever, and yet be

a very great rascal, so it is also possible to look like a chief

inquisitor, and yet to have a truly womanly, gentle, and kindly heart.

Miss Amelia Bear was the living proof of such a possibility. Miss

Amelia Bear had had a very hard time of it all her life long. She was

the poor daughter of a poor village minister, and began at fourteen her

thorny career as a governess in noble country families. In those days

she was very pretty, and therefore exposed to many temptations; but her

prudence and her cleverness had helped her to escape from all dangers,

till she was old enough to be left alone, and to procure for herself a

kind of independence by establishing a school upon the savings of long

years and the presents she had occasionally received. Her honorable

character was known to everybody; and this, and the experience she had

gained in the field of education, justified such an enterprise, while

her numerous relations to noble families promised almost certain

success. She preferred the nobility, because the nobility preferred

her; and she hesitated to accept girls of other families, because she

was sure to lose or not to receive for one such boarder, six from the

nobility.

Nevertheless she gave up the principle whenever a special case seemed

to require an exception from the rule. Thus it had been with Sophie

Roban. The privy councillor was the physician of the institution, and

Miss Bear was under great obligations to him. Even her noble patrons,

therefore, understood perfectly why she could not well refuse the

widowed privy councillor, when he asked her to take for a few years a

mother's place to his orphaned child.

Her relation to Sophie Roban was the best proof of the exaggeration

which had given rise to so many fables about the dragon nature of Miss

Bear. She had become a real mother to the motherless girl; she had

guarded and protected her against every bodily and mental danger, not

in order to earn her compensation honestly, nor for the sake of the

reputation of her school, but because she loved the girl with her whole

heart, as if she had been her own. Malicious people went so far as to

say that she had not only raised but also spoiled the girl, and it

could not be denied that Sophie--little Sophie, as the She Bear

said--could dare what no other boarder, not even Emily von Breesen, who

was at the same time there, and who passed for absolutely untamable,

would ever have ventured to do. Sophie could interrupt Miss Bear in the

most violent philippic against any wrong-doer who had done something

especially horrible, _e. g._, cutting round holes in the curtains for

the purpose of peeping at the people who passed by the house, and could

fall upon her neck and say: Miss Mal, Miss Mal, I would not be so very

angry if I were you! Sophie could at all times freely enter her

study--that mysterious adytum to which the young ladies came with fear

and trembling, and where the dispatches to their parents were prepared,

and all their letters, coming and going, were subjected to rigorous

scrutiny! Sophie could do what she chose.

These relations between teacher and pupil had ripened into a friendship

of a peculiar nature after Sophie had left the school and become the

presiding officer of her father's house. Miss Bear appreciated Sophie's

good judgment, and did not disdain to consult the lady, young as she

was, in critical cases; and what is more, she almost always followed

the advice which her young friend gave, more in play than in good

earnest, but always with perfect simplicity and impartiality. Such a

case had occurred a few weeks ago, when the Baroness Grenwitz had

expressed a wish to send her daughter Helen back for some time to the

institution to finish her studies, especially in the sciences. Now such

a step was remarkable enough in itself, as Miss Helen was coming

straight from a well-known, superior school, in which she had spent

four years; but it became still more embarrassing by the circumstance

that the instructions which Miss Bear received from the baroness on one

side, and from the baron on the other, differed essentially as to the

degree of freedom to be granted the young lady. If Miss Bear obeyed the

written instructions of the baroness, Helen was to be kept as a state

prisoner, under latch and key; if she followed the requests made orally

by the baron, when he brought, himself, his daughter to Grunwald, the

young lady was to be left in absolute liberty. As both methods of

education were equally incompatible with the system adopted in the

school. Miss Bear was in great embarrassment, and turned, in her

dilemma, to her young friend, to receive from her advice in this

mysterious affair.

Fortunately Sophie had heard much from her betrothed about the state of

things at Grenwitz, and what he had not explained she readily divined

by the talent peculiar to all women of delicate feelings.

"They tried to marry Helen to a man unworthy of her," said the young

lady, as she met her motherly friend soon after Helen's arrival in the

mysterious adytum of her study, in order to confer with her about the

Grenwitz affair, "and Helen has very properly refused to consent. In

return, they have banished her for a time from her paternal home. You

will surely not increase the hardship by being unnecessarily severe

against the poor girl? Surely, Miss Mal, that would not be like you. Do

what the father says: treat Helen not as a pupil--for that, she is too

old; treat her as a young girl who has taken refuge with you from a

tyrannical mother who ill-treats her, and from a father who is too weak

to protect her. For that is, as far as I can see, the truth of the

case."

When Sophie said so, she did, of course, not suspect Oswald's love for

Helen, and Helen's love for Oswald, which, if known to her, would

probably have made her speak somewhat differently; and afterwards, when

Franz's reports about the catastrophe at Grenwitz, and many a word

spoken by Helen herself, made her see more clearly this all-important

point, she still did not change her advice, because she looked upon it

as treason against a friend to tell others a secret of which she

herself was not yet fully convinced. Helen, moreover, had become her

friend in the meantime; at least she was most devotedly attached to the

pretty girl, although she had reasons to doubt whether Helen, in her

haughty pride and reserve, returned her love. It was mainly their

common enthusiastic love for music which had brought the two young

ladies so closely together. They soon found, not only that they shared

this enthusiasm, but that they complemented each other in their

knowledge of music as well as in their powers of execution. Sophie was

the more learned; the mysteries of Thorough Bass--for Helen, a book

with seven seals--were open to her; but Helen felt and appreciated

music more fully. In comparison with Sophie, Helen was, on the other

hand, a mere scholar on the piano, but she had a rich alto voice, as

extensive as well trained, while Sophie said of herself that she had

not a note in her throat.

Thus the two young ladies could play and sing by the hour, either in

Helen's room at the institute, or more frequently in Sophie's parlor,

without ever getting tired. Helen insisted that nobody had ever

accompanied her as well as Sophie; and Sophie, that nothing had ever

afforded her a greater musical enjoyment than Helen's sweet, melodious

voice, full of deep feeling.

But, strange enough, although their souls met in the realm of music as

kindred souls, and gave each other a sister's kiss, their tongues

became silent as soon as they attempted to approach each other in human

speech. Their conversation stopped frequently, and they had to turn

again to music in order to fill a pause which threatened to become

painful. Sometimes Sophie thought Helen was making a violent effort to

break the charm which bound her in silence, but she never went in such

moments beyond the first stammered sounds of intimacy, and the very

next moment saw the young girl longing for friendship changed into the

haughty lady of the world, calm in her self-satisfied repose, and

unapproachable.

"She is a marble statue," said Sophie to her father, "in spite of her

black hair, and her dark, brilliant eyes. You cannot get near to her. I

believe she is secretly an Undine."

The privy councillor laughed.

"You may not be altogether wrong," he said; "for if the two entirely

different elements, air and water, harbor also entirely different

creatures, which cannot have real communion with each other, it is

perfectly logical that different moral atmospheres, like that in which

the nobles live and that in which we live, must also produce morally

different beings, who can never become real friends with heart and

soul. Have you formed any friendship, during the time you spent at Miss

Bear's school, which has lasted beyond those years?"

"Yes, papa, with Miss Bear herself," answered Sophie, laughing.

"There you see," said the privy councillor, with his satirical smile,

"one can become good friends with she bears even, but not with

Undines."

Sophie was too young yet to be able to share the suspicions suggested

to her father by his long life and ample experience. She explained

Helen's reserve by her innate or acquired reluctance to come out of

herself, and forgave her this shyness all the more readily as she was

not quite free from it herself. She was herself generally looked upon

as stern and cold, and many people declared openly that "she was not at

all like other girls." "She cannot help it," she would say to herself,

"and we ought not to expect to gather figs from thistles. Helen would

be just the same to you if the Robans had been barons at the time of

Charlemagne."

This view did greater honor to Sophie's head than to her worldly

prudence, and she would have perhaps become a convert to her father's

views, "that Undines can at least be intimate with Undines," if she had

been able to look over Helen's shoulder on the afternoon of the third

day after Oswald's arrival in Grunwald. Helen was writing to her

friend, Miss Mary Burton (an Undine beyond doubt, for she belonged to

an old and noble English family), and the delicate gold pen was flying

fast over the paper. Helen wrote:

"This is the first time for a long, long time, dearest Mary, that I

have the heart to answer your letters--for there is quite a pile lying

before me. But I could not get the courage to write to you, who have

now entered the great world, and have been presented at court--who are

engaged, and about to become the wife of an English peer, that I, Helen

von Grenwitz, to whom you prophesied such a brilliant future, have been

sent back to boarding-school! sent to boarding-school, like a naughty

girl; sent to boarding-school, like a gosling from the country! You

wonder; you smile incredulously; you lisp your 'It is impossible!' and

when you find at last that you have to believe my repeated assurances,

you seize me with both your hands and cry: 'but, for God's sake, what

does it mean? what can it be?' and you force me to tell you the whole

story from the beginning. Well, I see no possibility to escape from the

punishment, but you will find it natural that I shorten the pain as

much as I can.

"Therefore, in short, if not for good:

"The relations with my mother, which I wrote to you before were so

satisfactory, became worse and worse in consequence of my decided

refusal to accept Felix as my husband, until an open rupture, which I

had long seen coming, was inevitable. I have borne myself in the whole

affair as I thought I owed it to myself and to you. It was a fierce

battle, I assure you. To oppose my mother requires courage, and my

father supported me but feebly, for he is feeble. Well! the battle is

over; the dead are buried, and the wounds begin to heal. Yes, Mary! the

dead. My Bruno, my pride, my knight, _sans peur et sans reproche_, my

brother, my friend, my darling Bruno, is no more! He died fighting for

me, and has breathed the last of his young, heroic soul in a kiss upon

my lips. The fierce grief about this loss--for I only knew what he had

been to me when I had him no longer--made me dull and indifferent to

everything and everybody around me. As this boy loved me, no one on

earth ever can and will love me again. I was light and air to him; I

was meat and drink to him; I was waking and sleeping--I was life itself

to him. How often have I laughed at him when he told me so, with

glowing cheeks and bright eyes and trembling lips! And I said, 'Come,

Bruno, none of your extravagancies! none of your fables! you are a

little fool!' Now I would give many a year of my life if I could but

hear it once more from his proud lips. A suspicion, which I cannot

shake off, tells me that I would have found in Bruno and with Bruno all

the happiness that this earth can afford; and that in losing him I have

lost every prospect of happiness here below. You smile; you think: a

boy! but I tell you, you did not know Bruno.

"Do not ask me to repeat everything in detail. I cannot do it. My heart

is too full. The remembrance of my lost pet does not leave me for a

moment, and I should like nothing better than to lay down my pen and to

cry to my heart's content. Tell me, Mary, is it really our fate, as we

have so often told each other in sad hours, to go through life

unsatisfied, without joy, without happiness, without the hope that the

future at least may bring us the fulfilment of our wishes? Is fortune

ever to appear to us only as a _fata morgana_--charming in its beauty

and treacherously fleeting? Or is it ever to present itself only in a

shape which, however great the inner value may be, offends our

delicacy--our prejudices, if you choose to call them so? Your lot, to

be sure, it seems, is to be different. In the same circles to which you

belong by birth and training, you have found the man who would have

been dear to your heart even if your judgment should not have approved

of the choice of your heart. A man, a hero, a lord! Happy, thrice happy

you are to have found one to whom you have to look up, proud as you

are! Smile with your aristocratic curve of the lip upon--your friend at

the boarding-school!

"It is true, I am very comfortable at this boarding-school. They treat

me, not as a pupil, but as a guest, and I am sincerely grateful to the

principal, a Miss Bear, for her goodness, and the delicate

consideration with which she treats me, as if she knew all. Perhaps she

does know all. Such events, in families like ours, are not apt to

remain unknown. Have I not myself learnt much about my own engagement

only several weeks afterwards, and not from my father, with whom I have

corresponded all the time, and who has even come to see me several

times from Grenwitz (my mother, who I am told is here in Grunwald, has

broken off all intercourse with me), but from a young lady, a Miss

Sophie Roban, a former boarder here, whose acquaintance I have made,

and with whom I have even formed a kind of friendship. She is engaged

to our physician at Grenwitz, who has recently settled here, and thus

her news seems to be reliable. She told me what had occurred after my

departure from Grenwitz, and what papa had carefully kept from me; that

the young man, of whom I wrote you already last summer, our tutor,

Doctor Stein, has become my knight and my avenger, inasmuch, at least,

as he has fought a duel with Felix, and given my great cousin a lesson

which he will probably not forget very soon, as I learn from the same

authority. I cannot tell you how strangely this news has affected me.

At first--I may confess to you--my pride was offended that my name

should be coupled in the world with the name of a man like Mr. Stein;

that a stranger, a hireling, should have assumed responsibilities for

me, as if he were a relative, and my equal in rank. But then I thought

of the old saying, 'that if the people were silent the stones would

speak;' I remembered that a brother could not have behaved more

brotherly, nor a knight more chivalrously toward me than this man had

done from the first moment. I recalled, above all, that this man was my

Bruno's dearest friend, and I forgot my pride, and felt, not without

wondering at myself, that I could be grateful to this man for his great

kindness and affection without feeling, as I generally do, that this

gratitude weighs upon me as a burden. Nay, even more, I felt the desire

to see him, who was abroad, once more, in order to thank him in person,

and when I saw him to-day, quite unexpectedly, pass by the window at

which I was sitting, I felt--you will laugh at me, Mary--I felt that as

I returned his bow the blood rushed into my face. When he had gone by I

could not help following him with my eye, and then I leaned back in the

window and wept bitter tears over the memory of Bruno, which the

appearance of Stein had suddenly and powerfully revived in my mind. I

wish I could speak to him undisturbed.

"But I must break off here. I hear Miss Roban, who comes to play with

me, and Miss Bear, in the next room."

Helen rose to meet the two ladies, who had entered the room upon her

_entrez_! Sophie Roban passed Miss Bear and embraced Helen, with an

affectionate haste which contrasted somewhat with the calm and

dignified carriage of the young aristocrat.

"I have really longed to see you, Helen! Why have you not come to see

me since the other night, when you promised to call again? Miss Mal has

not put her veto upon it?"

"_Point du tout_," replied Miss Bear, pushing her glasses on the top of

her head, in order to look more freely at the large, friendly blue eyes

of her favorite. "You know, little Sophie, that Helen is perfectly free

to dispose of her time. But that was not what I came for, dear Helen!

Here is a letter for you; one of your servants brought it; I suppose it

is from your father?"

Helen took the letter with a slight acknowledgment, cast a glance at

the direction, and said: "Yes, indeed; from my father!" and put it on

her portefeuille, which she had closed when the two ladies entered.

"I will not interrupt you any longer," said Miss Bear. "Little Sophie

comes to carry you home with her. Shall I send a servant for you?--and

when?"

"You are surely coming, Helen?" said Sophie, who had taken a seat on

the stool before the piano, and was looking at a collection of music.

"I have received some beautiful new songs. A splendid one by Schumann;

we must look at it together."

"With all my heart," replied Helen. "But I cannot well stay long,

because I must finish a letter for England to-night, so that I can send

it off to-morrow morning. I am much obliged to you. Miss Bear, for the

servant; but I shall be back before dark."

"As you like it, dear Helen," said Miss Mal, kissing first Helen very

lightly on the forehead, and then Sophie Roban very heartily; "_adieu,

mes enfants_."

And Miss Bear slipped her spectacles down again upon her nose, wrinkled

up her brow in imposing severity, and rustled back to her sanctum, from

which Sophie had unearthed her a few minutes before.

"How is your father to-day?" asked Helen.

"Thanks," replied Sophie, still looking at the collection of music; "he

is much better; he has stayed up to-day a couple of hours longer. But

now read your letter, Helen, and then get ready. We must go."

"Directly," said Helen, opening her letter, while Sophie was reading

the music. A few moments later she looked up and found Helen holding

the letter in one hand, which hung down, while her head rested in the

other, and she was evidently deep in thought. The long lashes concealed

the bright eyes, and the dark eyebrows were contracted as if in

indignation.

"What is the matter?" cried Sophie, hastily closing the book and

putting it down on the piano. "Have you had bad news?"

"Oh no?" replied Helen, who had gathered herself up at the first sound

of Sophie's voice, and tried to smile. "Oh no! Papa will be here

to-morrow, that is all!"

"To stay?"

"Yes!"

"And you--Helen?"

"I was just thinking about that. My father leaves the choice to me,

but----"

The young girl paused, and assumed the same half-thoughtful,

half-wrathful expression of face. She seemed to have forgotten Sophie's

presence. All of a sudden she asked, her eyes still cast down,

"Would you, if you had been insulted, be the first to offer the hand

for reconciliation?"

Sophie was seriously embarrassed by this question, the meaning of which

she could easily divine. Helen had never spoken to her about her

affairs, not even in allusions. She was not to know anything of them,

therefore, and yet it did not suit Helen's candor, and her friendship

for Helen, to affect an ignorance and an indifference which were not

real.

"That depends," she replied, after a short pause, "on what the offence

was, and above all, who was the offending person!"

"How so?"

"There are offences, I think, which only become such by our own making,

and offenders who can never be such--who ought never to be such--I mean

persons who stand so near to us, with whom we are so closely united by

nature, that it would be unnatural, if----"

"They hated us," interrupted Helen, quickly. "But if such a case did

occur: if those hated each other for once, who ought to love each

other; if they persecuted and warred against each other, who ought to

support, help, and bear one another--how then?" Helen had risen;

her face was all aglow; her eyes sparkled; her hands were firmly

closed--the image of a person rejoicing in combat and prepared for

victory or death, but never for surrender.

"I do not know," replied Sophie, affecting a calmness which she did not

possess; "I only know that I for my part could never be placed in such

a position. I could never hate brother or sister, much less father or

mother who gave me life, happen what would. Are they not--myself? And

how can one hate one's own self?"

"Are you quite so sure of that?" answered Helen. "How do you know it?

You never had brother or sister; your mother died very early; your

father has, as you told me yourself, always overwhelmed you with

unbounded affection; but I--I have other----"

Helen probably felt that if she added another word she would not be

able to keep up her reserve hereafter, and broke off with a suddenness

which showed the remarkable control this young creature had already

obtained over herself.

"But we are losing time," she said, with a totally changed air, tone,

and carriage, "and about most unprofitable things. Come, we must hurry

to get back to our music!"

It was not the first time that Helen had thus suddenly given a new turn

to a conversation that threatened to become too intimate. Sophie had to

submit to it, although she was pained by this want of confidence, and

especially as she felt how Helen was entirely left alone, and what a

blessing it would have been to her to be able to pour out her

overburdened heart into the sympathizing bosom of a true friend. She

did not feel offended, therefore, by Helen's haughty reserve; on the

contrary, she was more than ever resolved rather to make her way slowly

and stealthily into Helen's confidence, than to return pride for pride

and reticence for reticence.

There was to be more than one occasion offered her to-day.

They had been playing and singing at Sophie's house, almost without

interruption, until it began to grow dark in the large room, which was

in the lower story. They paused because they could not see very well

any longer, and were walking up and down in the room, arm in arm, while

the effect of the music was still vibrating in their hearts, and even

Helen's proud heart felt milder and softer. She had been forcibly

reminded of the death of her favorite by one of Robert Schumann's

beautiful songs, which filled her with sweet pain. The sad, mournful

words, with the sad, plaintive melody, continued in her ear--

"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear,

I saw it in my dreams quite near;

It was so angel-like, so sweet,

And yet with pain and grief replete.

The lips alone, they are still red,

But soon they also will be pale and dead."

She thought of the night when Baron Oldenburg had led her from the

midst of the dancers to Bruno's dying bed; she saw again how at her

entrance the boy's eye flamed up in his deadly-pale face.

"The lips alone, they are still red,

But soon they also will be pale and dead,"

she murmured, as if she were speaking to herself.

"This song seems to have made as great an impression upon you as upon

Doctor Stein," said Sophie.

"Upon whom?" cried Helen, suddenly aroused from her dreams.

"Upon Doctor Stein! your Doctor Stein!" replied Sophie, as

indifferently as if she had never given a thought to the relations

which might possibly exist between Oswald and Helen.

"When did you see him?" asked Helen again, in her ordinary calmly-grand

manner.

"Last night, here; for the first time. He had been two days in town

without having seen Franz. Yesterday Franz met him accidentally in the

street, and brought him home with him. Otherwise we should probably

have had to wait a long time for his visit."

"How so?"

"Well, it did not look as if the visit gave him particular pleasure.

Still I can hardly judge of that fairly, as yesterday was the first

time I ever saw him. But to tell the truth, he looked to me as if

nothing in the world was likely to give him much pleasure. Franz says

it is not so at all, but he admitted that Mr. Stein had changed

remarkably in the short time during which they had not seen each other.

How was he when you knew him?"

Sophie thought she felt that Helen's heart was beating higher, as she

asked this very harmless question. Yet she did not show any excitement

in her voice, as she answered:

"I have seldom seen Mr. Stein except in company and, you know, there we

have very little opportunity to see men as they really are. He looked

to me generally very grave, almost sad, reserved, and silent,

especially during the last weeks. But the state of things in my family

at that time was such as to produce very naturally such an effect. How

was he yesterday?"

"That is difficult to say for one who is as little of a psychologist as

I am," replied Sophie, determined to tell the truth, even if it should

hurt Helen. "He looked to me gay, almost exuberant, but not cheerful;

talkative, but not communicative; witty, but not entertaining; in one

word, a combination of striking contrasts, which produced a very

painful impression on me, because I love, above all, what is clear,

easily intelligible and simple. I was especially shocked at the manner

in which he spoke about his position here and his vocation in life. He

seemed to look upon everything as mere play. He gave us a sketch of a

party to which he had been invited at Mr. Clemens's house, and poured a

perfect flood of irony and sarcasm on the poor people. He described his

solemn installation at the college, which had taken place that morning,

and represented the whole as a scene in a puppet-show. Franz tells me

he has something of Doctor Faust in his nature; to me he looked rather

like Mephistopheles. Nor did I think him so very handsome, as Franz had

represented him. He looked pale and haggard, as if he were sick, or had

not slept for several nights. His large eyes had an expression weird

and ghost-like. I had all the time to think of the lines: 'It is

written on his brow, that he can make no vow of faithful love'--or

however the verse may be."

"Then he must indeed have changed very much," said Helen.

The tone in which the young girl said these words was so very sad, that

Sophie regretted having been carried away by the secret antipathy she

felt in her heart against Stein, and perhaps still more by a desire to

provoke Helen by violent contradiction, and thus to punish her for her

reserve.

"Still," she said, to soothe the wound; "still, this is not to be my

final judgment about Doctor Stein; it is nothing but a first

impression. I shall probably think differently about him when I see him

more frequently. Franz is so very fond of him, and, you know, we girls

when we are engaged are apt to be jealous. But I just remember, he may

be here every moment!" she cried, interrupting herself.

"Who?" said Helen, "Oswald?"

"I had really quite forgotten it. Thoughtless girl that I am!"

"What is it?"

"Stein and Franz had agreed to hear a lecture by Professor Benseler

together. And Franz went directly after dinner to see a patient of

father's in the country. I was to have sent word to Stein. I wonder if

it is time yet?"

"It is half-past five now," said Helen, stepping to the window to look

at her watch. "It is almost dark and I must make haste to get home."

At that moment there came a knock at the door.

"There he is!" cried the two young ladies _unisono_, trembling like a

couple of deer when a shot is fired in the wood.

Another knock.

"What shall we do?" whispered Helen, who seemed to have lost all her

self-control.

"Of course we must say: 'Walk in!' What else can we do?" replied

Sophie, laughing involuntarily. "Walk in!"

The person who entered was probably unable to recognize the ladies in

the half-dark room; he remained standing near the door, as if he

hesitated.

"Come nearer, doctor," said Sophie, holding Helen's hands. "I must ask

your pardon for receiving you in the dark; but we will have light

directly."

Oswald had approached her as she said these words, and had bowed to the

ladies. Evidently he had not yet recognized Helen, who stood aside,

looking towards the window.

"I have to ask pardon," he said, "for I fear I have interrupted the

ladies. But as I found nobody in the hall----"

Suddenly he stopped; the blood rushed to his heart. He shuddered all

over. Was not the silent figure by Miss Roban, Helen? He approached a

little nearer. There was no doubt; that head whose outline he had so

often admired almost reverently, could belong to no one but Helen ...

He hardly heard Sophie say "You do not recognize Fraeulein von Grenwitz;

I will go myself to order lights." He heard the door close behind Miss

Roban; he only knew that he was alone with her. He knelt down before

her and seized her hand to cover it with burning kisses.

The surprise and the darkness favored Oswald's boldness. Helen trembled

so violently that she could not prevent him; she had barely strength

enough to say:

"For God's sake, Oswald, get up! I pray you, get up!"

It was high time, for at that moment Sophie returned, followed by a

servant who brought a lamp.

Oswald succeeded in checking his emotion. Helen turned to the window,

under the pretext that the sudden light was dazzling her eyes, and

looked down upon the street, while Sophie explained Franz's absence.

"Then I will not deprive the ladies for another moment of the enjoyment

of a friendly chat," said Oswald, bowing to take leave.

"Why, Doctor," said Sophie, gayly, "are you such a foe to friendly

chats that your presence must need make an end to them? You ought

rather to sit down and do credit to Franz, who calls you the most

entertaining companion he knows. Come, Helen, take a seat here by the

fire-place. Miss Mal will not cry too bitterly if you stay a little

longer."

Oswald had just been about to accept the offered seat; but when he

heard that Helen possibly might not stay, he contented himself with a

silent bow, to acknowledge Sophie's invitation.

"Thanks, dear Sophie," said Helen, turning round from the window, "but

I must really go--another time."

She had apparently regained her usual calmness; only a very acute

observer might have noticed in the deeper red of her cheeks the last

trace of past emotion, and in her cast-down eyes the desire to conceal

the latter from observation.

Oswald, who was looking around for the means to retain Helen a few

moments longer, saw the piano open, and music lying upon the desk. He

took up the first piece he found; it was Robert Schumann's composition.

"Oh pray, pray, Miss Helen," he said, "if you have a minute to spare,

sing this song. It deserves to be sung by you!"

"We have just sung it over," said Sophie; "it is really very fine, and

Fraeulein von Grenwitz sings it beautifully. Will you sing it, dear

Helen?"

If there was a question of music, no one was more eager than Sophie.

Taking Helen's consent, therefore, for granted, she had placed the

music on the stand, taken her seat on the edge of the piano-stool, as

she liked to do, and was looking expectingly at Helen, while she played

a few bars of a prelude.

Thus Helen saw herself forced to lay aside her hat, which she was

already holding in her hand, and to step up to the piano, although she

felt at that moment little disposed to sing, since her young, full

heart was still trembling under the effect of the passionate scene

which had just taken place.

Oswald stood a few steps off, leaning with folded arms against the

mantelpiece, his eyes fixed immovably on the two slender forms. And,

indeed, the sight was such as to arrest his attention; a more charming

one could hardly have been found.

One might have doubted at that moment which of the two was--not the

more beautiful, for Helen was indisputably the fairer--but the more

interesting. The harmony of most lovely features, the velvety softness

of a dark complexion, and the bluish blackness of her rich hair--all

this spoke in favor of Helen, and seemed to raise her to inapproachable

heights of beauty; but the expression in Sophie's face as she sat

there, given up to her music, now bending over the keys, and coaxing

out, as it were, the soft notes, and now looking up as if she was

following the escaping sounds in the air, would have been ample

compensation for him who finds the greatest beauty in the most

spiritual expression. As a favorable glance of sunlight may often pour

over a landscape, which has no charms of its own, a marvellous beauty,

so the noble, art-loving soul of the girl lighted up and made brilliant

her face, which was far from being really beautiful. There was

something of Beethoven's nature in it--the meteoric light which the

freed spirit of man casts through the vast night of sensuality into the

unbounded regions of eternal brightness. And, strangely enough, in the

same measure in which music heightened the expression in Sophie's face,

it softened the harshness in Helen's energetic beauty, by giving her

proud features a mildness which they never showed in ordinary life. The

harmony of sweet notes awakened there the slumbering genius, and put

here the demon of pride and ambition to sleep, so that the poetic

excitement benefitted both, though in quite opposite ways.

So it seemed to Oswald, while his eyes rested on the charming picture

of the two girls at the piano. Helen seemed to him almost a stranger;

he had to become once more familiar with her beauty; and yet, it did

not make the same overwhelming impression upon him as before. He

ascribed this partly to the unaccustomed surroundings, partly to the

attractive form of Sophie, which interrupted him in his devotion. He

did not know that since he had seen Helen last, the mirror of his soul

had become dim, and was no longer able to reflect a pure image purely.

In vain he tried to catch a glance from Helen. If Sophie was so

entirely given up to her music that she had really forgotten his

presence, Helen seemed at least to be in the same state of mind. She

did not raise her eyes from the music. Oswald rejoiced at it. He

concluded from it that his stormy greeting was, if not forgiven, still

also not yet forgotten.

They had drifted, as is apt to happen in such cases, from one song into

a second, and from that into a third and fourth. But suddenly Helen

declared she must go home now. Oswald, who thought that of course a

servant from the institute was waiting outside, was just considering

how he should manage to ask her permission to see her home, when

Sophie's question: "but you cannot go home alone?" relieved him of his

trouble. What was more natural than that he should make his bow and

politely offer his arm to Fraeulein von Grenwitz, and that Fraeulein von

Grenwitz should accept it with a haughty bend of her head!

Sophie was just buttoning the young lady's velvet cloak, and tying a

white fichu around her neck, "that your voice may not come to harm,

Helen!" and Oswald was standing, hat in hand, by her side, when the

door opened, before any one had heard a knock, and in walked Mr.

Bemperlein.

Oswald, who was standing with his back to the door, only became aware

of Bemperlein's presence when he heard Sophie's greeting: "How do you

do, Bemperly?" and turned round to see the new comer. At the same

moment Bemperlein recognized Oswald.

They had not seen each other since that night in which Bemperlein had

come to carry Melitta to Fichtenau and surprised the lovers in the

park. They had then parted in cordial friendship; and now, after so

many weeks, when they saw each other again, neither offered his hand to

the other, neither greeted the other with a smile, nor with a hearty

word of kindness. Their whole welcome consisted in a formal bow and a

few indifferent phrases, so that Sophie, who had thought Oswald and

Bemperlein were intimate friends, was not a little surprised and did

not exactly know what she ought to do in such an unforeseen case.

However, the embarrassing situation was not to last long; for Sophie

had scarcely introduced Mr. Bemperlein to Fraeulein von Grenwitz who

either did not recollect the tutor, whom she yet had often enough seen

at Berkow, or did not choose to acknowledge it in words--when Helen and

Oswald left the room. Sophie went as far as the door with them, while

Bemperlein remained standing near the fire-place, his hands on his

back, and his eyes rigidly fixed upon the ground.

It was almost night when Helen and Oswald found themselves in the

ill-lighted street.

"What way shall we go?" asked Oswald.

"I thought there was but one way?"

"Oh no! we might go the way by the ramparts. It is nearer and more

pleasant walking there than on the rough pavement."

"As you like it!"

"Will you take my arm now?"

It was the first time Oswald had had an opportunity to take Helen's

arm. He took pains not to shorten the pleasure of walking arm in arm

with the girl he loved through the dark night. The way he had proposed

was not only much longer, but also much darker. It led between the

walls of the city and the ramparts of the fortress--a pleasant walk in

summer and by day, but very unattractive on a dark autumn evening.

"It is darker than I thought," said Oswald, when they had left the damp

gate in the city wall, where the last lamp was burning, and had reached

the ramparts; "had we better turn back?"

"Not on my account; I like it quite well so."

"At least, please wrap yourself up well in your cloak; the wind is

blowing very keen from the sea, and the air is damp and cold."

They went on for a few moments in silence. The dry leaves of the trees,

with which the walk was covered, rustled under their feet; plaintive

sounds were heard in the air; it sounded like the groaning and sighing

of a shivering patient.

"How must it look now in the Grenwitz park?" asked Oswald.

"I was just thinking of it," replied Helen.

"I wish I could be there at this moment!"

"What would you do there?"

"I would saunter through the familiar walks, between the yew-hedges in

the garden below, and under the beech-trees on the wall above, and talk

with the slender crescent of the moon, as it dances in the clouds, and

with the night-wind as it blows through the branches and around the

castle, of the blissful hours that are no more, and can return no

more."

"Then you like to think of Grenwitz."

"Why should I not? Have I not spent the happiest days of all my joyless

life there? What do I care now for all the bitter drops that fell into

the cup of intoxicating sweetness? I know nothing more of them. I feel

as if I had lived then for the first and last time of my life, and as

if I had since died together with the flowers in the garden and with

the sunlight that was playing in the morning on the dewy branches and

scattering strange shadows on the paths. Happy he whose life really

came to an end with that precious summer."

"Happy indeed!" whispered Helen.

"Yes, happy! He enjoyed for an hour the sight of what was most

beautiful, most glorious to him, and then he passed away like the rosy

breath of morning in the rays of the much-beloved sun. He was relieved

of the burden of the oppressive heat and the stifling dust of noon. He

needed not cover himself shuddering against the sharp evening wind; he

did not see the beautiful, gay world sink into weird darkness. Pardon

me, I pray, Miss Helen; this is the second time to-night I am carried

away by the recollection of my departed darling. But I cannot tell you

how strangely the sight of you and your presence recalls to me his

memory. The scarred wounds bleed afresh, and the dry eyes begin to weep

once more."

"Is it not so with me too?" said Helen, and her voice trembled.

"Then you loved him too? But no, I did not mean to ask you that. How

could you help loving him--fair and brave, good and marvellously lovely

as he was, and when he loved you so! loved you inexpressibly! Oh, Miss

Helen, do you really know how dearly he loved you? Do you know that he

loved you unto death--that he loved you more than his own life?"

"I know it," said Helen, in a whisper.

"More than his life," continued Oswald, passionately; "beyond death. It

was on his last day, a few hours before his death, that he showed me a

medallion with a lock of your hair, which he wore in his bosom, and

begged me to place it in his grave by his side. I was not able to

fulfil his wish. You know that I left the castle the next morning, not

knowing whether I should ever put my foot inside again, whether I

should be allowed to watch over my departed darling till his last

moment. I could not bear the terrible thought that the precious jewel

might fall into profane hands; I took it therefore, with the intention

to hand it to you, who alone have a legitimate claim to it. I still

have it in my keeping. When do you desire me to send it to you?"

They had passed through the gate of the fortress, and were now walking

down a street in the suburb, beneath tall, whispering poplar-trees.

Oswald tried to read Helen's face by the uncertain light of the moon,

which was just peeping out from behind drifting clouds. She looked pale

and deeply moved. Her arm rested more firmly on his arm, when she

replied, after a pause,

"Is the medallion very dear to you?"

"Can you ask me?"

"No, no! do not misunderstand me; I am not insensible; not ungrateful

for love and friendship. Keep the medallion! Keep it in memory of

your--of our darling!"

"Only in memory of him? It is your hair, Miss Helen; and only in memory

of him?"

"And--of me!"

Oswald took the small hand which was resting on his arm and carried it

to his lips.

"You make me very proud and happy," he said. "I have done nothing to

deserve so great a favor; but then, on the other hand, would grace be

grace if it could be deserved?"

"You are overwhelming me with your modesty. You wish me to thank you

for all your kindness, as I ought to thank you, and yet am not able to

do. You have always been very kind to me; you stood by me when even my

nearest relatives rose against me, and at the very last----"

"I did nothing but what I would do again at the peril of my life. But

here we are at Miss Bear's house. Is the gate locked?"

"No."

They went through the small garden up to the house-door. Oswald rang

the bell.

"Shall I see you again?"

"I go often to Doctor Rohan's!"

The door was unlocked from within.

"Good-night!"

"Good-night!"

Oswald seized Helen's hand and pressed it passionately to his lips.

The door opened.

"Till next time!" whispered Oswald.

"Till next time!" replied Helen, in a still lower tone. Oswald thought

she mentioned his name also. The next instant she had disappeared in

the house.

Oswald went back into the town in a state of excitement which was by no

means altogether joyous. Pure, chaste joy could no longer enter his

heart--as little as we are able to play a correct air upon an

instrument out of tune.

Thus he reached town. Where Market street opens upon the square all the

windows were brilliantly lighted up in the corner house, carriage after

carriage drove up to the door, dressed-up ladies and gentlemen stepped

out and disappeared under the lofty portal. When Oswald, walking close

to the house, had come immediately in front of me door, another

carriage was driving up. The driver checked the fiery horses too

violently, and the servant, who was just jumping down from the box, was

thrown violently upon the ground. He gathered himself up immediately,

but the pain was probably too great--he remained immovable, as if

stunned. Oswald, who had seen that there was only a lady in the coupe,

who had already risen, expecting the door to be opened, seized the

bolt, opened the door, and offered his hand to the lady, who, placing

her hand in the well-fitting white glove unsuspiciously upon his arm,

came down in a cloud of tulle and laces.

At that moment the light from the interior of the house fell brightly

upon the lady and Oswald, and the former uttered a cry, remaining

motionless, and staring at Oswald with wide, open eyes.

A deep blush overspread her face, her eyes flamed up--was it love or

was it hatred, who knows? Her lips trembled; evidently she had been

overcome with surprise.

The poor servant, who came limping up, hat in hand, broke the charm.

"Pardon me, my lady----"

Oswald's face showed an ironical smile.

"I congratulate you, _my lady_," he said, offering his hand to escort

her up the steps.

Oswald felt the slender fingers grasping his arm very firmly.

"Was it not your will?" she whispered. And now he knew that the great

gray eyes had flamed up with love, and not with hatred. "Many thanks!

Let me see you soon. I promise you Cloten will receive you well!"

They had reached the last step.

Oswald bowed.

"Then I shall see you again?"

"I will come!"

The young lady entered the house. Oswald went down the steps, past the

lame servant, who was still rubbing his knees, and looked wonderingly

at his improvised colleague.

Oswald laughed aloud as he went on: "Emily Breesen--Frau von Cloten!

And merely because I would have it so! And if I should not wish it to

be so any longer--what then?"

CHAPTER II.

During the next eight days the last crows had come to town from the

woods, and moved into their winter quarters in the steeples; likewise,

it was reported in well-informed circles, that of the noble families

who used to spend their winter in Grunwald not one of importance had

remained in the country. The increased animation which filled the

otherwise quiet streets, proved this sufficiently. At the theatre, the

front boxes, which were exclusively reserved for the nobility, now

overflowed every night. The good citizens of Grunwald were often

frightened out of their first sleep by the noise of furiously-driven

carriages, and twelve hours afterwards the same carriages came

thundering back again through the streets, when the disturbers of their

nightly rest had slept long enough, and felt an irrepressible desire to

see each other again after so long an interval, and to exchange their

views about the interesting events of the last ball--how often young

Count Grieben had danced with the youngest Miss Nadelitz, and what a

strange head-dress the Baroness Renrien had worn.

Last night there had been a great ball at Count Grieben's; and

to-morrow was to be a great party at the Grenwitz mansion, the first they

had given this season. As the local etiquette required that the invited

guests should call on their host before the party, as well as after it,

visits had to be paid to-day at both houses. The rolling of carriages

had, therefore, no end to-day.

When visitors were expected in larger numbers, the large

reception-rooms of the Grenwitz mansion, which fronted upon the street,

laid aside their reserve and opened their doors to all comers. So it

was to-day. A dozen visitors had been there; another dozen were

expected. Just now there was a pause. It so happened that only the

baron and the baroness were sitting in the parlor.

Any one who should have observed them just now, as they were escorting

Mrs. Nadelitz and her three daughters with smiles and compliments to

the parlor door, and who should have seen them after the door had been

closed, would have been greatly astonished at their altered appearance.

The old gentleman sank with an air of thorough weariness into his

easy-chair, and Anna Maria sat down opposite to him on a sofa, with a

face from which all smiles had vanished to give way to clouds of

deepest indignation. There had evidently been a scene between the two

before the last visitors came, such as is not unusual in regular family

dramas, and the question was now, simply, which of the two was to

resume first the interrupted dialogue.

In former days this would have evidently been the privilege of Anna

Maria, who enjoyed strife, and felt sure of victory. But strangely

enough, husband and wife seemed recently to have exchanged parts. The

baron was almost transformed since Bruno's death and Helen's departure

from home. Formerly good-natured, yielding, and peaceful, he had become

sensitive, grumbling, and obstinate. This change might have been in

part the effect of his bad state of health and his decline, which had

become very perceptible in the last weeks; but sometimes it looked as

if the cause was a deeper one--as if the recent events had roused the

old gentleman from his lethargy, and shown him many things and many

persons in a very different light from that in which he had seen them

before. He who had formerly hardly taken a glass of water without first

consulting his Anna Maria, suddenly began to act for himself, even to

think for himself, and to have positive views of his own, which he

maintained with that obstinacy and pertinacity which is often observed

in weak minds. He had had attacks of this obstinacy in former years

also, but now the sporadic occurrences seemed to have changed into a

chronic disease. People are apt to say of somebody who acts in an

extraordinary manner, "he won't live long;" and if there is any reason

for this assertion, the days of the baron must have been numbered.

Perhaps this was really so, and the baron suspected it secretly, so

that he made unheard-of efforts of his mind and his will, exactly as

old, very sedate canary-birds are apt to hop about and to flutter with

nervous violence a few minutes before composing themselves to sleep.

Such a nervous violence characterized the manner in which the old

gentleman, taking a pinch from his gold snuff-box, closed the top, and

then said, as if Anna Maria had given him the cue just then, and not

half an hour ago:

"Stay! Everything must have an end; we cannot leave Helen forever at

Miss Bear's."

"I am not accustomed," replied Anna Maria, taking up her

embroidery--she liked to be found busy at work when visitors came--"I

am not accustomed to say one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow.

Others may think differently about it. We would make ourselves

ridiculous before the whole world if we were to take Helen back after

four weeks."

"It is nearly six weeks," growled the baron.

"Four or six, that makes no difference."

"It does for me. I am an old man; I may die to-morrow."

"You have said so these ten years."

"If I have said so for ten years," replied the baron, deeply offended

by the indifference which lay in the words of his wife, "it is because

I have not had a well day for ten years; and one of these days the

morning will break when I am no more, and that is why I should like to

have my daughter near me again as soon as possible."

"And of your son you say nothing; you do not mind whether Malte is well

or unwell. And yet it is Malte in whom all our hopes are centring. You

ought to thank God that you have a son who can inherit the estate;

instead of that it is Helen, and all the time Helen, whom you consider

as all-important."

"I thank God that I have a son, and I thank you that you have given me

a son; not because he is my heir, but because he is my flesh and blood,

whom I can love, as I love my daughter also. As to the estate, you know

my views about that. I abhor entails, which only serve to create

discord in the family."

The baron took a pinch, evidently in order to becalm; but the remedy

seemed this time to have the opposite effect, for he continued, after

this interruption, with increasing violence:

"Why did you absolutely want to marry your daughter to Felix? Because

Felix may possibly one of these days inherit the entail! Why is Felix

your special protege? Because he may possibly inherit the entail! Why

must O have Felix in my house, whom I cannot bear, and do without

Helen, whom I love? Because Felix may inherit the entail?"

"Don't repeat yourself so often, dear Grenwitz," said Anna Maria in a

quiet tone, which did not harmonize at all with the deep-red spots on

her cheeks and the piercing sharpness of her large gray eyes, "and do

not excite yourself unnecessarily so much, your cough will return

directly. It matters very little how you think about entailed estates.

You cannot change them, God be thanked. But as for me, you must permit

me to think differently about it, and to do in that direction what I

think is my duty. If, you have no duties to fulfil to your children, I

have. If you are willing to give your daughter to the first adventurer

who wants her, or whom she wants--you need not stamp impatiently with

your sick foot; and you will spill the snuff on the carpet if you knock

your box so violently on the arm of the chair. I say, if it is

indifferent to you whom Helen marries, it is not so to me. I have

advocated the marriage with Felix, not from obstinacy, which I leave to

others, but because I thought it was a good match, the best which a

girl without fortune could make. You can see how little obstinate I am

when you consider that I am no longer in favor of the match since

Felix's accident, since the doctor thinks he is consumptive. On the

contrary, as soon as it is well ascertained that Felix wont live long,

I shall be one of the first to drop him, especially as he will leave

nothing but debts."

The old gentleman seemed to be by no means pleased with this exhibition

of cold-blooded egotism. He had a kind of dim perception--not the first

of its kind--that his highly moral wife might possibly have a very bad

heart, and he sighed. It is bitter to have to give up in the evening of

life an illusion which we have indulged in for a quarter of a century.

He fell into silent meditation. What it was that had occupied his

thoughts, he showed in the first words that fell from him. After a

pause, during which Anna Maria had been busy at her work, in nervous

silence;

"At least, be kind to her to-morrow when she comes to see us."

"I have always known what my duty is," replied the baroness, looking up

from her work and raising her eyebrows. "I shall know it in this case

also."

The baron apparently did not feel quite reassured by her words; but

before he could find words to express his apprehension, the servant

opened the door and announced, "Baron and Baroness Barnewitz."

The two entered the room.

Baron Barnewitz and his wife had only come to town the day before.

Baron Barnewitz was a great hunter before the Lord, and did not like to

leave his dogs and his horses. He had not come much into the parlor

since the hunting season had opened, and he still bore the traces of

his last fox-hunt. His shoulders and his red beard looked still

broader, and his voice was louder and hoarser than usual. Hortense

Barnewitz, on the contrary, was a shade paler and lighter than in the

summer, and looked a great deal more wearied and fatigued. Her lips

were thinner, and her blue eyes had become sharper. She evidently began

to find life, all in all, unprofitable, especially since last night.

She had been sadly neglected at the ball for the sake of younger and

more attractive ladies.

"Oh, at last we have the pleasure!" said Anna Maria, rising to meet her

guests, with the stereotyped gracious smile which she always held ready

for such occasions.

"Entirely our own pleasure, madame," cried the fox-hunter, kissing the

thin hand of the baroness; "entirely our own. By God, could not come

sooner. Arrived yesterday at noon; last night at Grieben's. Pity you

were not there; famous, I tell you; had almost as much fun as at the

last hunt. My wife was tired; had no encouragement. People are always

tired when no encouragement. Ha, ha, ha!"

"You must pardon Karl's way of talking," said Hortense, taking a seat

by the baroness on the sofa; "he has lived the last six weeks almost

exclusively with grooms and huntsmen."

"And with you, my darling! ha, ha, ha!" laughed the gallant husband.

"Well, Hortense needn't take it amiss. Husbands, wife, can afford a

joke, eh?"

"How do things look at home?" asked Anna Maria, trying to give a more

interesting turn to the conversation.

"Oh, so so!" said Baron Barnewitz. "The winter wheat is generally doing

very well; here and there the mice have done some harm. The summer was

too hot. I think the rain will do us some good now. _Apropos_ of rain,

Grenwitz! we must settle that question about the ditches, else we shall

all of us be drowned one of these days. I talked about it to Oldenburg,

a few days ago. He belongs to our district, with his estate at Cona. He

thought, too, the thing would have to be done this fall."

"Why, does the baron nowadays take an interest in farming? That is

something entirely new," said Anna Maria.

"Entirely new, madame," affirmed Baron Barnewitz; "the very last news,

ha, ha, ha! since his return from his travels; that is to say, about a

fortnight. I think he will be crazy next."

"Or marry your cousin Melitta," said the baroness, smiling.

"Perhaps that would be the same thing," suggested Hortense.

"But, dear Hortense, you ought not to be so satirical," said the

baroness, threatening the satirical blonde with her uplifted finger

jestingly.

"Are jealous; you are jealous!" cried Baron Barnewitz. "You have always

envied her her beaux, because she has one for every finger."

"It is a great art to be attended by gentlemen, if one leaves no means

of coquetry unused," said Hortense, dropping her cloak far enough to

show her white shoulders.

"Well, it is not quite as bad as that," replied her husband.

Hortense shrugged her white shoulders.

"Bad is a relative idea. Melitta has given so much ground for gossip in

her life that people are not so very strict with her."

"But that might be the case with Baron Oldenburg too," said Anna Maria.

"Possibly," said Hortense. "I do not know Baron Oldenburg well

enough----"

The fox-hunter saw himself compelled to pull out his handkerchief, and

to blow his nose furiously.

"Not well enough," repeated Hortense, who probably discovered some

connection between her words and the violent blowing of her husband's

nose; "but, if he can get over Melitta's last affair, he must, indeed,

be very tolerant."

"Last affair!" said moral Anna Maria, raising her eyebrows; "why, I had

not heard of anything!"

"Gossip, madame, gossip!" said Barnewitz, who remembered that Melitta

was his first cousin, and that he had, as a boy of seventeen,

worshipped the beautiful girl of twelve. "Nothing but the gossip of a

set of old women."

"Old women often have very useful, sharp eyes," remarked Hortense,

examining attentively the stucco ornaments of the ceiling.

"You make me very curious," said Anna Maria, sitting down comfortably

in the sofa-corner.

"It is nonsense, madame, I assure you," said Barnewitz, angrily. "A

couple of old women from our village, who were stealing wood at night

in the Berkow forest--at least I cannot see how else they could have

been there--say that Melitta has had secret interviews in her little

forest cottage with--Heaven knows whom!"

"Why, that is quite a piquant story," said Anna Maria.

"Yes; and what makes it still more piquant," said Hortense, her eyes

still busy at the ceiling, "is this: that the Heaven knows who always

came by the road from Grenwitz, and always went back again the same

way!"

Anna Maria's eyes opened as wide as they possibly could when she heard

this statement.

"When is that reported to have taken place?" she asked, with severity,

"I will not hope----"

"Oh, do not trouble yourself about it," interrupted Hortense; "Felix

came much later. It was about the time when we gave our first ball, and

Oldenburg, who was assigning the guests their seats at table with Karl,

made my cousin go to table with Doctor Stein, and carried him

afterwards home in his own carriage. It was a touching attention,

though not without its comical side in this case; as well as the warmth

with which Oldenburg afterwards took Mr. Stein's part when your nephew,

Felix, had that unpleasant affair with him. Oh, it is too amusing! But

nobody can accuse my cousin that she does not know how to make friends

of her friends."

The old baron had listened to this interesting conversation in perfect

silence, and apparently with utter indifference. All the more

surprising was the vehemence with which he now said, shaking his gray

head indignantly,

"Frau von Berkow is a dear lady, whom I esteem; Baron Oldenburg is a

man of honor; I have always known him as such, and have had quite

recently occasion to see it again in some very important business I had

with him. I am sorry, my friends, to hear you speak of them in this

hard and unfeeling manner--very sorry! very sorry!"

And the old man trembled so violently with deep emotion that he could

hardly carry the pinch he held between his fingers to his nose.

Baron Barnewitz nodded his head, as if he wished to say: The old

gentleman is not so far out. But Hortense was not in the humor to

accept the correction patiently.

"Don't trouble yourself about that, my dear baron," she replied

scornfully; "you know that the name of this Mr. Stein has elsewhere

also obtained quite a celebrity in the annals of the past summer. The

more frequently it is, therefore, coupled with my cousin, why, all the

more rarely can it be put in connection with the names of other

ladies."

It was fortunate for the old gentleman that he did not understand this

allusion to Helen, since it had never occurred to him in the most

remote way that his daughter could have been the cause of the duel

between Felix and Oswald.

In the meantime Hortense seemed to feel that she had probably gone too

far. She hastened, therefore, to say that it was quite late already,

and she was just about to rise in order to take leave when more

visitors were announced, which compelled her to stay. No one was to say

of Hortense Barnewitz that she had fled before a rival. But such a

rival was, in more than one respect, Emily Cloten, who now rushed in

ahead of her husband.

Emily had been married a fortnight. She had preferred not to make any

other wedding tour than from the estate of her parents, where the

wedding had taken place, to Grunwald. She did not wish to miss the

beginning of the season. She longed to appear at once on the stage of

her future triumphs, in order to prevent any possible competition.

Emily Breesen did not wish to become Frau von Cloten for nothing--the

wife of a man to whom she had engaged herself in a fit of

jealousy--whom she had married from pure caprice.

The success which she had obtained at the first balls of the season

fulfilled her boldest expectations. She saw all the men at her feet,

and the consciousness of the power of her charms furnished an excellent

relief for her coquettish beauties. The certainty of victory beamed

from her large, almond-shaped gray eyes; the certainty of victory

played around her rather large but well-shaped mouth, with its dazzling

white teeth; the certainty of victory peeped stealthily from the

dimples in her rosy cheeks; the certainty of victory even proclaimed

itself in the rustling of her long silk dresses and the nodding of the

white ostrich-feather on her black-velvet hat, from under which the

luxuriant brown hair overflowed in all directions.

Baron Cloten, on his side, seemed to have found out that the sublime

good fortune of being the husband of so brilliant a lady was somewhat

equivocal. There was around his eyes a faint expression like that

of a turkey-hen who has for weeks been dreaming and boasting of the

hoped-for happiness to promenade in the poultry-yard at the head of a

number of young, respectable turkeys, and who suddenly sees her brood

swim on the pond in the shape of wild, disrespectful ducklings. Those

who had known him before could not help noticing that he twisted his

blond moustache less frequently, and that his voice sounded by no means

as self-complacent as formerly. Perhaps he was all the more

disconcerted as he had unexpectedly and without any desire of his own

met his lady-love, whom he had faithlessly and somewhat cowardly

abandoned; while on the other hand, this very circumstance seemed

visibly to increase the good humor of his young wife. She had the

pleasing consciousness of having totally eclipsed Hortense last night,

and she now enjoyed the sight of her rival most heartily. Of course she

greeted her with all the signs of most cordial friendship, and asked

her with deep sympathy whether the night's rest had relieved her of her

headache of last night.

"What a pity, dear Barnewitz, that your migraine compelled you to leave

before the cotillon. I assure you, it was the most lovely cotillon I

have ever danced. Prince Waldenberg--you know I led the cotillon with

Prince Waldenberg; Max Grieben had begged us to do so--knew a number of