While such scenes were taking place, Under the Lindens and the
inhabitants of the adjoining streets felt a feverish excitement, so
that the crowd scattered at the mere sight of an approaching force,
merely however to reassemble at another temporarily safe point, and
arrests were made in large numbers. The inhabitants of distant parts of
the city dwelt in profound peace, utterly ignorant of what was going on
elsewhere, and enjoying the calm monotony of an idyllic country
village.
In a small one-story house in one of these quiet streets, which
derived, from a garden before the door and a slight iron railing
between the garden and the gate, somewhat of the appearance of a villa,
there sat just before sunset two persons in eager conversation. A
little aquarium with gold-fish stood near the window, a bright cage
with a canary bird hung between the curtains, and flowers were seen all
about in pots and in vases, so that everything bespoke the presence of
a lady, although the inevitable work-stand was not to be seen. The man
was not exactly young, although even the bald places at the temples
would hardly have justified any one in calling him old; the lady was
much younger. They conversed eagerly, like two good friends who have
not seen each other for months, while in the interval events have
happened of the greatest importance for both, which indeed may be said
to have inaugurated a new epoch in their lives.
"And Franz is perfectly satisfied with his position here?"
"Perfectly! How pa would have been delighted, if he----"
The young lady did not end the sentence, but turned towards the window
and busied herself with the flowers. The gentleman looked at her kindly
through the glasses he wore, and after a while he laid his hand lightly
on her arm and said:
"You must not only appear firm, my dear friend; you must be so;--you,
the daughter of such a father!"
"You are right, Bemperly; I will try to be as firm and as reasonable as
I look. But now let us speak of something else. What does Marguerite
say to our new plan?"
"She is delighted--or _charmee_, as she says. But I think it is less
because our position will be better--although, quite _entre nous_, a
married student is a very remarkably amphibious creature--as because
she will be able to be near you again. You do riot know what an
impression you have made on _ma petite femme_."
"She is so kind-hearted! And I have done so little for her; been able
to do so little for her! I have, properly speaking, done nothing but
tease her. Even that last evening--you recollect Bemperlein, when you
appeared as author--when you kissed each other in the bay-window, when
we drank the old hock, and pa afterwards gave his grand speech, the
last I ever heard from his lips. Now only I know what it was that moved
him so deeply. He took leave of us, not only for the moment, but
forever."
Sophie tried to master the emotion which threatened to overcome her,
and then she continued:
"I have done so little for Marguerite, and she has done so much for me!
Do you know, Bemperlein, that I was weak enough to become quite jealous
of the little one when I saw, in papa's letters, how very fond he was
of her, and how he disliked the idea of your getting married even more
than our own marriage?"
"And yet it was only by his assistance that we were able to marry; at
least Marguerite is indebted to him alone for her trousseau and the
furnishing of our house, both of which would otherwise have been almost
out of the question. You know, I am sure, what I mean!"
"The Timm affair! Marguerite wrote me about it. What amazed me most
was, that Timm should have returned the money so promptly."
"We were all astonished; no one more so than I, who knew best how
overwhelmed he was with debts--a fact which led me to dissuade your
father earnestly from making a useless effort. The whole affair has
caused me, _entre nous_, a good deal of heart-ache; and little reason
as I have to like Mr. Timm, I have still been quite sorry when I heard
soon afterwards of his being sent to jail. He was unable, it seems, to
pay a note long since due, and perhaps only because he had paid us. For
all I know, he is a prisoner still."
"What!" said Sophie, "has my old admirer really come to that at last?"
"Your old admirer?"
"Yes; don't you know it? I went to the same dancing master as Timm; and
I can well say that I liked him best of all with whom I talked or
danced. He is an extremely clever man, and can be most agreeable when
he chooses to be so. I am sincerely sorry that he should manage his
great talents so very badly. He resembles in that respect----"
"Oswald Stein, you mean. Well, say on. I have fortunately mastered the
feeling of bitterness which used to overcome me in Grunwald every time
I heard the name mentioned. He does not exist any longer, as far as I
am concerned, especially after his last adventures."
"That is hardly right, Bemperly. You know I never liked Stein
particularly; but since you all rise in arms against him, and since
even Franz, who used to excuse him so long, begins to chime in, I have
a great inclination to take his part."
"Of course," said Bemperlein, with a slight touch of bitterness; "that
is the old story. Women like a man the better, the worse he is. Even my
Marguerite, who generally cannot bear him, breathed the other day a
_pauvre homme_ in her softest notes! _Pauvre homme!_ I should like to
know what sensible man would think so of him. If a man rushes madly
through life, acting not upon principle but upon impulse; if he must
needs gratify all his caprices, and if he meets with difficulties
breaks out in furious anger; if, instead of loving his neighbor like
himself, he runs away by night with his neighbor's wife--they say of
him, with tears of sympathy in their fair eyes: _Pauvre homme!_"
"Bravo, Bemperly," cried Sophie, almost with her old cheerfulness;
"bravo! You could not preach better if you were yourself the happy
neighbor! But tell me, has no one heard anything yet of the reckless
couple?"
"As far as I know, no one? The earth seems to have swallowed them up."
"But how does the unlucky husband bear his misfortune?"
"Ah," said Bemperlein, almost angrily, "it is not worth while to
sympathize with that class of people. They deserve nothing better, and
reap what they sow. Just think, Miss Sophie--I meant to say _Mrs._
Sophie--this man, this Cloten, who, when Stein had run away with his
wife, behaved himself as if he never cared to see the sun shine any
more, not only found comfort in a very short time, but has inflicted
the same injury on his neighbor's house that he himself suffered. Baron
Barnewitz, Frau von Berkow's cousin--the one with the red beard, you
know, and the broad shoulders. Oh, you must have seen him. No? Well, it
does not matter--_Eh bien!_ Baron Barnewitz comes home the other day at
an unseasonable hour and finds--so gossip has it--the door to his
wife's room locked, suspects mischief, breaks a window, pulls out the
whole sash, rushes into the room and catches Baron Cloten, whom his
wife is just pushing out at another door! Then follows an explanation;
and the result is that Hortense has gone to Italy, and Baron Cloten,
after keeping his bed for a week, has retired to his estates without
taking leave of anybody."
"What a treasure trove that must have been for the good gossips of
Grunwald!"
"You may believe it; almost as great as when Helen Grenwitz became
engaged to Prince Waldenberg."
"How is that?"
"As far as I know, the solemn betrothal--I mean the official
ceremony--is to be celebrated here in the city in a few days. Anna
Maria told me recently that Helen would be here at the beginning of
March."
"Then you are still keeping up your relations with the family?"
"I could not well find an excuse for giving up the lessons. Anna Maria
honored me all the time with her special favor; and, besides, I have
recently become better reconciled with her ways. I believe we have
wronged her in many points. She has her very objectionable sides, no
doubt; but, if we wish to be just, we must acknowledge also that her
position is a very peculiar one. If she procures Helen a rich husband,
she does after all only what every mother in her position would do
likewise. And her circumstances are by no means as brilliant as they
think. Since her husband's death she has nothing but a comparatively
small annuity and the income from what she may have saved, but the
whole amounts to very little in comparison with her former revenue. And
if Malte should follow his cousin Felix's example, and die of
consumption, she would lose even that--and the poor fellow looks
shocking; he is nothing but skin and bones."
"Ah," said Sophie; "why, then Helen's marriage is almost a kind of
necessity in the meaning of these people, although I am convinced it
must be a very sad necessity for Helen."
"Why?"
"I will tell you in confidence. I think she had given her heart to
somebody else when she accepted the prince. Would to God she had been
less reserved towards me, perhaps it would all have come differently."
"Don't believe that! The girl has a kind of obstinate pride that no man
can bend, perhaps not even fate. She will allow no one an absolute
control over her decisions."
"Tell me, Bemperly, what is the truth of this report, that your Frau
von Berkow and Baron Oldenburg are living on very intimate terms with
each other?" asked Sophie, after a short pause.
"Nothing; nothing at all!" said Bemperlein, very earnestly. "I should
like to know what people have to do with that. There is an old
friendship between them, which dates back to the years when they were
children. That is all. Then they are neighbors, and must needs see each
other frequently--is not that perfectly natural? Why could not they
marry each other if they liked it? Instead of that the baron goes to
Paris, and leaves her, amid snow and ice, quite alone at Berkow. Does
not that show as clear as daylight that there is no question of love
between them?--or it must be a strange kind of love."
At that moment Sophie started with joy. She had caught a glimpse of a
tall, elegant man with a black beard, who was hastily passing the
window.
"There is Franz!" cried the young wife, her large blue eyes brightening
up and her cheeks blushing a deep red. "Hide yourself, Bemperly!"
"But where?" said Mr. Bemperlein, looking around in the room.
"There, behind the curtain! Hold it together in the middle, so that it
cannot open--thus!"
The bell was rung. Immediately afterwards the door of the room opened,
and Franz entered with rapid steps.
"Has not Bemperlein come?"
"Do you see him anywhere?"
Franz, it is true, did not see Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein, but upon a
chair a gentleman's hat; and, besides, the folds of the heavy curtain
arranged in a manner which very clearly betrayed the efforts of a hand
to hold them together.
So he said:
"That man Bemperlein is, after all, an utterly unreliable, frivolous,
unconscionable whipper-snapper; a man without faith, without principle;
a quack, whom I have regretted over and over again to have recommended
to Mr. Planke as director of his chemical manufactory, so that he has
actually engaged him with a salary of a thousand a year and five per
cent, of the clear receipts. He is a perfect Don Giovanni of a
Bemperlein, who has secret interviews with the wives of his friends,
hides himself when they return behind curtains, and is stupid enough
to leave his hat in the middle of the room. A harlequin of a
Bemperlein----"
"Stop!" said that gentleman, opening the curtain "I am found out!"
The two friends embraced with great cordiality.
"Do you know whom I have just seen?" asked Franz after the most
important questions had been fully answered.
"Well?" cried Bemperlein and Sophie.
"Baron Oldenburg and Frau von Berkow."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Bemperlein, casting an embarrassed look at
Sophie, and receiving in return a triumphant smile.
"As I tell you. I met them arm in arm near the palace. Frau von Berkow
has given me her address and asked me to call on her. There! Broad
street. No. 54. She has furnished lodgings. This, and the circumstance
that she has her children with her, make me believe that she has come
here for some time. I told her we were expecting Bemperlein to-day, and
she seemed to be very glad to hear it. Baron Oldenburg also sends his
best regards, and wants you to know that he has returned only yesterday
from Paris, in company with Professor Berger. You know, I suppose, that
the two met in Paris and witnessed the whole revolution? They are
staying at the Hotel de Russie Unter den Linden. I have advised Frau
von Berkow, if she has not very pressing business here, to leave the
city, because we shall in all probability have very troublesome times
soon. Albert street is full of people, swarming to and fro like an
ant-hill in uproar. Aids and orderlies are galloping through the
streets at full speed. At the corner of Albert and Bear streets they
had actually guns in position. Under the Lindens, they say, there has
actually been a collision, and an officer of the guards is said to have
been brutally ill-treated by the mob. Some said it was Prince
Waldenberg. The excitement was so great that the people left the grand
opera, although they were giving a new ballet, soon after the beginning
of the performance. In Fisher street the mob has attacked a gun-shop,
and an acquaintance of mine saw in Gold street the beginning of a
barricade. In one word, the city is in a state of feverish excitement,
and therefore, little wife, you had better bring out your tea, instead
of standing there with your mouth wide open and swallowing the horrible
news."
Sophie fell upon her husband's neck, pressed a kiss on his lips, and
went out to order supper. The two friends sat down on the sofa and
discussed their own and public affairs with that seriousness and
thoroughness which becomes wise men.