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THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY
BY
MAX NORDAU
Author of "THE COMEDY OF SENTIMENT," "HOW WOMEN LOVE," Etc., Etc.
CONTENTS.
I. Mountain and Forest
II. Vanity of Vanities
III. Heroes
IV. It was not to be
V. A Lay Sermon
VI. An Idyll
VII. Symposium
VIII. Dark Days
IX. Results
X. A Seaside Romance
XI. In the Horselberg
XII. Tannhauser's Plight
XIII. Consummation
XIV. Uden Horizo
THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY
CHAPTER I.
MOUNTAIN AND FOREST.
"Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours,
melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's ass!
Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off."
The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together, the
smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily from
the wooden bench, overturning it with a bang. The round table was only
proof against a similar accident on account of its structure, which
some one with wise forethought had so designed that only the most
tremendous shaking could upset its equilibrium. The boisterous group
consisted of five or six young men, easily recognized as students by
their caps with colored bands, the scars on their faces, and their
rather swaggering manner. They slung their knapsacks on, stepped
through the open door of the little arbor where they had been sitting,
on to the highroad, and gathered round the previous speaker. He was a
tall, good-looking young man, with fair hair, laughing blue eyes, and a
budding mustache.
"Then you are determined, Eynhardt, that you won't go any further?"
asked he, with an accent which betrayed him as a Rhinelander.
"Yes, I am determined," Eynhardt answered.
"A groan for the worthless fellow; but more in sorrow than in anger,"
said the tall one to the others. They groaned three times loudly, all
together, while the Rhinelander gravely beat time. An unpracticed ear
would very likely have failed to note the shade of feeling implied in
the noise; but he appeared satisfied.
"Well, just as you like. No compulsion. Freedom is the best thing in
life--including the freedom to do stupid things."
"Perhaps he knows of some cave where he is going to turn hermit," said
one of the group.
"Or he has a little business appointment, and we should be in the way,"
said another.
They laughed, and the Rhinelander went on:
"Well! moon away here, and we will travel on. But before all things be
true to yourself. Don't forget that the whole world is as much a
phantom as the brown Black Forest maiden. And now farewell; and think a
great deal about us phantom people, who will always keep up the ghost
of a friendship for you."
The young man whom he addressed shook him and the others by the hand,
and they all lifted their caps with a loud "hurrah," and struck out
vigorously on the road. The sentiment of the farewell, and the tender
speeches, had been disposed of in the inn, so they now parted gayly, in
youth's happy fullness of life and hope for the future, and without any
of that secret melancholy which Time the immeasurable distils into
every parting. Hardly had they turned their backs on the friend they
left behind them when they began to sing, "Im Schwarzen Walfisch zu
Askalon," exaggerating the melancholy of the first half of the tune,
and the gayety of the second, passing riotously away behind a turn of
the road, their song becoming fainter and fainter in the distance.
This little scene, which took place on an August afternoon in the year
1869, had for its theater the highroad leading from Hausach to Triberg,
just at the place where a footpath descends into the valley to the
little town of Hornberg. The persons represented were young men who had
lately graduated at Heidelberg, and who were taking a holiday together
in the Black Forest, recovering from the recent terrors of examination
in the fragrant air of the pine woods. As far off as Offenburg they had
traveled by the railway in the prosaic fashion of commercial travelers,
from there they had tramped like Canadian backwoodsmen, and reached
Hasslach--twelve miles as the crow flies. After resting for a day they
set out at the first cockcrow, and before the noontide heat reached the
lovely Kinzigthal, which lies all along the way from Hausach to
Hornberg. Over the door of a wayside inn a signboard, festooned with
freshly-cut carpenter's shavings, beckoned invitingly to them, and here
the young men halted. The view from this place was particularly
beautiful. The road made a kind of terrace halfway up the mountain, on
one side rising sheer up for a hundred feet to its summit, thickly
wooded all the way, on the other side sloping to the wide valley, where
the Gutach flowed, at times tumbling over rough stones, or again
spreading itself softly like oil, through flat meadow land. Below lay
the little town of Hornberg, with its crooked streets and alleys, its
stately square, framing an old church, several inns, and
prosperous-looking houses and shops. Beyond the valley rose a high,
steep hill, with a white path climbing in zigzags through its wooded
sides. On the summit a white house with many windows was perched,
seeming to hang perpendicularly a thousand feet above the valley. Its
whitewashed walls stood out sharply against the background of green
pine trees, clearly visible for many miles round. A conspicuous
inscription in large black letters showed that this audacious and
picturesque house was the Schloss hotel, and a glance at the gray
ruined tower which rose behind it gave at once a meaning to the name.
Behind the hill, with its outline softened by trees and encircled by
the blue sky, were ridges of other hills in parallel lines meeting the
horizon, alternately sharp-edged and rounded, stretching from north to
south. They seemed like some great sea, with majestic wave-hills and
wave-valleys; behind the first appeared a second, then a third, then a
fourth, as far as one's eye could see; each one of a distinct tone of
color, and of all the shades from the deepest green through blue and
violet to vaporous pale gray.
The sight of this picture had decided Wilhelm Eynhardt not to go any
further. The others had resolved to push on to Triberg the same day,
and above all, not to turn back till they had bathed in the Boden-see.
As every persuasion was powerless to alter Eynhardt's decision, they
separated, and the travelers started on their walk to Triberg.
Eynhardt, however, stayed at Hornberg, meaning to climb to the Schloss
hotel again from the other side.
Wilhelm Eynhardt was a young man of twenty-four, tall and slim of
figure, with a strikingly handsome face. His eyes were almond-shaped,
not large but very dark, with much charm of expression. The
finely-marked eyebrows served by their raven blackness to emphasize the
whiteness of the forehead, which was crowned by an abundant mass of
curling black hair. His fresh complexion had still the bloom of early
youth, and would hardly have betrayed his age, if it had not been
shaded by a dark brown silky beard, which had never known a razor. It
was an entirely uncommon type, recalling in profile, Antinous, and the
full face reminding one of the St. Sebastian of Guido Roni in the
museum of the Capitol; a face of the noblest manhood, without a single
coarse feature. His manner, although quiet, gave the impression of keen
enthusiasm, or, more rightly speaking, of unworldly inspiration. All
who saw him were powerfully attracted, but half-unconsciously felt a
slight doubt whether even so fine a specimen of manhood was quite fitly
organized and equipped for the strife of existence. At the university
he had been given the nickname of Wilhelmina, on account of a certain
gentleness and delicacy of manner, and because he neither drank nor
smoked. Such jokes, not ill-natured, were directed against his outward
appearance, but had a shade of meaning as regards his character.
As Wilhelm walked into the courtyard of the Schloss hotel he stopped a
moment to regain his breath. Before him was the stately new house,
whose white-painted walls and many windows had looked down on the
high-road; to the left stood the round tower inclosed within a ruined
wall, shading an airy lattice-work building, in which on a raised
wooden floor stood a table and some benches. Several people, evidently
guests at the hotel, sat there drinking wine and beer, and eying the
newcomer curiously. The burly landlord, in village dress, emerged from
the open door of the cellar in the tower, and wished him "good-day." He
had a thick beard and a sunburned face, with good-natured blue eyes.
With a searching glance at the young man's cap and knapsack, he waited
for Wilhelm to speak.
"Can I have a room looking on to the valley?" asked the latter.
"Not at this moment," the landlord answered, clearing his throat
loudly; "there is hardly a room free here, and that only in the top
story. But to-morrow, or the day after, many people are leaving, and
then I can give you what you want."
Wilhelm's face clouded with disappointment, but only for a moment, then
he said: "Very well, I will stay."
"Luggage?" said the landlord, in his short, unceremonious way. "My
luggage is at Haslach. It can come up to-morrow."
"Bertha," called the landlord, in such a strident tone that the
mountains echoed the sound. The visitors drinking in the kiosk smiled;
they were well accustomed to the man. A neat red-cheeked girl appeared
in the doorway. "Number 47," shouted the landlord, and went off to his
other duties.
Bertha led the new guest up three flights of uncarpeted wooden
staircase, down a long passage to a light, clean, but sparely-furnished
room. The girl told him the hours of meals, brought some water, and
left him alone. He hung his knapsack on a hook on the wall, opened the
little window, and gazed long at the view. Underneath was the open
space where he had been standing, to the left the tower, and behind,
over the ruined walls, he could see the old, neglected castle yard full
of weeds and heaps of rubbish--a picture of decay and desolation.
"I have chosen well," thought Wilhelm, for he loved solitude, and
promised himself enjoyable hours of wandering in the ruins in company
with luxuriant flowers and singing birds.
He barely gave himself time to freshen his face with cold water, and to
change his thick walking shoes for lighter ones; immediately hurrying
out to make acquaintance with the castle. Before he could get there he
had first to find in the tumbledown wall a hole large enough to enable
him to get through. He shortly found himself in a fairly large square
space, the uneven ground being formed of a mass of rubbish, mounds of
earth, and deep holes. Woods protected the greater part of it, most of
the trees stunted and choked by undergrowth and shrubs, with
occasionally a high, solitary pine tree, and near to the west and south
walls half-withered oaks and mighty beeches stood thickly. Here and
there from the bushes peeped up bare pieces of crumbling stone and
broken pieces of mortar, in whose crevices hung long grasses, and where
yellow, white, and red flowers nestled. Climbing, stumbling, and
slipping, he worked his way through this wilderness, the length and
breath of which he wished to inspect so as to discover a place where he
could rest quietly, when he suddenly came to a precipitous fall of the
ground, concealed from him by a thick curtain of leaves. Startled and
taken by surprise, the ground seemed to him to sink under his feet. He
instinctively caught hold of some branches to keep himself from
falling, pricking his hands with the thorns, and breaking a slender
bough, finally rolling in company with dust and earth, torn-out bushes
and stone, down a steep declivity of several feet to a little grass
plot at the bottom. He heard a slight scream near him, and a girlish
form sprang up and cried in an anxious voice:
"Have you hurt yourself?"
Wilhelm picked himself up as quickly as he could, brushed the earth
from his clothes, and taking off his cap said, "Thanks, not much. Only
a piece of awkwardness. But I am afraid I have frightened you?" he
added.
"A little bit; but that is all right."
They looked at each other for the first time, and the lady laughed,
while Wilhelm blushed deeply. She stopped again directly, blushed also,
and dropped her eyes. She was a girl in the first bloom of youth, of
particularly fine and well-made figure, with a beautiful face; two
dimples in her cheeks giving her a roguish expression, and a pair of
lively brown eyes. A healthy color was in her cheeks, and in the
well-cut, seductive little mouth. Her luxuriant, golden-brown hair, in
the fashion of the day, was brushed back in long curls. She had as her
only ornament a pale gold band in her hair, and wore a simple dress of
light-flowered material, the high waistband fitting close to the
girlish figure. Conventionality began to assert its rights over nature,
and the girl too felt confused at finding herself in the middle of a
conversation with a strange man, suddenly shot down at her very feet.
Wilhelm understood and shared her embarrassment, and bowing, he said:
"As no doubt we are at the same house, allow me to introduce myself. My
name is Wilhelm Eynhardt. I come from Berlin, and took up my abode an
hour ago at the Schloss hotel."
"From Berlin," said the girl quickly; "then we are neighbors. That is
very nice. And where do you live in Berlin, if I may ask?"
"In Dorotheenstrasse."
"Of course you do," and a clear laugh deepened the shadow of her
dimples.
"Why 'of course?'" asked Wilhelm, rather surprised.
"Why, because that is our Latin quarter, and as a student--you are a
student, I suppose?"
"Yes, and no. In the German sense I am no longer a student, for I took
my degree a year ago; but the word in English is better and truer, as
there 'student' is used where we should say scholar (gelehrter).
Scholars we are, not only learners. In the English sense then I am a
student, and hope to remain so all my life."
"Ah, you speak English," she said, quickly catching at the word; "that
is charming. I am tremendously fond of English, and am quite accustomed
to it, as I spent a great part of my time in England when I was very
young. I have been told that I have a slight English accent in speaking
German. Do you think so?"
"My ear is not expert enough for that," said Wilhelm apologetically.
"My friends," she chattered on, "nearly all speak French; but I think
English is much more uncommon. Fluent English in a German is always
proof of good education. Don't you think so?"
"Not always," said Wilhem frankly; "it might happen that one had worked
as a journeyman in America."
The girl turned up her nose a little at this rather unkind observation,
but Wilhelm went on:
"With your leave I would rather keep to our mother-tongue. To speak in
a foreign language with a fellow-country-woman without any necessity
would be like acting a charade, and a very uncomfortable thing."
"I think a charade is very amusing," she answered; "but just as you
like. Opportunities of speaking English are not far to seek. Most of
the visitors at the hotel are English. I dare say you have noticed it
already. But they are not the best sort. They are common city people,
who even drop their h's, but who play at being lords on the Continent.
Of course I have learned already to tell a 'gentleman' from a 'snob.'"
Wilhelm smiled at the self-conscious importance with which she spoke.
His eyes wandered over her beautiful hair, to the tender curve of her
slender neck and beautiful shoulders, while she, feeling perfectly
secure again, settled herself comfortably. Her seat was a projecting
piece of stone, which had been converted by a soft covering of moss
into a delightful resting-place. An overhanging bush shaded it
pleasantly. In front lay a corner of the castle; across a smooth piece
of turf and through a wide gap in the wall they caught a view of the
mountains, as if painted by some artist's brush--a perfect composition
which would have put the crowning touch to his fame. The girl had been
trying to make a sketch of the view in a well-worn sketchbook which lay
near.
"You have given a sufficient excuse for your sketches by your feeling
for natural beauty," remarked Wilhelm. "May I look at the page?"
"Oh," she said, somewhat confused, "my will is of the best, but I can
do so little," and she hesitatingly gave him her album. He took it and
also the pencil, looked alternately at the mountains and on the page of
the book, and without asking leave began to improve upon it,
strengthening a line here, lightening a shadow and giving greater
breadth, and then growing deeply interested in his work, he sat down
without ceremony on the mossy bank, took a piece of india-rubber, and
erasing here, adding lines there, sometimes laying in a shadow, giving
strength to the foreground and lightness to the background, he ended by
making a really pretty and artistic sketch.
The girl had watched him wonderingly, and said as he returned the
album, "But you are a great artist," and without letting him speak she
went on, "and by your appearance I had taken you for a student! But you
are not in the least like a student, nor in fact like a German either.
I have often met Indian princes in society in London, and I think you
are very much like them."
Wilhelm smiled. "There is a grain of truth in what you say, although
you overrate it a little. A great artist I certainly am not, nor even a
little one, but I have always observed much and painted a good deal
myself, and originally I thought of devoting myself to an artist's
career; and if I have nothing in common with Indian princes, and am
merely a plebeian German, I very likely have a drop of Indian blood in
my veins."
"Really," she said, with curiosity.
"Yes, my mother was a Russian German living in Moscow, and whose
father, a Thuringian, had married a Russian girl of gypsy descent.
Through this grandmother, whom I never knew, I am related by remote
genealogical descent to Indians. But you do not look like a German
either, with your beautiful dark hair and eyebrows."
She took this personal compliment in good part as she answered quickly:
"There is some reason for that too. Just as you have Indian, I have
French blood in my veins. My father's mother was a Colonial, her maiden
name was Du Binache."
So they gossiped on like old acquaintances. Young and beautiful as they
were, they found the deepest pleasure in one another, and the cold
feeling of strangeness melted as by a charm. They were awakened to the
consciousness that half an hour earlier neither of them had an idea of
the other's existence, by the appearance of a girl in the gap in the
wall, who seemed very much surprised at the sight of their evident
intimacy. The young lady stood up rather hastily and went a few steps
toward the newcomer, a servant-maid, who had brought a cloak for her
mistress, and took charge of her album, sunshade, and large straw hat.
"Is it so late already?" she said, with a naive surprise, which left no
room for doubt even to Wilhelm's modesty.
"Certainly, fraulein," said the maid, pointing with her hand to the
distant mountain, whose peaks were already clothed with the orange hue
of twilight; then she looked alternately at her young mistress and the
strange gentleman, whose handsome face she inwardly noted.
"Do you think of making any stay here?" asked the young lady of
Wilhelm, who followed slowly.
"Yes, certainly," he answered at once.
"Then we may become good friends. My parents will be glad to make your
acquaintance. I did not tell you before that my father is Herr Ellrich."
As Wilhelm merely bowed, without seeming to recognize the name, she
said rather sharply, and slightly raising her voice:
"I thought as you came from Berlin you would be sure to know my
father's name--Councilor Ellrich, Vice-President of the 'Seehandlung.'"
The name and title made very little impression on Wilhelm, but his
politeness brought forth an "Ah!" which satisfied Fraulein Ellrich.
They left the ruins by an easy path which Wilhelm had not noticed
before, and walked together to the entrance of the hotel, where she
took leave of him by an inclination of her head. He betook himself to
his room in a dream, and while he recalled to his mind the picture of
her beautiful face, and the clear ring of her voice, he thought how
grateful he was to this chance, that not only had he become acquainted
with the girl, but that he had avoided in such a glorious fashion the
discomfort of a formal introduction. Also Wilhelm knew himself well,
and felt sure that, badly endowed as he was for forming new
acquaintances, he could never have become friends with Fraulein Ellrich
apart from the accident of his fall in the castle yard.
Dinner was served at separate tables where single guests might take it
as they pleased, and Wilhelm was absentminded and dreamy when he sat
down. He scarcely glanced at the large, cool dining-room, ornamented
with engravings of portraits of the Grand Dukes of Baden and their
wives. Six large windows looked into the valley of the Gutach with its
little town of Hornberg, and the mountains lying beyond. He hardly
noticed the rather silent people at the other tables, in which the
English element predominated. He had come in purposely late in the hope
of finding Fraulein Ellrich already there. She was not present; but he
was not kept long in suspense before a waiter opened the door, and the
lovely girl appeared accompanied by a stately gentleman and a stout
lady. They seemed to be known to the servants, for as soon as they
appeared the headwaiter and his subordinates rushed toward them, and
with many bows and scrapes took their wraps from them and ushered them
to their places.
Wilhelm, who possessed very little knowledge of society, was somewhat
at a loss. Ought he to recognize the young lady? If he followed his
inclination, he certainly would do so. But her parents! They seemed to
be cold and reserved-looking. Happily all fell out for the best. The
Ellrichs walked straight to the table where he was sitting, and in a
moment Wilhelm was greeting his lovely acquaintance with a low bow. Her
quick eyes had already recognized him from the doorway. She returned
his greeting smiling and blushing, and as her father nodded kindly, the
ice was broken. Wilhelm introduced himself, and the councilor gave him
the tips of his fingers and said: "If you have no objection we will sit
at your table." His wife, who gazed at Wilhelm through a gold
"pince-nez" with hardly concealed surprise, took her place next to him;
on the other side sat her husband, and opposite the daughter's face
smiled at him.
The councilor was a well-preserved man of about fifty, of good height,
dressed in a well-made gray traveling suit, with a light gray silk tie
adorned with a pin of black pearl. His closely-cut hair was very thin,
and had almost disappeared from the top of his head. His chin was
clean-shaven, but his well-brushed whiskers and closely-cut mustache
showed signs of gray. His light blue eyes were cold and rather
tired-looking, at the corners of the mouth were evident signs of
indolence, and his whole appearance gave an impression of
self-consciousness mixed with indifference toward the rest of mankind;
his wife, stout, blooming, and tranquil, appeared to be a kindly soul.
The conversation opened trivially on the circumstances of Wilhelm
meeting with Fraulein Ellrich, and on the beauty of the neighborhood,
which Herr Ellrich glorified as not being overrun.
"I would much rather recommend it for quiet than Switzerland with its
crowds," he said.
Wilhelm agreed with him, and related how he was induced by the romantic
aspect of the place to give up his original plans, and to anchor
himself here. When they questioned him, he gave them some information
about Heidelberg and his journey to Hornberg. Frau Ellrich complimented
him on his sketch, and while he modestly disclaimed the praise, she
asked him why he had not devoted himself to art.
"That is a peculiar result of my development," answered Wilhelm
thoughtfully. "While I was still at the gymnasium I sketched and
painted hard, and after the final examination I went to the Art Academy
for two years; but the further I went into the study of art, and the
more attentively I followed in the beaten track of art-studies, the
clearer it was to me that he who would secure an abiding success in art
must be a blind copyist of nature. Certainly the personal peculiarities
of an artist often please his contemporaries. It is the fashion to do
him honor if he flatters the prevailing direction of taste. But those
of the race who follow after, scorn what those before them have
admired, and exactly what those of one time have prized as progressive
innovations, they who come after reject as mere aberration. What the
artist has himself accomplished, I mean his so-called personal
comprehension or his capricious interpretation of nature, passes away;
but what he simply and honorably reproduces, as he has truly seen it,
lives forever, and the remotest age will gladly recognize in such
art-work its old acquaintance, unchanging nature."
Fraulein Ellrich hung on his words in astonishment, while her parents
calmly went on eating their fish.
"So," went on Wilhelm, speaking chiefly to his opposite neighbor, "so,
I tried when I drew or painted to reproduce nature with the greatest
truth; but at a certain point I became conscious of a perception that a
hidden meaning in an unintelligible language lay written there. The
form of things, and also every so-called accident of form, appeared to
me to be the necessary expression of something within, which was hidden
from me. The wish arose in me to penetrate behind the visible face of
nature, to know why she appears in such a way, and not in another. I
wanted to learn the language, the words of which, with no understanding
of their sense, I had been slavishly copying; and so I turned to the
study of physical science."
"So your two years at the Art School were not wasted," remarked Herr
Ellrich.
"Certainly not, for to an observer of natural objects it is most
valuable to have a trained eye for form and color."
"Yes, and beside, drawing and painting are such charming
accomplishments, and so useful to a young man in society."
"Playing the piano and singing are still more so," put in Frau Ellrich.
"But dancing most of all," cried Fraulein Ellrich. "Do you dance?"
"No," answered Wilhelm shortly.
The words jarred upon him, and a silence ensued.
The councilor broke this with the question:
"Then you are a doctor of physical science?"
"Yes, sir."
"What is your particular department? Zoology, botany?"
"I have principally studied chemistry and physics, and I think of
devoting myself to the latter."
"Physics, oh yes. A wide and beautiful sphere. So much is included in
it. Electricity, galvanism, magnetism--those are all new faculties very
little known; and as regards submarine telegraph the knowledge cannot
be too useful."
"These sides of the question have not hitherto interested me. I ask of
physics the unlocking of the nature of things. It has not yet given me
the key, but it is something to know on what insecure, weak, and
limited experiments our vaunted knowledge of the existence of the world
of energy, of matter and their properties, depend."
Frau Ellrich looked at him approvingly.
"You speak beautifully, Herr Eynhardt, and it must be a great enjoyment
to hear you lecture."
"You will soon have a professorship, I suppose?" remarked Herr Ellrich,
turning around to the blushing Wilhelm.
"Oh, no!" said he quickly, "I do not aspire to that; I believe in
Faust's verse: 'Ich ziehe... meine Schuler an der Nase herum--Und sehe
dass wir nichts wissen konnen;' and I also bilde mir nicht ein, Ich
konnte was lehren.' I wonder at and envy the men who teach such things
with so much influence and conviction, and I am very grateful to them
for initiating me into their methods and power of working properly. But
there has never been a likelihood of my venturing to approach young men
and saying to them, 'You must work with me for three years earnestly
and diligently, and I will lead you to knowledge, so that at last,
through the contents of a book, you may get a flying glimpse of the
phantom which has so often eluded you.'"
"Your opinions are very interesting," said Herr Ellrich; "but a
professorship is still the one practical goal for a man who studies
physics. Forgive me if I express my meaning bluntly; there is money to
be made in physics through a professorship."
"Happily I am in a position which makes it unnecessary for me to work
for my bread."
"That is quite another thing," said the councilor in a friendly way,
while his wife cast a quick glance over Wilhelm's clothes,
unfashionable and rather worn, but scrupulously clean.
"One can see that this idealist neglects his outward appearance," her
good-natured glance, half-apologetic, half-compassionate, seemed to say.
Herr Ellrich changed the conversation to the management of the hotel;
discussing for a time the Margrave's wines, the south German cookery,
the Black Forest tourists, and a variety of other minor topics. He then
asked his daughter:
"Now, Loulou, have you made a programme for tomorrow yet? She is our
maitre de plaisir," he explained to Wilhelm.
"A frightfully difficult post," exclaimed Loulou. "Papa and mamma love
quiet; I like moving about, and I endeavor to harmonize the two."
Wilhelm thought that the opposing tasks would very soon be harmonized
if Loulou subordinated her inclinations to her parents' comfort; but he
kept his thoughts to himself.
"I vote that to-morrow morning we go for a little drive. As to the
afternoon, we can arrange that later. Perhaps Dr.---" She stopped
short, and her mother came to her help and completed the invitation.
"It would be very kind of you to join us."
"I am only afraid that I might be in the way."
"Oh, no; certainly not," said the mother and daughter together, and
Herr Ellrich nodded encouragingly.
Wilhelm felt that the invitation was meant cordially, and his fear of
obtruding himself overcome, he accepted.
Circumstances at the castle very greatly favored Wilhelm's intercourse
with the Ellrich's, or rather with Loulou. In this house on the summit
of the hill they met constantly in close companionship. Frau Ellrich
enjoyed nothing better than walking on the arm of this handsome young
man up and down the wooded slopes, as till now she had been obliged to
go without such escort. Herr Ellrich liked to take his holiday in a
different way from the ladies. If he felt obliged to take exercise he
would borrow the landlord's gun and dogs and shoot. At other times he
would lie down anywhere on a plaid on the grass, smoke a cigar, and
read foreign papers like the Times from beginning to end. The afternoon
was taken up by a nap, and in the evening he would be ready to hear an
account of how his family had spent the day--perhaps in a long carriage
excursion through the neighboring valleys.
Frau Ellrich was in the habit of appearing at the first table d'hote,
and then doing homage to the peaceful custom of afternoon sleep. In the
first cool hours of the morning she walked a little in the perfumed air
of the pine woods, and the rest of the time she devoted to a voluminous
correspondence, which seemed to be her one passion. Thus Loulou was
alone nearly always in the morning, and frequently in the afternoon as
well, and quite contented to ramble with Wilhelm through the woods, or
to sit with him in the ruins, where they learned to know each other,
and chattered without ceasing.
The subject of conversation mattered not. They had the story of their
short lives to relate to one another. Loulou's was soon told. Her
narrative was like the merry warbling of birds, and was from beginning
to end the story of a serene dream of spring. She was the only child of
her parents, who in spite of outward indifference and apparent coldness
adored her, and had never denied her anything. The first fifteen years
of her life were spent in her charming nest, in the beautiful house in
the Lennestrasse, where she was born. "When we return to Berlin you
shall see how pleasant my home is. I will show you my little blue
sitting-room, my winter garden, my aviary, my parrots and blackbirds."
A heavy trial had befallen her--the only trial that she had yet
experienced. She had been sent to England for the completion of her
education, and had to suddenly part from all her home surroundings. She
stayed there for three years with an aunt who had married an English
banker. The visit proved delightful, and she grew to love England
enthusiastically. She drove and rode, and even followed the hounds. In
winter there was the pantomime at Drury Lane, the flights to St.
Leonards, Hastings, Leamington, the mad rides across country through
frosted trees behind the hounds in full cry; in summer during the
season there were parties, balls, the opera, the park; then in the
holidays splendid travels with papa and mamma, once to Belgium, France,
and the Rhine, another time to Switzerland and Italy, then to
Heligoland and Norway. No, she could never have such good times again.
In the following year she went back to Berlin, and had spent a very
agreeable winter, a subscription ball, several other balls, innumerable
soirees, a box at the opera, lovely acquaintances, with naturally many
successes--the envy of false friends, but she did not allow herself to
be much disturbed by them.
Wilhelm listened to this chatter with mixed feelings. If she seemed
superficial, he reconciled himself by a glance at her beautiful silken
hair, at her laughing brown eyes, at her roguish dimples, and instantly
he pleaded with his cooler reason for pardon for the lovely girl--he
for nineteen years had had other things beside pleasure to think of!
These charms seemed enough to work the taming magic of Orpheus over the
wild animals of the woods.
"And you were never," he asked timidly as she paused, "a little bit in
love?"
"I can look after myself," she answered, with a silvery laugh, and
Wilhelm felt as if an iron band had been lifted from his heart, like
the trusty Henry's in the story.
"That points to marvelous wisdom in a child of society--seeing so many
people--so attractive! You are indifferent then to admiration?"
"I did not say that. My fancy has been often enough touched, but--"
"But your heart has not?"
"No."
"Really not?" continued he, in a tone of voice in which, he himself
detected the anxiety.
She shook her head, and looked down thoughtfully. But after a short
pause she raised her rosy face and said, "No--better die than speak
untruths--I was rather in love with our pastor who confirmed me. He was
thin and pale with long hair, much longer than yours. And he spoke very
beautifully and powerfully--I felt sentimental when I thought of him.
But I soon got to know his wife, who was as pointed and hard as a
knitting needle, and his children, whose number I never could count
exactly, and my youthful feelings received a severe chill." She
laughed, and Wilhelm joined her heartily.
It was now his turn to relate his story. He was as to his birthplace
hardly a German, but a Russian, as he first saw the light in Moscow, in
the year 1845.
"So you are now twenty-four?"
"Last May. Are you frightened at such an age, fraulein?"
"That is not so old, twenty-four--particularly for a man," she
protested with great earnestness.
His father, he went on, was from Konigsberg, had studied philology, and
when he left the university had become a tutor in a distinguished
Russian family. He was the child of poor parents, and had to take the
first opportunity which presented itself of earning his living. So he
went to Russia, where he lived for twenty years as a tutor in private
families, and then as a teacher in a Moscow gymnasium. He married late
in life, an only child of German descent, who helped her middle-aged
husband by a calm observance of duty and a mother's love for his
children. "My mother was a remarkable woman. She had dark eyes and
hair, and an enthusiastic and devoted expression in her face, which
made me feel sad, as a child, if I looked at her for long. She spoke
little, and then in a curious mixture of German and Russian. Strangely
enough, she always called herself a German, and spoke Russian like a
foreigner; but later, when we went to Berlin, she discovered that she
was really a Russia, and always wished she were back in Moscow, never
feeling at home amid her new surroundings. She was a Protestant like
her father, but had inherited from her Russian mother a lingering
affection for the orthodox faith, and she often used to go to the
Golden Church of the Kremlin, whose brown, holy images had a mystical
effect on her. She loved to sing gypsy songs in a low voice. She would
not teach them to us. She was always very quiet, and preferred being
alone with us to any society or entertainment."
When Wilhelm was four years old there came a little sister, a bright,
light-haired, blue-eyed creature after her father's heart. She was
named Luise, but she was always called Blondchen. She was his only
playfellow, as the irritable father in Moscow cared for no
acquaintances. His father's one wish was to return to his home, but for
a long time the mother would not have it so. At last, in the year 1858,
he accomplished his wish. He was then sixty-three years old, and he
represented to his wife that after his life of unremitting work, now in
its undoubted decline, he had a right to spend the last few years in
peace in his native land. He possessed enough for his family to live
on; the children would grow and get a better education than in Russia,
and above all he wished to keep his Prussian nationality. The mother
yielded, and so they came to Berlin, where the father bought a modest
house near the Friedrich-Wilhelm gymnasium. This house was now
Wilhelm's property. "We children liked Berlin very much. I soon became
independent and self-reliant, after school hours wandering in the
streets as much as I pleased, and used to make eager explorations in
all directions, coming home enraptured when I had found a beautiful
neighborhood, a stately house, a statue of some general in bronze or
marble. I used to take Blondchen by the hand, and show her my
discovery. The Friedrichstadt with its straight streets interested us
very much; I had a fancy that the houses were marshaled in battalions,
as if by an officer on parade, and that when he gave the word 'March,'
they would suddenly walk away in step, like the soldiers on the parade
ground. I explained this to my sister, and often when we were in our
own street she would call out 'March!' to see if the long row of houses
would not begin to move. However, we liked the old part of Berlin
better, where the streets, with their capricious and serpent-like
windings, reminded us of the crooked alleys of Moscow. The streamlets
of the Spree exercised a powerful attraction over us. Blondchen thought
they played hide-and-seek with children, who would run through the
streets to search for them. They came suddenly into sight where one
would least expect to see them, in the yard of a house in the
Werderschen Market, behind an apparently innocent archway on the
Hausvogtei Platz, at the backs of houses whose fronts betrayed no
existence of any water near. My sister so often longed to catch sight
of the oily satiny sheen of the river's light in unsuspected places
that she would drag me off to note her discoveries. She wanted all the
varying sights of the Spree, which showed itself at the ends of alleys,
or in courtyards or behind houses, suddenly to appear to her, so that
she might have the right to first name her discovery."
He was silent awhile, deep in memories of the past. Then he said: "If I
have lingered over these childish reminiscences it is because I have
not my Blondchen any longer. On one of our wandering excursions we were
caught in a heavy shower of rain, and became wet through. My sister was
taken ill with rheumatism, and eight days afterward we buried her in
the churchyard."
The mother soon followed Blondchen. Sorrow over the child, and
homesickness, combined with weak health, proved too great a strain.
Wilhelm remained alone with the dispirited and sorrowful old father,
whom he never left except for his three years' military service in the
field. Then the father, to shorten the time of separation, accompanied
the army (in spite of his seventy years) as an ambulance assistant. The
following year he died, and Wilhelm was left alone in the world.
Loulou was not wanting in heart, and she had as much feeling as it is
proper for an educated German girl to show. By an involuntary movement,
she held out her hand, which Wilhelm caught and kissed. They both grew
very red, and she looked wistfully at him with her eyes wet. Had he
understood the look, and been of a bold nature, he would have clasped
the girl to his breast and kissed her. Her red lips would have made
scarcely any resistance. But the confusion of mind passed quickly, the
light afternoon sunshine and the sight of the people passing through
the breach in the castle wall brought him to full consciousness, and
the dangerous step was not taken. Loulou recovered her sprightliness,
and going back to his story asked him, "So you have been in a campaign?"
"Certainly."
"Did you become an officer?"
"No, fraulein, only a 'vize-Feldwebel.'"
"Have you fought in a battle?"
"Oh, yes, at Burkersdork, Skalitz, Koniginhof, and Koniggratz."
"That must have been frightfully interesting. And have you ever killed
one of the enemy?"
"Happily not. It does not fall to the lot of every soldier to kill a
man. He does his duty if he stands up in his place ready to be killed."
"Have you any photographs of yourself in uniform?"
He looked at her surprised and said:
"No, why?"
A roguish smile, which at the last question had curled at the corners
of her mouth, broke into a merry laugh.
"I wanted to know whether you marched into battle with your curls, or
whether you sacrificed them to the fatherland?"
Wilhelm was not offended, but said simply:
"Dear young lady, appearances give you the right to make fun--"
"Ah, don't be angry, I am ill-mannered."
"No, no, you are quite right; but, believe me, I only wear my hair long
so as to save myself the trouble of going to the hairdresser's. If I
dared imagine that I should be less insupportable with a tonsure--"
"For heaven's sake, don't think of it, the curls suit you very well."
She said this with a frivolity of manner which she immediately
perceived to be unsuitable, and to get over her embarrassment, she
jumped at another subject of conversation. "So you live quite alone?
That strikes me as being very dreary. Still you must have many friends?"
"Yes, so-called friends--comrades from the gymnasium, from the academy,
and the university. But I do not count much on these superficial
acquaintances--I have really only one friend."
"Who is she"
"He is called Paul Haber, and is Assistant of Chemistry at the
Agricultural College."
"A nice man?"
"Oh, yes."
"How old is he?"
"About a year older than I am."
"What is he like?"
Wilhelm smiled.
"I believe he is very good-looking, strong, not very tall, with a fair
mustache, otherwise closely shaved, and with short hair, not like me!
He thinks a good deal of appearance, and always knows what sort of ties
are worn. He dances well, and is very pleased if people take him for an
officer in civilian's clothes. But he is a true soul, and has a heart
of gold. He is clever too, practical, and would do for me as much as I
would do for him with all my heart."
"Hardly one unpleasant word for an absent friend. That is scarcely as
my friends speak of me," and she quietly added: "Nor as I speak of my
friends. You make me curious about Herr--"
"Haber."
"You must introduce him to us."
"He would be most happy."
Loulou now knew more about Wilhelm than she had hitherto known of any
man in the world. Only on one point was she unenlightened, and this she
hastened to clear up on the following day, when they were looking for
berries in the wood.
"You asked me if my heart had been touched yet. Would it be right if I
were to ask you the same question?"
"The question seems very natural to me--I can truthfully assure you I
have never been in love, not even with a pastor with long hair."
"And has no one been in love with you?"
Wilhelm looked at the distance, and said dreamily:
"No; yet once--"
She felt a little stab at her heart, and said:
"Quick, tell me about it."
"It is a wonderful story--it happened in Moscow."
"But you were only a child then?"
"Yes, and she who loved me was a child too. She was four years old."
"Ah," said Loulou, with an involuntary sigh of relief.
"When I was about ten years old I was sitting one sunny autumn
afternoon in the yard of our house on a little stool, and was deep in a
story of pirates. Suddenly a shadow fell on my book. I looked up, and
saw a wonderfully beautiful child before me, a long-haired,
rosy-cheeked little girl, who looked at me with deep shining eyes,
half-timidly, and shyly held her hand before her mouth. I smiled in a
friendly way, and called to her to come nearer. She sprang close to me,
at once threw her arms joyfully round my neck, kissed me, sat down on
my knee, and said, 'Now tell me what your name is. I am a little girl,
and my name is Sonia. I am not going away from you. Let me go to sleep
for a little.' An old servant who had followed her came up and said in
astonishment, 'Well, young sir, you may be proud of yourself, the child
is generally so wild and rough, and with you she is as tame as a
kitten.' I learned from her that little Sonia lived in the
neighborhood, and that her aunt had come to look for her in our house.
She would not go away from me, and the old servant had to call her
mother, who only persuaded her to return home with great difficulty.
She wanted to take me with her, and she was miserable when they told
her that my mamma would not allow me. The next morning early she was
there again, and called to me from the threshold, 'I am going to stay
with you all day, Wilhelm, the whole day.' I had to go to school,
however, and I told her so. She wanted to go with me, and cried and
sobbed when they prevented her. Then her relations took her home, and I
did not see her again. Later I heard that the same afternoon she was
taken ill with diphtheria, and in her illness she cried so much for me
that her mother came to mine to beg her to send me to her. My mother
said nothing to me about it, fearing I might catch the disease. Sonia
died the second day, and my name was the last word on her lips. I cried
very much when they told me, and since then I have never forgotten my
little Sonia."
"A strange story," said Loulou softly; "such a little girl to fall in
love so suddenly. Yes," she went on, "if she had grown up--"
She could not say more, as Wilhelm, who had come near her, looked at
her with wide-open, far-seeing eyes, and suddenly threw his arms round
her. She cried out softly, and sank on his breast. "Loulou," "Wilhelm,"
was all they said. It had happened so quickly, so unconsciously, that
they both felt as if they were awaking from a dream, as Loulou a minute
later freed herself from his burning lips and encircling arms, and
Wilhelm, confused and hardly master of his senses, stood before her.
They turned silently homeward. She trembled all over and did not dare
to take his arm. He inwardly reproached himself, yet he felt very happy
in spite of it. Then, before they had reached the summit of the castle
hill, he gathered all his courage together and said anxiously:
"Can you forgive me, Loulou? I love you so much."
"I love you too, Wilhelm," she answered, and stretched out her hand to
him.
"Dare I speak to your mother, my own Loulou?" whispered he into her ear.
"Not here, Wilhelm," she said quickly, "not here. You do not know my
parents well enough yet. Wait till we are in Berlin."
"I will do as you like," sighed he, and took leave of her with an
eloquent glance, as they reached the hotel.
On this evening a quantity of curious things happened, which Wilhelm so
far had not observed in spite of his studies in natural science. He
could not touch his dinner, and Herr and Frau Ellrich's voices, against
all the laws of acoustics, seemed to come from the far distance, and
several minutes elapsed before the sounds reached his ears, although he
sat close to the speakers. The waiters and hotel guests looked odd, and
seemed to swim in a kind of rosy twilight. In the sky there seemed to
be three times as many stars as usual. When the Ellrichs had withdrawn
he went toward midnight alone into the fir woods, and heard unknown
birds sing, caught strange and magic harmonies in the rustling of the
branches, and felt as if he walked on air. He went to bed in the gray
of early dawn, after writing from his overflowing heart the following
letter to his friend Haber in Berlin:
"MY DEAREST PAUL: I am happy as I never thought of being happy. I love
an unspeakably beautiful sweet brown maiden, and I really think she
loves me too. Do not ask me to describe her. No words or brush could do
it. You will see her and worship her. Oh, Paul, I could shout and jump
or cry like a child. It is too foolish, and yet so unspeakably
splendid, I can hardly understand how the dull, stupid people in this
house can sleep so indifferently while she is under the same roof. If
only you were here! I can hardly bear my happiness alone. I write this
in great haste. Always your
"WlLHELM."
Four days later the post brought this answer from his friend:
"Well, you are done for, that is certain, my dear Wilhelm. Confound it,
you have gone in for it with a vengeance! I always thought that when
you did catch fire, you would give no end of a blaze. So all your
philosophy of abnegation, all your contempt for appearance go for
nothing. What is your sweet brown maiden but a charming appearance!
Nevertheless you have fallen completely in love with her, for which I
wish you happiness with all my heart. I do not doubt that she loves
you, because I should have been in love with you long ago if I had been
a sweet brown maiden, you shockingly beautiful man. One thing is very
like you, you say no word on what would most interest a Philistine like
myself, viz., the worldly circumstances of the adored one. I must know
her name, her relations, her descent. For all this you have naturally
no curiosity. A name is smoke and empty sound. Now don't let your love
go too far--sleep, and take care of your appetite, and keep a corner in
your perilously full heart for your true
"PAUL"
Wilhelm smiled as he read these lines in the strong symmetrical
handwriting of his friend, and hastened to send him the news he
desired. In the meanwhile his happiness was continual and increasing,
and nothing troubled it but the thought of the coming separation. These
two innocent children could hide their love as little as the sun his
light. They were always together, their eyes always fixed on one
another, their hands as often as possible clasped in each other's. All
the people in the hotel noticed it, and were pleased about it, so
natural did it seem that this handsome couple should be united by love.
The chambermaid, rosy Bertha, saw what was going on with her sly
peasant's eye, and by way of making herself agreeable used to whisper
to him where he could find the young lady when she happened to meet him
on the staircase. Wilhelm good-naturedly forgave the girl her
obtrusiveness. Only Herr Ellrich saw nothing. In his foreign
newspapers, in the blue smoke from his cigars, in the clouds of powder
from his gun, he found nothing which could enlighten him as to the two
young people's beautiful secret.
Frau Ellrich certainly had more knowledge than that. In spite of her
correspondence and her long afternoon naps, she retained enough
observation to see the condition of things pretty clearly. She waited
for a confession from Loulou, and as this did not come soon enough for
the impatience of her mother's heart, she tried a loving question.
After a warm embrace from the girl, a few tears, a great many kisses,
the mother and daughter understood each other. Wilhelm had pleased Frau
Ellrich very much, and she had no objection to raise, but she could
make no answer on her own responsibility, as she knew the views of her
husband on the marriage of his only child, and after a few days she
made him a cautious communication. Herr Ellrich did not take it badly,
but as a practical man of the world he wished to give the feelings of
the young people opportunity to bear the trials of separation, and for
the present thought a decision useless. The projected visit to Ostend
was hastened by some ten days. At dinner he made his decision known,
adding, "You have pleased yourselves for three weeks, and now I want
you to wait so long to please me." Wilhelm felt bitterly grieved that
no one invited him to go to the fashionable watering-place, and Loulou
even did not seem particularly miserable. The fact was, that at the
bottom of her not very sentimental nature, she did not take the leaving
of the Schloss hotel as a matter of great importance, and Ostend with
its balls and concerts, its casino and lively society, was not in the
least alarming to her. She found the opportunity that evening of
consoling Wilhelm, and promised him always to think about him, and to
write to him very often, and said she could not be very miserable about
their separation, as she felt so happy at the thought of meeting him
again in Berlin. The following morning they made a pilgrimage to the
castle, the woods, the neighboring valley, to all the places where they
had been so happy during the last fortnight. The sky was blue, the pine
woods quiet, the air balmy, and the beautiful outline of the mountains
unfolded itself far away in the depth of the horizon. Wilhelm drank in
the quiet, lovely picture, and felt that a piece of his life was woven
into this harmony of nature, and that these surroundings had become
part of his innermost "ego," and would be mingled with his dearest
feelings now and ever. His love, and these mountains and valleys, and
Loulou, the mist and perfume of the pine trees, were forever one, and
the pantheistic devotion which he felt in these changing flights of his
mind with the soul of nature grew to an almost unspeakable emotion, as
he said in a trembling voice to Loulou:
"It is all so wonderful, the mountains and the woods, and the
summer-time and our love. And in a moment it will be gone. Shall we
ever be so happy again? If we could only stay here always, the same
people in the midst of the same nature!"
She said nothing, but let him take her answer from her fresh lips.
They left by the Offenberg railway station in the afternoon. Loulou's
eyes were wet. Frau Ellrich smiled in a motherly way at Wilhelm, and
Herr Ellrich took his hand in a friendly manner and said:
"We shall see you in Berlin at the end of September."
As the train disappeared down the Gutach valley, it seemed to Wilhelm
as if all the light of heaven had gone out, and the world had become
empty. He stayed a few days longer at the Schloss hotel, and cherished
the remembrance of his time there with Loulou, dreaming for hours in
the dearly-loved spots. In this tender frame of mind he received
another letter from Paul Haber, who wrote thus:
"DEAREST WILHELM: Your letter of the 13th astonished me so much that it
took me several days to recover. Fraulein Loulou Ellrich, and you write
so lightly! Don't you know--that Fraulein Ellrich is one of the first
'parties' in Berlin? That the little god of love will make you a
present of two million thalers? You have shot your bird, and I am most
happy that for once fortune should bring it to the hand of a fellow
like yourself. In the hope that as a millionaire you will still be the
same to me, I am your heartily congratulatory
"PAUL."
Wilhelm was painfully surprised. What a mercy that the letter had not
come sooner. It might have influenced his manner so much as to spoil
his relations with Loulou. Now that the Ellrichs were gone, it could
for the moment do no harm.