CHAPTER VI.

It was late in the evening when Panna again reached Kisfalu. Her

father was already expecting her with great impatience and, before she

left the carriage, shouted a question about the result of the trial.

Panna did not answer immediately, but cautiously descended, gratefully

pressed the hand of the gardener, who had brought her to her own house,

and entered the room with her father. Here she opened her lips for the

first time, uttering only the words: "Six months!"

Her father struck the table furiously with his clenched fist,

shrieking: "Then Hell ought to open its jaws and swallow the whole

band! But wait, I know what to do. Six months will soon be over, and

then I'll make short work with the fine gentleman. I'll be judge and

executioner in one person, and the trial won't last long, that I swear

by all the fiends."

Panna hastily interrupted him: "For Heaven's sake, Father, hush. If

any one should hear it might be bad for you. What induces you to say

such imprudent things? Do you want to be imprisoned for making

dangerous threats? You know that they wouldn't use as much ceremony

with you as with the nobleman. Only keep perfectly cool, we are not

obliged to make ourselves the judge, there is still one person higher

than the court, and he will decide our cause."

"What do you mean?" asked the father, looking inquiringly at Panna.

"You'll learn; only let me act, and keep cool."

The old man was not naturally curious, so he desisted and went to rest,

Panna following his example.

The next morning Panna was seen moving to and fro very busily between

her own house and her father's, and repeatedly entering the town-hall.

With her father's help, she carried all their property to his hut and

then offered the empty Molnar house for sale. There was no lack of

purchasers, but the peasant does not decide quickly to open the strings

of his purse, so it was three days before the bargain was concluded.

But at last the business was settled and Panna received several hundred

florins in cash. She gave the larger portion to her father, who bought

a vineyard with them, and kept a hundred for herself. When this was

done, Panna said that she had business in the city, hired a carriage,

and went to Pesth.

The king was at that time in Ofen, where he gave public audiences

daily. It is an ancient and wise custom of the Hapsburgs to make

themselves easily accessible to the people. In Austro-Hungary no

recommendation, gala attire, nor ceremony is requisite in order to see

and speak to the sovereign. On the days when public audience is given,

the humblest person is admitted without difficulty, and nothing is

expected from him except that he will appear as clean and whole as

possible, no matter how shabby he may be. The people are well aware of

this and, at every opportunity, profit by the facility afforded to

reach the king; there are persons who go to the monarch with a matter

which, in other countries, a village magistrate would decide without

farther appeal.

So Panna left her carriage at a peasant tavern outside of the city, and

went on foot directly to the castle at Ofen. The audience began at

twelve o'clock, and it still lacked half an hour of this time. Panna

passed through the outer door unrestrained, and was first asked what

she desired by a guard on duty at the foot of the staircase leading to

the royal apartments. Panna answered fearlessly that she was going to

the audience, and the guardsman kindly showed her the way.

At the head of the stairs another official met her with the same query,

and she gave the same reply. But this time the official also asked for

her certificate of admission. Panna did not know what it was, and the

functionary then explained that the king's audience chamber could not

be entered so unceremoniously from the street, but a person must first

announce himself and state his business, after which he received notice

of the time when he was to present himself. Of course it would be too

late for to day, but she could be registered for the next audience,

which would be given in a fortnight. She probably had her petition

with her, she need merely give it to him, and he would attend to

everything for her the friendly man said at the close of his

explanation.

Panna was obliged to confess that she had no petition, as she had

thought that she would be able to tell the king the whole story

verbally.

The smiling functionary explained the mistake. She must write the

petition, for the king at the utmost would have only one or two minutes

for her, and no long story could be told in that time; besides, she

could not be recorded without a petition.

Panna became much dispirited and out of temper. She again saw beloved

illusions disappear. She had imagined everything to be far smoother,

more simple, easier, and now here also there were difficulties. She

dejectedly followed her guide into an office, where she had all sorts

of questions to answer about her name, residence, etc., and the purpose

which brought her here. To the last inquiry she gave the curt

information: "I am seeking justice from the king against an unjust

sentence." Then she received a card with a number and a date, and was

dismissed with the remark that she must be there again with her

petition a fortnight thence, on Thursday, punctually at twelve o'clock,

noon.

She had desired to keep her purpose a secret from every one in the

village; but this was now impossible, for she could not prepare the

petition alone. So she went to the gardener, who had obtained another

place, and initiated him into her plans. He eagerly dissuaded her from

the step, since nothing would come of it, but Panna remained immovable

in her confidence in the result.

"The king," she said, "will secure me justice. It is impossible that

he should hear of the atrocious sentence and not instantly overthrow

it." And when the gardener continued to try to show her the contrary,

she at last grew angry and said curtly: "Well, if you won't help me,

I'll go to a lawyer in the city who, for money and fair words, will

draw up the petition."

The gardener now relinquished any further opposition, and declared

himself ready to compose the document.

They were together two days to accomplish the great work with their

united powers. Evil tongues in the village sharpened themselves

eagerly on the remarkable fact, and the rumors about the pair were

endless. Some thought that the beautiful Panna had forgotten ugly

Pista very quickly, others thought that the gardener was by no means

amiss, though no longer very young; many said still more scandalous

things. The young widow did not trouble herself about this chatter in

the least; she had more important matters in her head and heart, and

therefore could not hear the malicious whispers of the gossips.

The petition was begun three times, and as often torn in pieces. Panna

wanted it to be very energetic, very vehement. The gardener softened

the passionate expressions and suppressed the violent appeals. Of

course he was not a practised writer, and he had serious difficulty in

putting his thoughts into the correct form. But at last the

composition was accomplished, and Panna read it ten times in succession

till she knew every letter by heart. Her influence had been more

dominant than the gardener's, and the petition was still very forcible.

In awkward, but simple, impressive language, it accused the judge of

partiality, described Abonyi and his crime in the darkest colors,

quoted the cases of the shooting of Marczi and the hanging of Bandi,

and finally demanded for Molnar's death the death of his murderer.

With this document Panna again went to Ofen, and this time she really

obtained the audience. The whole scene affected her soul like some

strange, wonderful face beheld in a dream. First she waited in the

ante-room, among hundreds of other persons, most of whom were dressed

in splendid uniforms, and covered with the stars of orders. She had no

eyes for her surroundings, but thought only of her business and what

she wanted to say to the king; suddenly her number, called loudly,

broke in upon her reverie; Panna did not know how it happened, but the

next moment she found herself in a room, which seemed to her fabulously

magnificent, before her stood a figure in the uniform of a general,

which she could not see distinctly because everything swam before her

eyes; she faltered a few words about justice, and fell upon her knees;

the figure bent over her, raised her, said a few gentle, pleasant

words, and took the petition from her trembling hand; then she was once

more in the ante-room, with a hundred confused voices buzzing in her

ears like the roar of distant surf. When the gardener and her father

afterwards asked her for details, she was compelled to answer that she

knew nothing, remembered nothing, had seen and heard nothing clearly;

she only knew that the king had been very kind and took the petition

from her.

From this time Panna was remarkably quiet and composed. She went about

her usual work, attended to her household duties with her usual care,

and seemed to think of the past no longer; at least she did not mention

the painful incidents of which we are cognizant, either to her father

or the gardener, who sometimes visited her, and when the latter once

turned the conversation to them, she replied:

"Let us drop that; the matter is now in the right hands; another head

is considering it, and we need no longer rack our brains about it."

The gardener understood what she meant, and her father only half heard

these mysterious words without pondering over their thoroughly

enigmatical meaning.

Thus six weeks passed away and the end of January was approaching when,

one Sunday afternoon, the pastor unexpectedly entered Panna's hut.

Without giving the astonished woman time for a remark, he sat down on

the bench near the stove by her side, and said:

"Do not wonder, my child, that I have come again, after you so deeply

offended and insulted me. I must not bear malice. It is my office to

forgive wrong, and I would fain have you follow my example."

Panna gazed silently into her lap, but the priest continued in a voice

which grew more and more gentle and insinuating.

"You see, you are still indulging your savage, pagan vengeance, and

committing all sorts of follies which will yet ruin you. What is the

use of it? Let the dead rest, and think of the living, of yourself,

your future. What is the meaning of your going to the king and giving

him a crazy petition----"

"What, do you know that, too?" cried Panna turning pale; she felt as if

every drop of blood had gone back to her heart. "So the gardener

tattled? Oh, fie! fie!"

"Nonsense, the gardener! We don't need the gardener for that. The

petition has come from the king's cabinet to the office of the Home

Secretary, which sent it through the county to the parish, that we

might give a report of your mental condition. From your petition, you

are believed to be insane, and that is fortunate, or you would be

punished for contempt of court."

Panna clenched her teeth till the grinding sound could be heard, and

obstinately persisted in her silence.

"Of course I know that your head is clear, only your heart is hardened,

and I will pray to God that He may soften it. Herr von Abonyi is a

very different Christian. You need not look at me so angrily, what I

say is true. You know that he has great and powerful friends; it would

cost them only a word, and he would be pardoned. They wished to appeal

to the king in his behalf, but he would not permit them to take a step

for him. He repents his deed, he has received a just punishment, and

he wished to endure this sentence to the final moment. Through me, he

entreats your forgiveness, he does not wish you and your father to

remain his enemies, when he has penitently borne the punishment. You

will probably owe it to him, if you have no unpleasant consequences to

bear on account of your petition. You see how a man of principle and

generosity behaves! And then, remember what I told you before: Herr

von Abonyi is ready to provide for you all your life, as no one in your

family was ever supported. Well, do you say nothing to all this? Have

I nothing to tell the nobleman from you?" The pastor rose, laid his

hand upon her shoulder, and looked her in the face.

Panna shrunk from the touch of his fat fingers, brushed them off, and

said:

"Tell him it is all very well and we will see."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing else."

The priest departed with an unctuous farewell, and left Panna alone.

She remained motionless in the same position, with bent head, her hands

resting nervelessly in her lap, her eyes staring into vacancy. So her

father found her when, half an hour after, he returned from the parish

tavern. When she saw him, she started from her stupor, rushed to him,

and exclaimed amid a violent flood of tears:

"Father, it was all in vain, there is no justice on earth."

In reply to the astonished old man's anxious questions, she told him,

for the first time, the story she had hitherto kept secret of her

petition to the king, and the pitiful result of this final step.

Her father listened, shaking his head, and said:

"You see if, instead of acting on your own account, you had first asked

my advice, you would have saved yourself this fresh sorrow. I could

have told you that you would have accomplished nothing with the king."

Now, for the first time in many weeks, the old man again began to speak

of the matter which had never ceased to occupy Panna's whole mind. He

was choleric, and capable of a hasty deed of violence when excited, but

he was not resentful; he was not the man to cherish anger long, and had

already gained sufficient calmness to view Abonyi's crime more quietly

and soberly. He represented to his daughter that it would be folly to

demand the nobleman's life from the king in exchange for Pista's.

Panna answered sullenly that she did not perceive the folly; did her

father think that a peasant's life was less valuable than a gentleman's?

"That isn't the point now. You must consider that the master did not

kill your Pista intentionally."

"Stop, Father, don't tell me that. He _did_ kill him intentionally. I

don't care whether the purpose existed days or minutes before, but it

was there; else he would not have sent for the revolver, he would not

have aimed the weapon, touched the trigger, or discharged it."

"Even admitting that you are right, he has been punished for it."

Panna laughed bitterly. "Six months! Is that a punishment?"

"For a gentlemen like him, it's a heavy one. And he will provide for

you."

"Do you, too, talk as the priest does, father? You ought to know me

better. Do you really believe that I would bargain over Pista's life

for beggerly alms? I should be ashamed ever to pass the churchyard

where the poor fellow lies."

"You are obstinate, Panna. I see very plainly where you are aiming.

You always say you want justice, but it seems to me that what you want

is vengeance."

Panna had never made this distinction, because she was not in the habit

of analyzing her feelings. But when her father uttered the word, she

reflected a moment, and then said: "Perhaps so."

Yet she felt that it really was not vengeance which she desired, and

she instantly added:

"No, Father, you are not exactly right, it is not revenge. I should no

longer be enraged against Herr von Abonyi if I could believe that the

law, which punished what he has done with six months' imprisonment,

would for instance have punished you also with six months, if you had

committed the same crime. But it cannot be the law, or they would not

have shot Marczi for his little offence, you would not have been

imprisoned three months for a few innocent blows. It is easy to tell

me that the case is different. Or is there perhaps a different law for

peasants and for gentlemen? If that is so, then the law is wicked and

unjust, and the peasants must make their own."

The old man did not notice the errors and lack of logic in Panna's

words, but he was probably startled by her gloomy energy.

"Child, child," he said, "put these thoughts out of your head. I have

done so too. If I could have laid hands on the murderer at first--may

God forgive me--I believe that Pista would not have been buried alone.

But now that is over, and we must submit. After all, six months'

imprisonment is not so small a matter as you suppose. You need only

ask me, I know something about it. Oh, it is hard to spend a winter in

a fireless cell, busy all day in dirty, disagreeable work, shivering at

night on the thin straw bed till your heart seems to turn to ice in

your body, and your teeth chatter so that you can't even swear, to say

nothing of the horrible vermin, the loathsome food, the tyrannical

jailers--a grave in summer is almost better than the prison in winter."

Panna made no reply, and the conversation stopped; but her father's

last words had not failed to make a deep impression upon her

imagination. She clung to the pictures he had conjured before her

mind; she found pleasure in them, painted them in still more vivid

hues, experienced a degree of consolation in them. While she was

working in the house, her thoughts were with Abonyi in his prison; she

saw him in the degrading convict-dress, with chains on his feet, as she

had so often found her father when she visited him in jail; there he

sat in a little dusky cell on a projecting part of the wall, eating

from a wooden bowl filled with a thin broth, repulsive in appearance

and smell and biting pieces of earth-colored bread as hard as a brick;

the cell was impregnated with horrible odours; the bare stone flags of

the floor were icy cold; a ragged, dirty sack of straw, and a thin,

tattered coverlet swarming with vermin covered the bench in the corner;

in the morning the prisoner, like the others, was obliged to clean his

cell and work at things whose contact sickened him; at noon he walked

up and down the prisonyard, amid thieves and robbers, who jeered at and

insulted the great gentleman; the jailers assailed him with rough

words, perhaps even blows--yes, perhaps, her father was right, possibly

Abonyi might have been better off lying in the grave than enduring the

disgrace and hardships of the prison.

She gave herself up to these ideas, which almost amounted to

hallucinations, with actual delight; she even spoke of them, told the

neighbours about them as if they were facts which she had witnessed,

and when, early in February, a peasant who had been sentenced to a

year's imprisonment in the county jail for horse-stealing, was released

and returned to Kisfalu, Panna was one of the first who visited him and

asked if he had seen Abonyi in the county prison.

"Why, of course," replied the ex-convict, grinning.

Panna's eyes sparkled.

"You went to walk in the yard with him? They probably put him in

chains?"

"You are talking nonsense, neighbour," said the peasant. "He wore no

chains, and did not go into the yard with us. If I saw him, it's

because I waited on him."

"Waited? You waited on him?"

"Certainly. Surely you don't suppose that he is treated like one of

us! He lives in a pretty room, has his meals sent from the hotel, goes

in and out freely during the day, and is only locked up at night for

form's sake; he wears his own clothing and is served by the other

prisoners; we all tried to get the place, for he pays like a lord.

Hitherto, he hasn't found it very tiresome, for people came to see him

every day and, when there were no visitors, he played cards with the

steward. They say that, on New Year's Eve, he lost 140 florins to him;

it gave us something to talk about for a week."

During this story Panna remained rigid and speechless, listening with

her mouth wide open, without interrupting, and when the peasant paused

she sat still a short time, as if her thoughts were far away, and then

went out like a sleep-walker, leaving the man staring after her in

astonishment at her strange behaviour.

From this hour she was a different person. She was no longer seen to

smile, she scarcely spoke, did not open her lips all day, and avoided

meeting people's eyes, even her own father's. When the gardener came

to visit her, she evaded him if possible, and if she could not do that,

sat by his side and let him talk while she gazed into vacancy. When,

one Sunday afternoon, the priest again appeared in the hut, probably to

renew his attempt at reconciliation, she darted out of the door like a

will-o'-the-wisp the instant she saw him, leaving the amazed and

disconcerted pastor alone in the room.

Panna went daily to the churchyard and busied herself for hours about

her husband's grave. She ordered a stone cross from the city with the

inscription: "To her cruelly murdered husband by his unforgetting

widow." But when she wanted to have the monument set up, the priest

interfered with great vehemence and declared he would never permit this

cross to be placed in "his" churchyard. Panna did not make the least

attempt to rebel against this command, but quietly told the workmen to

carry the stone to her house; there it was leaned against the wall

opposite to her bed, and daily, when she rose and went to rest, she sat

a long time on the edge of her pallet, gazing thoughtfully at the cross

and inscription.

Once she interrupted her father in the midst of an ordinary

conversation with the abrupt inquiry, whether, in dismissing a

prisoner, the time fixed in the sentence was rigidly kept, and if, for

instance, any one was condemned to six months' imprisonment, this six

months would run from the end of the trial or from the following

morning.

The old man thought the question strange and did not know how to answer

it. He, too, was secretly beginning frequently to share the opinion

now tolerably current in the village, that Panna was not altogether

right in her mind.

Meanwhile Spring had come, Panna worked industriously in the fields and

in the vineyard, nothing betrayed what thoughts were occupying the mind

of the silent, reserved woman. Not until the latter part of May did

she begin to grow restless and excited, then she repeatedly entreated

her father and the gardener, though it evidently cost her a great

effort to control herself, to ask at the castle whether the day of the

master's release was known. Her father flatly refused to comply with

her crazy wishes, and very earnestly exhorted her to trouble herself no

farther about the castle and its owner. As for the gardener, he had

cautiously intimated repeatedly that it would be unnatural for so

young, robust, and beautiful a woman to remain a widow long, especially

when there was some one who would consider himself only too happy to

put an end to her widowhood, and he now added his entreaties to the old

man's that she would at last banish from her mind the memory of the

evil past.

Accident rendered Panna the service she had vainly asked of the two

men. One evening, when she was returning from the fields, she passed

the housekeeper at the castle who, with her back to the road, stood

leaning against the low half-door of a peasant's hut, and called to her

friend who was working in the yard: "Well, the master wrote to-day; he

wants Janos to bring the carriage at six o'clock to-morrow morning to

take him from the prison."

At this moment the peasant woman saw Panna passing, and made the

housekeeper a sign which silenced her at once. But Panna had heard

enough. She quickened her pace to reach home quickly, put down her

hoe, and ascertained that her father was already in the house. Her

voice betrayed no trace of excitement as she asked if he was going out

again, which he answered in the negative. Then she went to her room,

put on a warm woollen shawl, slipped the few florins she still

possessed into her pocket, and went away, telling her father to go to

sleep, she would be back again.

Hastening to a peasant who lived at the other end of the village, she

begged him to drive her to the city at once; she would pay whatever he

asked. The man replied that his horses were tired out, he had driven

them to the pasture, and could not bring them home now, etc. Panna

went to the second house beyond and repeated her request. This peasant

was more curious than his neighbour and asked what she wanted in the

city in such a hurry.

"My father has suddenly been taken very ill, and I must get a doctor."

"Why don't you go to the village surgeon if the case is so urgent?"

"I have been there," was the quick, glib answer which fell from Panna's

tongue, "he isn't at home, and won't come before morning. He has been

called to a farm two miles off."

"H'm! And you are leaving the sick man all alone?"

"He isn't alone, a neighbour is with him."

"Wouldn't it be better for you to ask the neighbour to go to the city,

and stay with your father yourself?"

"To cut the matter short, neighbour," Panna, who had grown terribly

impatient, now burst forth, "will you take me or not? I'll answer your

foolish questions on the way."

The peasant cautiously named the price of the ride, which Panna,

without a word of objection, instantly placed in his hand, after which

he at last went to draw out the waggon and harness the horses. A few

minutes later the vehicle was rolling over the dusty high-road.

Panna, wrapped in her shawl, sat on a bundle of straw which the peasant

had put in to furnish a seat for his passenger, staring with dilated

eyes at the landscape, illumined by a soft radiance. It was a

marvellously beautiful night in May. The full moon was shining in a

cloudless sky, the ripening grain waved mysteriously to and fro in the

white light, over the darker meadows a light mist was rising which,

stirred by the faint breeze, gathered into strange shapes, then

dispersed again, now rose a little, now sank, so that the straggling

bushes scattered here and there alternately appeared above the floating

vapour and were submerged in it; the fragrance of the wild flowers

mingled with the fresh exhalations from the damp earth and gave the

warm air a stimulating aroma. Now and then, where the bushes grew more

thickly along the edge of the road, the rapturous songs of the

nightingales were heard, the only sound, except the distant barking of

a dog, or the buzzing of a huge night-beetle flitting past the waggon,

which, at times, interrupted the silence of the night.

But Panna's senses were closed to all this varied beauty. Her whole

existence, all her thoughts and feelings were now centred upon a single

point, the purpose which brought her to the city. With a torturing

effort, which drove the blood to her brain, she again reviewed the

events of the past month, of her whole life. She strove to examine

them on all sides, judge them impartially, consider them from various

standpoints.

Was it right that Abonyi should now be at liberty to move about as the

great lord he had always been, after being permitted to make himself

comfortable for six months in a prison, which was no jail to him? Was

it not her duty to execute the justice which neither the laws nor men

would practise? Had she not a perfect right to do so, since she, and

those who belonged to her, had hitherto always atoned fully and

completely, rigidly and more than rigidly, for every sin?

In her early childhood her soul had been ravaged by a terrible grief,

which had never been overcome; the law had killed her brother; in her

girlhood, she had been tortured by only too frequent repetitions of the

sight of her father, whom the law had loaded with chains and punished

with severe imprisonment; her sorely wounded heart had found

consolation only in a single thought which, amid her sufferings and

afflictions, had gradually become established as firmly as a rock

within her soul, that every sin found a harsh punishment, that this was

an immovable, inexorable law of the universe, which could not be

escaped, that it would be easier to pluck the stars from the sky than

to do wrong without atoning for it. When, by a sudden act of violence,

she injured Pista for life, it was instantly apparent to her that she

owed expiation for it, and she had not hesitated or delayed an instant

in punishing herself more severely than any judge would have done, by

voluntarily sacrificing the happiness of her whole existence. This had

cost her no self-conquest, it was a matter of course; the eternal law

of the universe of sin and atonement required it, and to this demand

there could be no resistance.

This law was her religion, she believed it and could not help

believing; if she did not, if there was no august law of the universe,

beyond all doubt, that sin exacted pitiless requital, it surely would

not have been necessary to shoot her brother, to deliver her father so

often to the hardships of prison-life, to bind her own youth to a

hideous being whom she did not love when she married him, whom only the

consciousness of duty voluntarily and proudly fulfilled afterwards

rendered dear to her. If this was not a necessity, surely God, fate,

mankind--use whatever name you choose--had basely, atrociously, robbed

her brother, her father, and herself of life and happiness, and their

destiny was enough to cause frenzy, despair, madness!

No, no, that could not be. Fate could not deal so rapaciously with a

whole group of human beings; such unprecedented, inconceivable

injustice could not have been done them. They had only experienced the

great law of the universe and ought not to complain, because it is the

course of the world.

But now this law had been violated in the most unparalleled manner;

Abonyi had committed a heavy sin and had not atoned for it; this was a

phenomenon which shook the foundations of her being, robbed her of all

support, abruptly reawakened all her slumbering doubts concerning the

necessity of her bitter fate, and unchained the terrible tempests in

her soul, which hitherto only intense faith in the stern, but morally

necessary omnipotence of the law of sin and atonement, had succeeded in

soothing. Her sense of morality showed her a means of escape from this

mental torture, and she did not hesitate to take it. The law of the

universe must not be belied, it must prove itself in this case, as it

always had; since those appointed to the office had shamefully omitted

to use it, it became her right and her duty to execute it herself.

Amid these thoughts, which did not enter her mind dimly and vaguely,

but with perfect clearness and distinctness, the hours passed with

magical swiftness and, ere she was aware of it, the springless waggon

rolled over the uneven pavement of a street in the suburbs. The noisy

rattle of the wheels, which followed their former comparatively

noiseless movement, and the jolts which the vehicle received in the

numerous holes of the roadway quickly roused Panna from her deep

reverie and brought her to a consciousness of external things.

It was about two o'clock in the morning. She asked the peasant to

drive to the corner of a certain street, where the doctor whom she

wanted, lived; when she reached the desired place she got out, gave her

driver another florin, and said:

"Neighbour, go into a tavern and let your horses rest. You can ride

home whenever you choose; I will ask the doctor to drive out in his own

carriage and to take me with him; we shall get there several hours

earlier with his fresh horses, than with your tired nags, which could

not turn back at once."

"You're right there," replied the peasant, somewhat drowsily, bade her

good-night, and drove off at a walk. In a few minutes the waggon was

out of sight and hearing.

Panna now moved with rapid steps through several streets, which were

alternately flooded with bright moonlight and shrouded in darkness,

until she stood before the county jail. This is a barrack-like

structure, whose plain front has for its sole architectural ornament

two pairs of columns, which flank the main entrance on both sides.

Panna entered the narrow space between the two columns at the left, and

sat down with her back resting against the fluted shaft at the stone

base of the pillar, whose shadow completely concealed her.

She was very weary and exhausted; the tempest of thoughts in her brain

were followed by fatigue and a dull stupor; the silence, the darkness,

the warmth of the shawl wrapped closely around her, the motionless

position which her narrow hiding-place required, exerted a drowsy

influence, and she soon sank into a torpor which imperceptibly passed

into an uneasy, agitated half slumber, visited by terrible dreams.

Panna saw horrible shapes dancing around her, which grasped her with

their icy hands and dragged her away; sometimes it seemed as if her

brother was brought out and a bullet fired into his head; while she was

trying anxiously to find the wound, it was not her brother, but Pista,

who lay there with the hole in his forehead; she wailed aloud and the

dead man rose, seized a brick, and dashed it on her head so that she

fell bleeding; then again it seemed as though it was not she who lay on

the ground in a pool of blood, but Abonyi, who still held the smoking

revolver in his rigid hand; so the frightful dream faces blended in

terrible, spectral changes, one horrible visage drove out another, till

Panna, with a low cry of fear, suddenly started from her troubled

sleep. A heavy hand had grasped her by the shoulder, and a harsh voice

shouted unintelligible words into her ear.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a policeman standing before her,

shaking her and asking what she was doing here. Panna was terribly

startled for a moment, but she quickly regained her presence of mind,

and said:

"My husband is in the jail and will be released early in the morning;

so I came here to wait for him."

"Why, my dear woman, you can't stay here," replied the policeman; "find

a night's lodging, and in the morning you can be here in ample time to

meet your husband."

"Oh, do let me stay here, I don't know anybody in the city, where am I

to go now in the night, it will surely be morning in two or three

hours," pleaded Panna, at the same time drawing from her pocket a

florin, one of the last she had left, which she slipped into the hand

of the guardian of order. After this argument the latter evidently

discovered that it would be no very serious crime if a beautiful young

woman waited in front of the jail, on a warm, moon-lit night in May,

for her husband's release, for, with an incomprehensible mutter, he

pursued his round, on which, during the next two hours, he repeatedly

passed Panna without troubling himself any farther about her.

All fatigue had now left the watcher and, after this disturbance, she

did not close her eyes a second time. She was once more calm and

strong, and constantly repeated in her mind that she was about to do a

good, needful work, pleasing to God. The moon had set, it was growing

noticeably cool, day was dawning in the east; she shivered, a slight

tremor ran through her whole frame, yet she remained motionless on her

stone seat. Gradually the light grew brighter and brighter, the great

city gave the first signs of awakening, a few sleepy-looking people

began to pass with echoing footsteps through the street, now and then a

carriage drove by, the matin bells pealed from the church steeples, and

the first rays of the rising sun flooded the roofs of the surrounding

houses with ruddy gold. Just at that moment a carriage rolled around

the corner, drove in a sharp curve to the door of the jail, and

stopped. Panna pressed farther back into her niche and hid her face in

her shawl. She had recognized Janos and an open carriage owned by

Abonyi.

The driver, who had not noticed the dark figure between the pillars,

sprang from his box, blanketed the steaming horses, and gave them some

bags of oats. Meanwhile the door of the jail had opened, for it was

five o'clock; a heiduck came out, yawning and stretching, and asked

Janos:

"For whom are you waiting so early, Brother?"'

"For my master, Herr von Abonyi, who will come presently."

"Yes, yes, you are to fetch his lordship; well, if you wish, I'll go in

and tell the gentleman that you're here."

"Do, we'll get away sooner."

The man vanished inside the building and Janos busied himself

industriously with his horses, while whistling a little song. It was

not ten minutes before steps and voices were heard in the doorway.

Janos raised his cap, called: "At your service," and sprang on the box.

Two men appeared on the threshold, both looking as though they had been

up all night--Abonyi and the steward.

"Cordial thanks and farewell till you see me in Kisfalu!" cried Abonyi,

shaking hands with his companion.

"Good-bye until then! And in Kisfalu I'll give you revenge for the

trifle you lost to-night."

"If my coachman hadn't come so early, I would have won it all back

again."

"Why," said the steward, "if you feel inclined, you can come back and

play on comfortably."

"Thank you, I've had quite enough of your hospitality for the present,"

replied Abonyi, and both laughed heartily, after which they again shook

hands with each other.

The steward, who was shivering, turned back, and Abonyi prepared to get

into the carriage. At the moment when he had one foot on the step and

was half swinging in the air, without any firm hold, Panna sprang out,

threw her whole weight upon Abonyi, dragged him to the ground with her,

and, almost while falling, with the speed of lightning struck him

repeatedly in the breast with a long, sharp, kitchen knife, which she

had had in her bosom.

All this had been the work of a few instants. Abonyi had scarcely had

time to utter a cry. Janos sat mute with bewilderment on the box,

staring with dilated eyes at the two figures on the ground; the steward

turned at the shriek and stood as though spell-bound by the spectacle

which presented itself. Abonyi lay gasping, with his blood pouring

from several wounds; Panna had straightened herself and, throwing down

the bloody knife, stood quietly beside her victim. Instantly a great

outcry arose, Janos sprang from the carriage and went to the assistance

of his unconscious and evidently dying master, the steward rushed up to

Panna and grasped her by the arm, which she permitted without

resistance, a number of heiducks appeared, Panna was dragged into the

doorway, and a flood of curses and threats was poured upon her. While

Abonyi was carried into the guard-room under the entrance and laid on a

wooden-table, where he drew his last breath before a physician could be

summoned, a multitude of violent hands dragged Panna, amid fierce

abuse, into the courtyard, while the steward shouted loudly:

"Lads! Bring chains for this monster! Chains I say, put irons on her

hands and feet."

Then Panna who, hitherto, had not opened her lips, cried in a resonant

voice, while a strange smile hovered about her quivering lips:

"Why, my dear sir, how long have you used chains? Wouldn't you rather

play a game of cards with me?"

The steward's face flushed scarlet, he shrieked a few orders to his men

in a shrill tone, and rushed back into the guard-room to Abonyi.

Panna was shoved rather than led down the steps of a flight of cellar

stairs and thrust into a dark, stifling cell, where handcuffs were put

on. During this proceeding, she made many sneering speeches:

"Give me a handsomely furnished room, too, like the one the nobleman

had! And who will wait on me here?"

"Silence, witch!" cried the heiduck who was chaining her. "The

executioner will wait on you when he makes you a head shorter."

"The executioner? Fool, what nonsense you are talking! No executioner

will touch me. At the utmost I shall get three months imprisonment.

If six months is the sentence given for the murder of an innocent man,

surely one can't get more than three for killing a murderer."

At last Panna was left alone and the iron doors of her cell closed with

an echoing sound. The crime naturally created the utmost excitement in

the county jail; officials and employees talked of nothing else, and

after learning from Janos who the criminal was, the opinion was

generally expressed that she must be crazy. Before the examining

magistrate, who was informed of the bloody deed in the course of the

forenoon, gave Panna an examination, he sent a physician to see her and

give an opinion of her mental condition.

The doctor found the young widow lying on the bench, deadly pale and

utterly exhausted. She had spent all the power of her soul in the

horrible resolve and its execution, and was now as gentle and tearful

as a frightened child. She entreated the physician to have the irons

taken off; she could not bear them, she would be perfectly quiet; and

when he promised this she also besought him to write to her father,

whose address she gave, in her place. She begged the latter's

forgiveness for what she had done; she could not help it, there must be

justice for gentlemen as well as for peasants. If there was no justice

the world could not exist, everything would be topsy-turvy, and people

would kill one another in the public streets just as the wild beasts

did in the woods. She, too, would atone for the sin she had committed

that day, and that would be perfectly just. She also sent a message to

the gardener, thanking him for all the kindness and love which he had

shown her, and hoping that he might have a happier life than Fate had

allotted to her.

The physician talked with her some time longer, and received quiet,

rational, somewhat timid replies. At last he went away shaking his

head, evidently not knowing what to think of this singular woman, but

he succeeded in having the handcuffs removed, and faithfully wrote the

letter, as he had promised to do.

Panna was to be brought before the examining magistrate for the first

time on the following morning. When the jailer opened the door of the

cellar cell, he started back in horror. From the grating in the little

window, high up in the stone wall, dangled a rigid human form. Panna

had hung herself in the night by tying the strings of her skirt

together.

PRINCE AND PEASANT.

The first regiment of dragoon-guards had been waiting idly behind a

screen of low bushes in a shallow hollow for more than an hour, to

receive the order to advance.

It was an interesting point in the spacious battle-field of Metz, and

an important period in that day of August 16th, 1870, which paved the

way for the ultimate prevention of Bazaine's breaking through to

Verdun. By rising in the stirrups, or ascending one of the numerous

shallow ridges which intersected the meadow, a charming view appeared.

A few hundred paces in the rear lay the little village of Vionville

with its slender church-steeple, from whose top floated the flag of the

red cross. Several roads bordered with poplars diverged from the

hamlet, crossing in straight lines the broad, undulating meadow. In

the foreground was a tolerably steep declivity, which at this moment

formed the boundary of the German lines. Northward and southward, as

far as the eye could reach, extended a ravine several hundred feet

wide, at whose bottom a little stream had worn a narrow, winding

channel. The western slope was tolerably gentle, the opposite one, on

the contrary, was somewhat steep. Beyond stretched a bare plain, with

a few church steeples and white buildings, in the distant background.

Here the French were apparently drawn up in considerable force.

On the crest of the German hill several batteries were mounted, which

maintained a rapid fire with bombs. Small bodies of infantry lay on

the ground a short distance in the rear of the artillery. Still

farther back was the regiment of dragoons, each man with his horse's

bridle wound around his arm, waiting with weary, somewhat stolid faces,

for orders. The battle had evidently been at this point some time.

Nearly all the enemy's shells fell into the ravine, few reached the

level ground on the German side, and they, too, thus far, had effected

no special injury. Only a broken gun-carriage and two or three holes

in the earth which, surrounded by a loose wall of yellow clay, looked

like new-made graves, lent the plain something of the character and

local colouring of a battle-field. The ear had a larger share in the

mighty work of the day than the eye. From the sides, the front, the

rear, everywhere, cannon thundered, at a short distance on the right

echoed the rattle of a sharp fire of musketry, while the terrible,

ceaseless roar which filled the air alternately swelled and sank, like

the rising and falling flood of melody of a vast orchestra, during the

storm of the pastoral symphony.

A number of officers had assembled on a little mound in front of the

regiment of dragoons, whence they were attentively watching the French.

Among them a major stood smoking a cigarette and gazing dreamily into

vacancy. He was a man a little under thirty, with a slender figure,

somewhat above middle height, and a pale, narrow face, to which cold

grey eyes, and a scornful expression resting upon the colourless lips

shaded by a blond mustache inclining to red, lent a stern, by no means

winning expression. In this environment of human beings, amid these

excited young men with their healthful, sunburnt faces, he, with his

impassive, reserved expression and somewhat listless bearing, looked

strangely weary and worn. A woman's eye gazing at the group of

officers would scarcely have regarded him with favour; a man's would

have singled him out as the most intellectual of them all.

Removing his helmet and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with

his handkerchief, he displayed a head on which the hair was already

growing thin and, at the same time, a well-kept, aristocratic hand,

with long, thin, bloodless fingers. His whole appearance, even in the

levelling uniform, revealed a man of exalted rank. And, in fact, this

officer was Prince Louis of Hochstein-Falkenburg-Gerau, the head of a

non-reigning line of a German princely race.

Orphaned at an early age, he found himself at eighteen when, by the

rules of his House, he attained his majority, in the unrestricted

possession of a yearly income of several millions. From his mother, a

very fine musician, he inherited artistic tastes and a keen

appreciation of the beautiful; from his haughty and somewhat eccentric

father a rugged, independent nature, which found every external

constraint intolerable and wished to obey only the law of its own will.

It requires little power of imagination to picture how the world looks

to the eyes of a young, immensely wealthy scion of royalty. The court

treated Prince Louis with marked distinction, the ladies petted him,

gentlemen showed him the most flattering attention.

Precocious, as people become in the hot-house atmosphere of

aristocratic society, reflective and shy, as only children, who are

reared among grown people, without intercourse with companions of their

own age, almost always are, endowed, moreover, with a critical mind,

which always confronted appearances sceptically and anxiously went to

the bottom of everything, Prince Louis, unlike so many of his equals in

rank, did not accept the tokens of consideration offered him on all

sides as a matter of course, but constantly asked himself their cause.

He was honest with himself and admitted that he owed his sovereign's

clasp of the hand, the wooing smiles of the ladies, the cordial

advances of men of rank and distinction, not to his own personality,

but to his title and his wealth.

"What do they all know about me?" he often said to himself, when he

returned from an entertainment at court to his splendid palace,

tenanted only by servants. "Nothing! They give me no chance to open

my mouth, and if everything I said to-night had been written down and

laid before a man who was capable of judging, that he might give an

opinion of the person who made these remarks, he could not truthfully

say anything except: 'The fellow is perhaps not actually a simpleton,

but does not surpass mediocrity.' Yet I am received as if I were some

one of consequence. Yes, that's just it: it is not I, Louis, who am

treated so, for no one would trouble himself about me, but Prince Etc."

He became really jealous of "Prince Etc.," whom he regarded almost as

an enemy, who supplanted and cast into the shade his own individuality,

and the noble ambition entered his mind to win esteem by his

personality, not by the external advantages which chance had bestowed.

But this was no easy matter. "Prince Etc." everywhere stood

intrusively in his way and would allow poor "Louis" no opportunity. He

went to a university, less in order to study than to steep himself for

a few terms in the poetry of student life. The members of his

extremely aristocratic club formed in two ranks before him when he went

to their tavern, and old professors whom, hitherto, he had admired for

their works, blushed with joyous emotion when he introduced himself to

them, and in the class-room appeared to address him alone. He soon had

enough of this, and entered the army. The colonel thanked him for the

compliment which he paid the regiment by choosing it, his superior

officers showed him endless marks of consideration, and if some of them

affected to make no distinction between him and other young officers,

he detected in it an intention which also irritated him. As, moreover,

he found no special pleasure in the conversations of his comrades, nor

in the parades, watchwords, and other details of garrison life, he

forthwith quitted active service, not without having been promoted, in

rapid succession, to first-lieutenant, captain, and major in his

regiment.

Of course meanwhile woman had entered his existence. But in what a

manner! Light relations with actresses, which merely occupied his

senses and left no trace in his life except some considerable sums in

the account book which his faithful family steward kept with great

accuracy; fleeting flirtations with society ladies, which soon became

intolerable because he merely found incomparably greater demands, but

otherwise nothing more than with his actresses, toward whom he need use

no ceremony. This was all. A great, deep love would have given his

life happiness and purpose; but it did not dawn for him. Was it

because he did not meet the right woman? Was it because he did not

come out of himself sufficiently? was he, as it were, too much walled

in by his indifference to discover, behind the reserve of maidenly

timidity, faint emotions by which his own feelings might have been

kindled? Enough, he passed woman by, without seeing in her aught save

a toy. By accident, or to be more accurate, through the jealousy of

another interest which believed itself threatened, he discovered a

cleverly woven intrigue to lure him into a marriage with a princess

who, though neither especially beautiful nor wealthy, was yet very

pretty, and this so roused his distrust that henceforth he saw in the

favour of matrons and in the smiles of young ladies only speculations

upon his revenue of two millions and his title of prince, and acquired

a positive abhorrence of the circles in which people marry.

Once he had a meeting which narrowly escaped making a deeper

impression. On a journey from the Black Forest to Norderney the

prince, who cared nothing for aristocratic isolation, occupied the same

compartment with a young girl from Mayence, who was going to the same

place. She was remarkably beautiful, charming, gay, and brilliant, and

exerted a powerful attraction over the prince. He was extremely

attentive to her during the trip, while she remained pleasantly

indifferent and appeared to care nothing for him.

Perhaps this very indifference stimulated him, and he continued his

attentions at the North Sea watering place, where he maintained the

incognito of Herr von Gerau, the beautiful girl, who was at once

surrounded by other young gentlemen, only learning from him that he was

a land-owner. She accepted his daily gifts of flowers, it is true, but

otherwise showed no more favour to him than to the rest of her suitors.

Indeed, she paid even less consideration to the prince than to the

others, which greatly depressed him. Then it happened that a very

exalted personage who was a friend of Prince Louis came to Norderney.

The latter was obliged to pay him a ceremonious visit on which he wore

his uniform, and now could no longer conceal his rank and name. The

Mayence beauty saw him in his handsome blue uniform coat, and learned

that very day the identity of her admirer. Her manner to him altered

as if by magic. She had eyes for him alone, distinguished him by a

cordiality which justified the boldest hopes and, by her tender looks

and smiles, seemed to be imploring forgiveness for not having perceived

his value sooner. Prince Louis noticed this sudden change and felt the

deepest shame.

For two days good and evil fought a hard battle in his soul. His

innate nobility of character urged him not to profit by his advantage,

to withdraw from a person whom he had discovered to be so superficial.

His bitter contempt for women whispered to carry the relation which had

assumed a frivolous turn, to the doubtful end. Baseness triumphed over

nobility, and let any man of twenty-four who feels that he is guiltless

cast the first stone at the prince. But his evil genius farther

instigated him to do something very odious. After a poetic hour, in

which the Mayence beauty, amid fervid kisses, had asked whether he, her

beloved one, would now be hers forever, he sent her a package which

contained--his uniform, and a costly pin in the shape of a crown,

accompanied by a little note stating that he gave, for her perpetual

possession, all that she had loved in him.

The remembrance of this unpardonably unchivalrous act often tortured

him afterwards, but his repentance by no means took the form of greater

respect for women. On the contrary, he became more and more a convert

to Don Juan's love--philosophy, and allowed only the millionaire and

Prince Etc. to sue for favour, while the sceptical Louis grew wholly

averse to the fair sex.

From early youth, he had secretly written lyric poetry, and his

productions, which, it is true, were imitative rather than original,

were pleasant to read and correct in form. He sent some under his own

name to great weekly periodicals, and they not only appeared at once

but he obtained the most flattering requests for more contributions.

This afforded him much gratification, but again only for a brief time.

Under the influence of his suspicious spirit of investigation, he sent

several poems, with an unpretending assumed signature, to other papers.

He either received no reply or curt rejections in the editors'

letter-box. So he was done with that too.

He tried the "naive" life of pleasure, as he called it. With small

success. Gaming soon ceased to attract him, for at the roulette table

in Monaco he loathed the companionship of old professional gamblers

with their gallows-bird faces, and of bedizened Paris courtesans, and

at his club in Berlin or Baden, where he played only with respectable

people, the stakes were never high enough to permit even the largest

possible gain or loss to excite him. The pleasures of the epicure

afforded him more satisfaction, and his table was famous among his

peers. He soon wearied of wine; the discomfort caused by intoxication

seemed to him too large a price to pay for the enjoyment of drinking.

This caused his guests to banter him about his moderation, and allude

to the historic drinking-horn of gigantic size, which, as the

chronicles of the House attested, his ancestors used to drain at their

banquets, though in those days the Burgundy was far from its present

perfection, and Canary had not yet been invented. His companions'

enthusiasm for drinking at last disgusted him with entertaining, and he

gradually lost his taste for choice dinners also.

Once, while living on his Silesian estates, whose extent was equal to a

small kingdom, he became ill, and was obliged to send for the district

physician. This man, who afterwards obtained a world-wide reputation,

was then young, unknown, and apparently an ordinary country doctor.

The prince, however, soon perceived that he was far superior to his

circumstances and position, and placed himself upon a very confidential

footing with him. One day he complained of the desolation and monotony

of his life and asked, in a tone between jest and earnest, what he

should do with himself.

"Give your life a purpose, Prince," replied Dr. Backer, "strive for

something."

Prince Louis smiled scornfully.

"For what shall I strive? Everything to which the rest of you aspire,

which you are struggling with your best powers to attain, I already

possess! Money? I cannot spend half my income unless I light my

cigars with hundred-thaler notes, or wish to bore a hole through the

earth. Women's favour? My visiting cards will obtain more than is

desirable for me. Honours? At six and twenty years old, I have the

grand cross of the highest orders, and have the precedence of every one

except a few princes of the blood. Power? Listen, my dear Doctor: I

really believe that if it suited my pleasure I could shoot a slater off

the roof, and the affair would have no unpleasant results. Fame and

immortality? My name is perhaps somewhat better known than Goethe's.

Wherever I desire to appear, I am far more of a lion than the greatest

poet and scholar, and every Prince Hochstein is sure of two lines in

the encyclopaedia and larger historical works, even if he has done

nothing except to be born and to die at a reasonable age. So, for what

should I strive?"

"For satisfaction with yourself," replied Dr. Backer, "and that you

will find only when you earn what you inherited from your ancestors, in

order to possess it, as Father Goethe says."

Satisfaction with himself--certainly! But to attain it is the greatest

art of life. The prince might gain it if he devoted himself earnestly,

not merely in a half-absent dilettante fashion, to some art, science,

or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which,

unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity,

all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently

thankless, and the Canaan which they promise is reached only after

weary wandering through the desert. Prince Louis did not possess the

self-denial requisite for it. So he continued his life devoted to

purely external things and meanwhile was as much bored as Jonah in the

whale. He undertook long journeys and disappeared for six months,

during which he hunted tigers in India and hippopotami in the Blue

Nile. When he returned home and was questioned at the club about his

experiences and whether he had been entertained, he answered with a

shrug of the shoulders.

"Entertained? As if one could be in this vale of tears! There really

is nothing remarkable about a tiger-hunt. The danger and excitement

concern the poor devils of Hindoos, who rouse the game. I sat in my

howdah on a very quiet elephant and fired as if I were shooting at a

target. Buy some big cats from Asia or Africa, put them into a cage in

your park, and shoot till you kill them. It is about the same thing.

True, the scenic effects are less glaring, there are fewer

supernumeraries, and there is not so much shrieking and struggling on

the stage. But that seems to me rather an advantage, and one doesn't

have the heat and the snakes."

His hearers laughed, and an old gentleman remarked:

"You have mental colour-blindness, my dear Prince, and I should not

like to have you guide the engine of my life-train."

He had hit the mark. Prince Louis saw life uniformly grey. How

infinitely true are Schiller's words:

"Each mortal heart some wish, some hope, some fear,

Linked with the morrow's dawn, must cherish here

To bear the troubles with which earth is rife,

The dull montony [Transcriber's note: monotony?] of daily life."

But Prince Louis wished, hoped, feared nothing, and when he thought of

the future he beheld it in the form of a drowsy monster, yawning

noisily. He longed like a languishing lover for some excitement,

pursued it to the end of the world, but did not succeed in finding it.

He was just on the eve of going to Norway to hunt reindeer, when the

war of 1870 broke out. In 1866 he had been in Africa and did not hear

of the events of the summer until everything was over. This time he

asked permission to join his regiment, the first dragoon-guards, which

of course was granted. To tell the truth, he was influenced less by

patriotism and enthusiasm than, in addition to propriety, the hope that

military life would afford him new sensations.

Had he deceived himself this time also? It almost seemed so; for,

during the fortnight which he had spent in the enemy's country, he had

as yet experienced nothing unusual. When a person is attended by two

capable servants, and has an unlimited amount of money at his disposal,

he need suffer no discomfort even in the field, especially during a

victorious advance, and as yet there had been no opportunity for

individual deeds of heroism, or perilous adventures.

Thus he had again relapsed into a half-listless mood, while, as we have

just seen him, he stood among his comrades in front of his regiment

smoking his cigarette. Now, however, the French appeared to be

advancing from the other side of the ravine. Their batteries came

nearer, their shells began to fly across the gorge and strike behind

the German cannon. One burst amid the division of infantry, killing

and wounding several soldiers. Another demolished a gun and made havoc

among those who served it. The short sharp whistle of bullets even

began to mingle with the peculiar shrill wailing sound of the sugarloaf

shot, and on the plateau beyond, slender lines of infantry, diverging

very far apart, could be seen moving swiftly onward. They ran forward,

flung themselves down, there was a succession of sudden flashes, little

clouds of white smoke rose, a confusing medley of sharp, rattling

reports followed, contrasting disagreeably with the deep, rolling

thunder of the artillery; then the men were on their feet again,

rushing on, no longer in a perfectly straight line, some in advance,

others a little behind, with their faces turned towards the sun,

beneath whose rays the red breeches flamed in a vivid, bloody hue, and

buttons, bayonets, all polished bits of metal alternately flashed and

vanished.

The force of artillery was too weak to risk an advance. The colonel

who commanded the batteries ordered some shrapnels to be thrown among

the advancing lines of French infantry, and was about to move his

cannon a little farther back, when an aide dashed up from the right and

reported that he had ridden on in advance of the 38th brigade of

infantry, one regiment was close behind him, the other was marching as

rapidly as possible, and would soon arrive. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted

artillerymen, infantry, and dragoons at the top of their voices.

"Hurrah! Hurrah!" came back from the distance, and a regiment of

infantry, headed by a colonel and a general, advanced at a rapid march

in broad, deep columns from the poplar-bordered road across the

pathless meadow. The group of officers exchanged greetings with the

new arrivals, the general received reports, quickly made himself

acquainted with the situation of affairs, and issued orders, signals

echoed, in an instant the masses of infantry separated, lines of

riflemen darted forward and hurried to the edge of the ravine, down

whose slope they were seen running a few minutes later. A second and

third rank followed at a short distance, and, almost ere one was aware

of it, the whole regiment had poured down into the hollow.

This was the Third Westphalian regiment. It had passed so near the

group of dragoon officers that Prince Louis could have distinguished

every figure, every face. The poor fellows had been on their feet

fourteen hours, marching steadily under the scorching August sun. A

thick gray crust of dust, which perspiration had converted into an ugly

mask, covered their fresh young faces. The uniforms bore marks of the

clay in the various camping grounds where they had halted for a short

rest. But nothing now revealed the mortal weariness of the band of

heroes. Their eyes, reddened by the heat, blazed with the enthusiasm

for battle, their parched throats once more gained power to shout

"Hurrah!" with the full strength of their voices; their feet, which but

a few minutes ago had dragged along the dusty highway with painful

effort, now moved lightly and elastically, it seemed as though the

whole regiment had been invigorated by some stimulating drink as it

inarched into the line of fire.

The batteries roared above their heads at the French with twofold zeal,

"Hurrah, Hurrah!" rose from a thousand throats in the bottom of the

ravine, one could hear the roll of the drums sounding the march, and

loud shouts and cries. Prince Louis watched the assailants, whose

foremost ranks were already climbing the hill on the opposite side.

"Poor fellows!" he thought, "there they go to death as joyously as if

it were a kirmess dance. They will shout hurrah till they are hoarse

or a bullet silences them. Of what are they thinking? Probably of

nothing. A blind impulse to conquer urges them on. And what does

victory mean to each individual? What advantage will it be to him?

How will it benefit his earthly fate, if he escapes death on the

battlefield? The renown of the German name? For me perhaps it has a

value. Yet it is not absolutely certain. My uniform will possibly

derive a prouder lustre; but I wear it so seldom! If I go to Japan

next year, perhaps the Mikado will receive me with more distinction

than if I belonged to a conquered nation. Yet whether we mow down the

French or they us, I think I shall always receive the same treatment at

the Paris Jockey Club and the Nice Cercle de la Mediterranee. So much

for me. But these obscure people below--what do they care about

military fame and the power of a victorious native land? They will

notice nothing of it in their villages. The tax-collector and the

gendarme will be just what they were before, and that is all they see

of their native country, yet they are filled with enthusiasm. The fact

exists. It is as clear as noonday. We owe this to the writers who

have given such beautiful pictures of our native land and military

renown, and to the schoolmasters, who have instilled their words into

the souls of the people. Marvellous power of language, which can

incite a prosaic peasant lad to sacrifice life joyfully for an abstract

idea, a fancy."

These were his thoughts,--it can neither be denied nor palliated. But

while they darted clearly and swiftly through his brain, he felt a

mental agitation which surprised and bewildered him. It was a strange

perplexity; he felt ashamed and embarrassed; it seemed as though he had

uttered his thoughts aloud, and a group of people with grave, noble

faces had listened, and were now gazing at him in silence, but with

mingled compassion and contempt. From inaccessible depths of his soul,

into which his sober, critical, mocking reason did not shine, a

mysterious voice appeared to rise, imperiously commanding his

scepticism to be silent. "I am right!" reason ventured to murmur.

"You are wrong!" thundered the voice from the depths. "I will not

consciously permit myself to be made giddy by the dizziness of romantic

self-deception!" answered reason--but now Prince Louis felt as though

some stranger, from whom he must turn indignantly, was uttering the

words.

The Third Westphalian covered the opposite ascent. The foremost ranks

were already at the top and paused a moment, for a murderous fire

greeted the first heads which appeared, and several men, mortally

wounded, rolled down again. But the rest pressed on, using both hands

and feet to climb the hill, whose ascent would have been mere sport for

fresh youths, skilled in gymnastic exercises, but which must have

seemed terribly steep to harassed, exhausted troops. As they worked

their way upward with the utmost zeal, evidently striving to excel one

another, Prince Louis thought of some stanzas in the Winter Tale of his

favorite author, Heine:

"That lovable, worthy Westphalian race,

I ever have loved it extremely,

A nation so firm, so faithful, so true,

Ne'er given to boasting unseemly.

How proudly they stood with their lionlike hearts

In the noble science of fencing"--[1]

And with their "lion-like hearts" they reached the crest of the hill

and, summoning all their remaining breath, dashed forward. But the

French, comparatively unwearied and, roused to the highest pitch of

combativeness by the appearance of the enemy directly in their front,

threw themselves upon them in greatly superior numbers, and after a

close fight, which by the front ranks of both forces was actually

conducted in certain places with steel weapons, forced them back to the

ravine. It was impossible to make a stand there, the poor Westphalians

were obliged to wheel, and tumbled heels over head down the slope

again, not without leaving a number of killed and wounded. The French

were close behind and reached the bottom of the gorge almost at the

same time. The Westphalians attempted to climb up the opposite side

again, and then those who were left behind witnessed a heart-rending

spectacle. The German soldiers were so utterly exhausted that their

limbs could not carry them up the ascent, gentle as it was. They sank

down in throngs as though paralysed, the muskets dropped from their

nerveless hands, which no longer obeyed their will, and the French

could seize hundreds of them and lead them away as prisoners, while

many fell on the way and were left lying on the ground by the foe.

Meanwhile a great bustle rose. The Eighth Westphalian regiment had

just come up and, while the batteries moved rapidly back toward the

village in the rear, the former, led by the general in person, dashed

down into the ravine to the aid of their sorely imperilled companions.

The French recoiled before the shock and a large number of the

prisoners were recaptured. Yet the first assault did not succeed in

dislodging the foe; the French obstinately maintained their position at

the foot of the opposite height, and when attacked there, amid great

loss, with the bayonet, retired step by step up the scarf and again

made a stand at its top. A double flank movement of the Westphalians,

however, compelled them to retire somewhat quickly, and the latter,

stimulated by the sight, pressed after them cheering.

But this favourable turn did not last long. During the struggle for

the possession of the valley, the foe had not remained inactive. New

masses of infantry were brought up, and in the distance cavalry

appeared, moving slowly forward.

Prince Louis had watched the course of the battle with increasing

excitement, feeling his heart alternately beat joyously with twofold

rapidity and then contract in pain till it seemed to stop. The

situation now seemed to him critical and, glancing around, he found the

same feeling expressed in the looks and faces of the other officers.

But the colonel had already beckoned to his orderly and sprung into the

saddle. The trumpets sounded the first signal, a sudden movement ran

through the ranks of the dragoons, in an instant all were in the

saddle, sabre-sheaths clanked against stirrups, the chains and bars of

the bits rattled as the horses tossed their heads, then there was a

second blare of trumpets, a shrill neighing, a loud snorting, the

pawing and stamping of hoofs, swords flew from their sheaths, and the

troop of horsemen was in motion.

Prince Louis looked at his watch--it was half-past six o'clock. As, at

the head of the first squadron, he rode a short distance behind the

colonel, the aides of the regiment, and the trumpeters, a strange mood

which he had never before experienced came over him. The painful

excitement and quivering impatience, which, during the last half-hour,

had made his veins throb to his finger-tips, merged into a joyous

consciousness of purposeful activity, which restored his calmness. Now

he no longer reflected and criticised. It seemed as if the doubting

spirit had been driven out of him and he was obeying eagerly,

confidently, and devoutly as a child a command which filled his whole

being with an overwhelming desire to press forward. This man, so proud

of his personality, who had always sought his happiness in the

unrestricted exercise of his individuality, now felt his ego shrivel

until it was imperceptible. He was only a tiny stone in a piece of

mosaic, which formed a noble masterpiece only as a whole. A mighty

power, call it a law of nature or the will, whose manifestation is the

history of the world, had entered into and taken complete possession of

him. It was not he who now directed his fate, it was decided by some

unknown being outside of him. Had he been the most remarkable human

being on earth, a Newton, a Goethe, nay, the Saviour Himself, he would

now have weighed no more in the balance than the nameless Brandenberg

farm-hand by his side, he would now have had in the mechanism of the

world only the value of a dozen screws or rivets. And, strangely

enough, this merging of his individuality into a whole, as a crystal of

sugar dissolves in water, awakened neither discomfort nor regret. On

the contrary, it was an unknown delight, which pervaded his whole frame

and sent a little shiver of pleasure down his spine. He felt himself a

very small personage, and yet, at the same time, a very great one, who

had far outstripped the bounds of his individuality. It seemed as

though he was borne helplessly on by a mighty power, and the thought

entered his mind that Ganymede must have had similar sensations when he

flew heavenward between the rustling pinions of the eagle. He was now

experiencing the deep and mighty emotion for which he had always

longed, and he had obtained it by emerging from his selfish seclusion

and finding a point of connection with all mankind.

The regiment went down the slope at a walk, describing a wide curve,

partly to make the descent more easily, partly to avoid the dead and

wounded lying in heaps upon the ground at the bottom of the declivity.

Now the horses climbed the other side in a slanting line and reached

the meadow beyond. At a signal from the trumpets, the regiment formed

in two divisions which trotted forward, offering a wide front, still

keeping obliquely to the left for a time, past the cheering

Westphalians, and finally rushing straight upon the foe.

The thunder of the artillery in front ceased and echoed only from the

distance at the right. From the opposite direction a regiment of

cuirassiers came to meet the dragoons. A few hundred yards separated

the front ranks of the two, and the trumpets of both regiments could be

heard at the same time. The order to attack was given, and with

frantic haste, the lines dashed over the resonant clay soil, which was

absolutely free from dust.

It was like a scene from the legends of the Norse gods. The

cuirassiers, riding straight toward the westering sun, glittered and

flashed with fairy-like radiance, their shining sword-blades looked

like tongues of fire, their cuirasses and helmets blazed as if they

were at a white heat, their whole van was steeped in dazzling light, as

though surrounded by a halo. The German dragoons had the sun directly

on their backs. The long black shadows of the horses and riders dashed

over the ground before them, as if the cruel shadows of death were

preceding the living against the proud cuirassiers. Now the ranks met

with a terrible crash. The supernaturally majestic scene was

transformed in an instant into a horrible, formless chaos. Overthrown

by the force of the shock, horses and riders rolled upon the earth.

Masterless steeds dashed wildly in every direction, revolvers snapped,

sword-blades clashed, the horses uttered short, harsh screams, the

Frenchmen fought amid oaths and exclamations, the Germans, with

clinched teeth, dealt blows around them, swords were buried in the

bodies of enemies, without their owners clearly seeing what they were

doing, single pairs of foes, hacking furiously at each other, were

suddenly separated by a movement of their horses and brought in front

of new antagonists, only to find themselves the next moment again in a

dense throng, thigh pressing against thigh, arms firmly pinioned,

panting into each other's faces, while the rearing horses tried to bite

one another. This frenzied medley lasted perhaps two, perhaps three,

minutes. In spite of the irregular swaying to and fro of the mass, the

dragoons had constantly advanced, and now the cuirassiers suddenly

wheeled their horses and, bending low in their saddles, dashed off in a

stretching gallop. An exultant "Hurrah!" burst like a peal of thunder

from the breasts of the terribly excited dragoons, and their steeds,

with the blood dripping from their torn flanks, their chests covered

with flakes of foam, continued their victorious race, while on the

field behind lay hundreds of French and Germans, dead and wounded.

Signals, shouts, and the waving of sabres gradually slackened the

onward rush of the conquerors and brought them to a halt on the brink

of a narrow stream. It seemed to Prince Louis like waking from a

dream, as he patted the neck of his gallant horse and, panting for

breath, gazed around him. On the opposite side batteries were seen

moving rapidly away, the remnants of the cuirassier regiment were

following the artillery, and in the distance, on both sides, columns of

infantry were hurrying back, not without pouring upon the dragoons,

during the retreat, an irregular and ineffective fire.

"Strange," said a very young lieutenant beside the prince, showing him

his sword, "half the blade is covered with blood, and cannot have

received the stain except in a Frenchman's body. Yet I cannot recall

how it happened."

Prince Louis was about to answer, when he suddenly received a

tremendous thrust in the breast, as if dealt by the hand of an

invisible giant or the tip of a bull's horn, and, with a low cry, he

pressed his hand upon the painful spot. He withdrew it stained with

blood, and could just grasp the thought that a bullet had pierced him

ere his senses failed.

When he regained his consciousness, he found himself lying on the

trampled turf with his head resting on a saddle. His coat was

unbuttoned and a number of his comrades were busying themselves about

him. He felt no pain, only an inexpressible weariness and a strange,

almost indescribable feeling, something like an internal trickling,

which appeared to be rising into his throat and forced him to struggle

for breath like a drowning man.

"How do you feel, Prince?" asked the lieutenant-colonel, bending

anxiously over him.

"I feel," he answered softly, "as if I ought to shout: Long live the

king! Long live our native land!" Then, after a brief pause, he added

almost inaudibly, while a barely perceptible smile flickered over his

white lips: "But I certainly am not at a public meeting."

These were his last words.

[1] English translation.

THE ART OF GROWING OLD.

Baron Robert von Linden was standing between the panels of his triple

mirror. The sunlight of a bright May morning was streaming upon him

through the lofty window so brilliantly that it made the places which it

illumined almost transparent. He put his face very close to the crystal

surface, so that it nearly touched and he was obliged to hold his breath

in order not to dim it, examining his reflected image a long time, with a

scrutiny which at once seeks and fears discoveries, looked at himself in

front, then from the side, changed the light, sometimes bringing his face

under the full radiance of the sunshine, sometimes receiving it at

different angles or shading himself slightly with his hand. At last,

sighing heavily, he stepped back, laid the tortoise-shell comb and ivory

brush on the marble washstand, sank into the arm-chair standing in the

corner, and bowed his head on his breast, while his arms hung at full

length as if nerveless.

Alas! the hour when he made his morning toilet was no longer a happy one

for Baron Robert. He dreaded the inexorable mirror, and yet

self-torturing curiosity impelled him to inspect his face with the keen

observation of a Holbein. Not even the least deterioration in his

appearance escaped his search and scrutiny. He perceived and examined

all the ravages which life had made in his exterior: the lines crossing

the brow, the little wrinkles extending from the corners of the eyes

toward the temples, the deep ones, as well as those which seemed, as it

were, lightly sketched with a faint stroke to be more strongly marked

later, and which were now visible only in a side-light, the creased

appearance of the lower eyelids and the space between the inner corners

of the eyes and the bridge of the nose, the granulated condition of the

smoothly shaven cheeks, which resembled the peel of ripe oranges or fine

Morocco leather; the flabbiness of the narrow strip of skin between the

edge of the beard and the ears, which looked as if it had been lightly

powdered with greyish-yellow dust; the pallor near the cheek-bone, which

was as colourless and withered as a dead tea-rose leaf. He counted the

white hairs already visible on the temples--he pulled out the ones in the

moustache--let the sunbeams play over his hair and, turning and bending

his head, saw that it was growing thinner and, from the brow to the

crown, showed the smooth scalp shining through. The investigation lasted

a long while, he performed it with cruel thoroughness, locking himself

into his room meanwhile, since he would not allow even his valet to be a

witness of the painful discoveries of which he believed that he alone was

aware.

Perhaps he was not mistaken in this comforting supposition. His

appearance as a whole was still handsome and stately. Time had not

marred the lines of his slender figure, no increase of flesh enlarged his

girth, no weakness made his shoulders droop and rounded his back, and

when dressed with exquisite taste, and carrying his head proudly erect,

he walked with a light, elastic step through the streets or across the

carpet of a drawing-room, he would have been taken at a distance, or if

one was a little near-sighted, not only for a handsome man, but even for

one still young.

He said this to himself when, after a few minutes of discouragement, he

rose from the arm-chair, hastily completed his toilet, and again looked

at the whole effect in the mirror, this time not close at hand, but from

a distance of several paces.

Some one knocked at the door. "The doctor," said the servant's voice.

"I'm coming," replied Baron Robert, hastening to open the door and enter

the adjoining drawing-room, where Dr. Thiel was awaiting him. He came

regularly one morning every week to see the baron before the latter went

out; for Baron Robert was a little anxious about his health, and liked to

be told by the physician, who was also his friend, that certain trifling

symptoms--great thirst on a hot day, slight fatigue after a ball, a

little heaviness in his limbs after a long walk, were of no importance.

"Well, how are you to-day?" cried Dr. Thiel, rising to meet him.

"Fairly well," replied Linden, clasping both his hands.

"Yet, surely you look rather downcast?" asked the physician.

"For good reasons," answered Linden sighing.

"What is the matter now? Have you no appetite after eating? Do you feel

more tired at midnight than in the morning?"

"Don't ridicule me. You don't know what day this is."

Thiel looked at him inquiringly.

"My birthday," said Linden mournfully.

"Why, to be sure," cried Thiel, "let me see, what one is it?"

"No number," interrupted Linden quickly, covering his friend's mouth with

his hand.

"You're worse than a coquette," remarked Thiel, pushing his hand away.

He had had "an old coquette" on the tip of his tongue, but suppressed the

adjective. "A man can speak of his age without regret, when he is only

in the mid-forties."

"Not yet the middle, I beg of you," Linden eagerly protested, "I am

forty-four years old to-day."

Thiel smiled. "Well, I wish you many happy----"

Linden did not let him finish. "Happiness! Happiness! Is there any

happiness after youth is over?"

"Everything depends upon what is meant by happiness."

Linden did not seem to hear what Thiel was saying, but pursued his own

train of thought. "How futile your science is! You find a bacillus

here, a ptomain there. What use is that to me? None! Teach me how to

keep young forever, then I shall have some respect for your staring into

your beloved microscope. The ancients alone were right in that, as in

everything else. To die young. In undiminished vigour. The gods can

bestow no greater happiness. What is there to seek in life when youth

has fled?"

"Nothing, of course, if, like a drone, we have but a single task in

existence: to live. A drone must die, when it has performed its mission.

I am not at all blind to the beauty of the butterfly, which lets its

magnificent velvet wings glisten in the sunshine throughout a long summer

day, and has no organs for receiving nourishment, but does nothing except

hover around flowers and the females of his species, wooing and loving,

and dies in the evening without ever waking from his ecstasy of delight.

It is the same thing with the flower. It blooms, exhales its fragrance,

displays beautiful forms and colours merely for the purpose of

propagation, withering quickly when that purpose is attained. The

butterfly and the flower are both beautiful. Yet, after all, they are

inferior forms of life, and man is higher, though he does not exhale

fragrance and usually possesses no velvet wings."

"Is it so absolutely certain that man is superior? For my part I envy

the butterfly and the flower, which perish in the full glory of youth,

beauty, and love. That is the way I have always imagined an existence

worth living. A dazzling display of fireworks. A sudden flashing,

flaming, crackling, and detonating amid the darkness. A triumphant

ascent of glittering balls and serpents, before whose splendid hues the

stars of heaven pale. At every rain of fire and explosion, a rapturous,

ah! and a thunder of applause from the gaping Philistines, who are in a

tumult of ecstasy at the sight, and thus, without cessation, have flash

follow flash, and report report, in a continual increase of magnificence,

until the closing piece on whose marvellous splendour darkness must fall

with no transition. That is life. That is happiness. But the rockets

must always be fully charged. Otherwise they will not fly upward amid

universal admiration to the stars, but fizz a little, hop up with

ridiculous effort, fall plump, and go out pitifully in a malodorous

smoke. A dismal end."

Robert was silent a moment, evidently pursuing his picture in his mind.

Then, as if it were the final result of his train of thought, he added:

"Yes, Doctor, if you could only put a fresh charge into a half-exploded

rocket."

The doctor smiled.

"To remain always young, we need only do at every age what harmonises

with it."

Linden looked disappointed. But Thiel, without allowing himself to be

disturbed by it, continued:

"Are you not young at twenty? Well, play with a humming-top in the

streets at that age, and every one who passes will exclaim: 'What an old

clown! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' At fifty you consider yourself

old. If, at fifty, you are a commander-in-chief or a chancellor,

everybody will say: 'So young a general; a minister so young!'"

Linden rose and went to the window. Thiel followed, laid his hand on his

shoulder, looked him directly in the eye, and said very earnestly:

"Believe me, dear Baron Linden, that is the secret of perpetual

youth--there is no other. A man in the forties is not old--unless he

cannot resolve to give up the conceits of a page."

"Always the same song!" Linden impatiently exclaimed. "Must I renounce

love?"

"Yes," replied Thiel firmly.

"I must voluntarily renounce happiness?"

"In your case love is not always synonymous with happiness," said Thiel

with a significant smile.

"You are particularly agreeable to-day," remarked Linden sullenly.

"I owe you the truth. It is a professional and, at the same time, a

friendly duty," said Thiel, rising to go. Linden parted from him with a

silent clasp of the hand.

"Renounce love! No. That he really could not do. Love was the sole

purpose of his life which, without it, would seem as cold and gloomy as a

grave."

He was a chosen vessel of pleasure, and apparently destined by nature to

be borne through life in women's arms, handsome, captivating, a flash of

passion in his tender eyes, his lips yearning for kisses, regarded by the

men with wrath and envy, by the women with glowing cheeks and bewildered

hearts. When barely a youth, a page of the Grand Duchess, his attractive

person and winning grace turned the heads of all the ladies of the court,

and it was rumoured that a princess had been his first teacher in the

arts of love and, even after decades had passed, still grieved over their

memory. As the Hereditary Grand Duke's adjutant, he had scarcely

anything to do except to continue to compose his long love-poem, and add

verse after verse. At thirty he resigned from active service, which had

never been active for him, and became manager of the court stage. His

brief love-conflicts and easy victories now had another scene for

display. After the society of the court the dramatic arts: dancing,

singing, acting without choice, or rather with the choice indued by the

desire for beauty, and--change. The years elapsed like a series of

pictures from the fairy-tale of Prince Charming. They formed a frieze of

bewitching groups in all the attitudes which express wooing and granting,

languishing and triumphing. Each year was a Decameron, each month a

sensuous Florentine tale, with a woman's name for title and contents.

What a retrospect! His past life resembled a dream whose details blended

indistinctly with one another, leaving only a confused recollection of

sighs, kisses, and tears, melting eyes, half-parted lips, and loosened

tresses, a memory as deliciously soft as a warm, perfumed bath, in whose

caressing waters, in a chamber lit by a rose-hued lamp, one almost

dissolves, and yields with thoughts half merging into slumber.

But the dream seemed to be drawing to a close. Of late a cold hand had

touched Baron Robert, at first considerately, then more and more

imperiously, to rouse him. He could no longer shut his eyes and ears to

the signs and warnings: for they daily became plainer and more frequent,

not merely in his mirror, but also in the unintentionally cruel words of

the world, that other still more inconsiderate mirror. The pretty

ingenue of his theatre, one of his last conquests, had recently after a

private supper, while sitting on his knee and stroking his face, said to

him with overflowing tenderness:

"What a wonderfully handsome man you must have been!"

He had thrust her from him like a viper with so hasty a movement that the

poor girl hardly knew what had happened. She did not suspect that she

had thrust a dagger into the heart of the man she loved. At balls, young

girls now, after a rapid waltz, whispered, blushing: "I am afraid you are

tired," and in the German other partners, who were neither so handsome

nor so elegant as he, but young and lively, attracted more attention from

the ladies and obtained more favours. And had not a young attache a

short time ago, in reply to the remark that he preferred a sensible

conversation with experienced men to any other social pleasure, said with

thoughtless impertinence; "Of course, at your age--" He would have boxed

his ears, if any lady had been within hearing.

Such frank expressions, which even sensitive people did not avoid,

because they did not yet deem him in need of forbearance, caused a degree

of depression which, on some days, became actual melancholy. Then he

sought a consoling self-deception in memory, and lost himself in dreams

of the past, as a proud, brave nation, which has suffered defeat, takes

refuge in the history of its former victories, to sustain itself. Shut

into his study for hours he again lived over his triumphs, surrounded by

their testimonials. He placed before him pictures of himself, taken at

different ages. This bewitching page with his smooth, merry face, clad

in dainty knee-breeches with bows and a silk doublet, this handsome

lieutenant with the downy moustache and the bold, laughing glance, were

images of him; he had looked thus, perhaps even better; for he remembered

that the likeness, when taken, did not satisfy him, and that everybody

thought he was really far handsomer. He opened secret drawers, which

exhaled an ungodly perfume, very faint, almost imperceptible, like a

faded, ghostly odour, yet which excited the nerves in a peculiar way, and

somewhat quickened the pulsation of the heart. These were the archives

of the history of his own heart. There lay in piles packages of letters,

methodically tied with coloured ribbons, withered flowers, whose leaves

fell from the corona if touched ever so lightly, faded bows, torn laces,

which still seemed to palpitate under the rude grasp of a hand rummaging

among them, paper German favours, from which the gloss and gilding had

peeled, other shapeless, disconnected bits of tinsel which were

incomprehensible unless one knew the memory associated with them, and

among the strange, motley chaos, the most personal mementoes: women's

hair smooth, curled, braided, long, and short, arranged by a true eye,

with scandalously cool composure, upon a pale lilac varnished board, in a

wonderful scale of colours, from the highest pitch, the fair locks of the

Englishwoman, resembling a delicate halo, through almost imperceptible

gradations to the deep, shining blue-black of the Sicilian, and portraits

in every form which fashion has devised during the last twenty-five

years, and from which the eternal feminine looked, lured, and smiled in a

hundred charming embodiments. A circle of spectres rose from these

drawers and whirled around him, stretching white arms toward him and

fixing upon him tearful or glowing eyes. All these cheeks had flushed

beneath his kisses, all these bosoms had been pressed to his own, all

these tresses his trembling fingers had smoothed, surely he might call

himself happier than most mortals, since so much of love's bliss had

filled all the hours of his existence.

Doubtless he did say this to himself after such revelling in the past,

but in his inmost heart he did not believe it. Don Juan does not peruse

the list of the thousand and three himself. He leaves it to Leporello

while he, without a glance at the older names, increases the succession.

The day when the cavalier begins to study his list, his wisest course

would be to burn it, for then it will no longer be a triumph, but a

humiliation.

Robert von Linden felt this, but he would not admit it. On the contrary,

he intentionally endeavoured to deceive himself. He who had been a Grand

Seigneur of love, became a snob of love. He sank to the level of the

irresistible travelling salesman who tells the tale of his successes in

foreign taverns. He had always left drawing-room gossip to spread his

reputation with its thousand tongues and, by the mere mention of his

name, fill maids and matrons with an exciting mixture of timid fear and

eager yearning, indignant pride and tender pity. Now a torturing anxiety

beset him lest his great deeds might be forgotten, and he humbled himself

to the character of bard of his own epic poem. He told his last

conquests who, naturally, with self-torturing curiosity inquired about

it, chapter after chapter of the romance of his heart, half-opened his

famous drawers and permitted them to catch a glimpse of letters,

likenesses, and locks of hair; he strove to soothe his self-esteem by

showing what passions he had inspired, at the risk of having his fair

listener, with a secret smile, imagine exaggeration where, in reality, he

was merely boasting.

Such was his mental condition at this time. He had toilsomely erected a

sort of sham paradise of stage scenery, in which he continued to play the

character of the youthful lover, which he was scarcely entitled to

continue in life, and now this luckless doctor, with a careless movement,

had thrown down all the painted canvasses with their artificial scenes.

Thiel's brutal remark: "You must renounce love," was still echoing

painfully in his soul when he entered the home of Frau von der Lehde,

with whom according to old habit, he dined once a week.

Else von der Lehde was a year or two older than he. She had been maid of

honor to the princess, when Robert was a page. She had loved him deeply,

fervently, and received a little responsive affection in return. But

that was already so far back in the past. It was a distant memory,

suffused with the rosy light of dawn, associated with all the new, fresh

feelings of her life, youth, the awakening of her heart, first love,

jealousy, and torment. The little idyl, in its day, was noticed by every

one, but people were disposed to regard it as harmless, and Else herself

afterward strove to see it in the same light, though she was well aware

of its real condition. Still, a beardless boy of eighteen could not

seriously compromise a young lady of twenty, who had been in society

three winters. He was so far from doing so, that the whispers and smiles

of this society did not prevent her becoming the wife of President von

der Lehde who, after fifteen years of wedded life, left her a childless

widow in the most pleasant circumstances. Else had never ceased to be

completely enthralled by Robert. During her husband's life-time, she had

imagined that it was friendship, sisterly, almost maternal friendship.

When Herr von der Lehde died, she no longer had any motive for playing a

farce with her own conscience, and she told Robert plainly that she

expected him now to marry her. He was very much surprised and even

slightly amused. Thirty-three years old, at the zenith of his success,

living actually in the midst of a flickering blaze of ardent love, he had

the feeling that it was a very comical idea for a woman who was his

elder, with whom for a decade and a half he had lived on terms of wholly

unobjectionable friendship, and whom he had often unhesitatingly made the

confidante of his love-affairs, suddenly to wish him to marry her. To

return after the lapse of fifteen years to a dish which he had once

tasted with the eagerness of a greedy boy! This was not to be expected.

Love permits no Rip van Winkle adventures. It cannot be taken up where

it was interrupted a generation before. Its drama, whether it is to

close as comedy or tragedy, must be played without long intermissions in

a continuous performance to the end, in order not to become intolerably

tiresome and foolish.

Robert did not conceal this from Else, though he endeavoured to find

softening expressions. But oratorical caution does not deceive a woman

who is in love. Else was very unhappy over the rebuff. Her passion,

however, was stronger than her pride, and she humbled herself to

entreaties, persuasions, persistent pleading. Robert, to whom the

situation was becoming extremely uncomfortable, ceased to call upon the

irritated and excited woman and, as Mahomet showed himself unhesitatingly

ready to come to the mountain when the mountain did not come to Mahomet,

Robert refused to see his persecutor. For a time Frau von der Lehde was

filled with the most bitter resentment against the man who disdained her.

She had worked herself up into the idea that he owed her expiation, if

not before the world, surely before her own conscience, and it seemed to

her dishonourable that he should evade his duty. But her indignation did

not last. She could no longer live without Robert, and as he quietly

left her to sulk and did not make the slightest attempt to conciliate

her, after several sleepless nights she one day wrote a little note in

which she gently reproached him for so culpably neglecting her, and

expressed the hope that he would dine with her the next day, and by his

own observation, convince himself that her grief for his long absence was

really injuring her looks. How wearily she had striven to prevent

letting a tear fall upon the tinted paper, what heroic courage she had

expended in finding sportive turns of speech, subdued, even mirthful

expressions, could not be perceived in the little missive. Robert read

it with distrust, but, in spite of the most cautious scrutiny, he did not

find a single word whose vehemence could disquiet him, not a single

letter which was nervously emphasized or written, or betrayed a trembling

hand, so he accepted the invitation.

Frau von der Lehde made no mistake. Her self-control did not desert her

a moment. She received Robert calmly and affectionately, as though

nothing had occurred between them, the dinner passed delightfully in

easy, gay conversation about all sorts of indifferent matters, and when

he was leaving she held out both hands and said, looking directly into

his eyes:

"Tuesday, at least, shall again be mine in future, shall it not?"

He kissed her hand, touched by such unselfish, faithful devotion.

It was a strange relation which, from that time, existed unshadowed

between these two for more than a decade. Else surrounded Robert with an

atmosphere of warm, unvarying tenderness which, though perhaps only from

habit, she understood how to render a necessity of his life. She

insisted upon being the confidant of all his feelings; no outburst of

anger ever betrayed what she experienced during his confessions, not even

a sorrowful quiver of the features ever reminded him to be on his guard;

she possessed inexhaustible indulgence for his frivolities, earnest

sympathy for his fleeting love-sorrows, hateful or ridiculous as they

usually appeared to an uninterested witness, counsel and comfort when an

adventure took an unpleasant turn, and she was satisfied if, in an

ebullition of gratitude, he then pressed her to his heart, kissed her

hands and her cheeks, and assured her that she was the dearest, noblest,

and most lovable woman whom he had ever known. But when she played this

role of a feminine providence, who was apparently free from the ordinary

weaknesses of her sex, when she carefully repressed every emotion of

jealousy at the sight of his inconstancy, she was not free from a selfish

motive. She still hoped that some day he would grow weary of pursuing

the blue will-o'-the-wisps of fleeting sham loves; he would at last long

to escape from the marsh into which for decades these capricious,

alluring, fleeting flames had deluded him, and would then unresistingly

allow himself to be led by her hand to the firm ground of a tried

affection, in order, even though not until the evening twilight of his

days, to rest with her, at last her own Robert, whom she need share with

no one.

When Linden, on this Tuesday, appeared at Frau von der Lehde's, she of

course instantly noticed his depression, and with her usual sympathy and

gentle tenderness, asked:

"Why are you so melancholy, Robert? What has happened?"

"Melancholy?" forcing himself to a wan smile. "I feel nothing of the

sort."

"Yes, Robert; do you suppose that I do not know the meaning of these

lines on the forehead and between the eyes?"

Oh, those lines! Surely he knew them, too, he had studied them this very

morning with painful attention, but why need she obtrude them upon him?

This was unkind, almost malicious. He released her hand, which he had

held in his own since his entrance, and silently went to an arm-chair.

She followed, took a seat on a stool at his feet, and said caressingly:

"How long has Robert had secrets from Else? May I not know everything?

Has one of my sex again proved faithless? Ah, dearest Robert, so few of

us are worth having people trouble themselves about us."

"That isn't it at all," Robert answered curtly.

"What is it, then?"

Robert remained silent a short time, then, averting his eyes from her

questioning gaze, said:

"This is my birthday."

"You don't suppose that I could forget it? But certainly you do not wish

to be congratulated upon it, to have it mentioned?"

Robert laid his hand upon her lips, murmuring:

"Yet I cannot forget your thinking of it, as I see."

A pause ensued, and he had the unpleasant feeling that his ostrich method

of shunning the sight of a disagreeable fact, must appear very ridiculous.

"Well, and why does your birthday make you melancholy?" asked Else,

kissing his hand as she removed it from her mouth.

"A woman ought to feel that, without any explanation from me."

"It isn't the same thing, dear Robert. But I don't philosophize about

the distinction. At any rate a woman dreads her birthday only because

she is afraid of growing old, and there can be no question of that with

you. At your age a man is not old."

She smiled so strangely, as she said this. Or did it merely seem so to

Robert?

"Well, in any case Doctor Thiel is not of your opinion. He was as

disagreeable as a scrubbing-brush to-day. He gave me a serious moral

lecture with firstly, secondly, thirdly, and closed with an admonition

that I must play the dare-devil no longer, or to be more explicit, must

renounce love. That seemed to me very much wanting in taste."

"Indeed, Thiel told you that?" She had suddenly become extremely earnest

and attentive.

"Yes. And I consider that he entirely mistakes his vocation. When I

want preaching I'll apply to the theological faculty. From the medical

profession I expect strengthening. Thiel seems to confound salve with

sanctity. That is not treatment."

The servant announced dinner, and both went to the table. Else almost

always arranged to be alone with Robert on Tuesday.