CONSUMMATION.
It wanted but little to midday when Wilhelm came out of a hotel on the
Neuer Jungfernstieg in Hamburg, and made his way toward the Alster,
Fido trotting behind him, whose coat, for want of its accustomed daily
washing and brushing, looked sadly neglected.
The sky was thickly overcast, the air unusually mild, on account of the
prevailing west wind, and the pavement of the Jungfernstieg damp and
muddy. A thin veil of yellow fog lay over the Binnen Alster, giving the
objects far and near the indefinite, wavering appearance of a mirage.
Above the dark masses of houses to the right rose four sharp spires,
from the points of which, smoke-wreaths seemed to rise and trail away.
Far away in front the Lombardsbrucke was just distinguishable, its
three arches apparently hung with gray draperies. Swans glided lazily
in groups or singly over the muddy-looking surface of the water, or
came under the open windows of the Alster Pavilion, through which late
breakfasting guests threw them crumbs.
The small, green-painted Uhlenhorst steamer lay alongside of the second
landing-place. Wilhelm stepped on board, and remained on deck, staring
absently into the fog or at the dim outlines of the houses on the
shore. On the night of his escape from the Boulevard Pereire he had
driven to the Gare du Nord, and taken a midnight train, which brought
him at about six the next evening to Cologne. He was dead with fatigue
when he got there, stayed the night, and went on the following
afternoon to Hamburg. He had been there two days now, but had not been
able till to-day to gather sufficient courage to go and see Paul.
Solitude had been an absolute necessity to him; he fancied that he who
ran might read upon his brow the story of how he had lived and of what
he had been guilty. His thoughts were incessantly in Paris. During the
journey, in Cologne, since his arrival in Hamburg, he saw nothing but
Pilar's room, her return from the ball, and her passionate exhibition
of grief during the hours and days that followed. He only lived in
these imaginings. There seemed as yet no immediate connection between
his natural surroundings and his mental life. He felt as if a few steps
would bring him again to Pilar's side, and more than once the desire
came over him to return to her, and lay himself at her feet, there to
vegetate luxuriously henceforth, without a will or thought, to the end.
He resisted this impulse, but he was powerless against the tyranny of
his imagination, which ceased not to call up before him the scenes that
were being enacted in the house in Paris.
After a minute or two the boat started. The shores receded and spread
apart, and the lines of houses came and went like dissolving views upon
a white wall. The boat shot under the dark and clammy arch of the
bridge, where the echo increased the splashing of the steamer waves and
the thump of the machinery to a roar. The noise subsided suddenly, as
when a damper is laid over a resounding instrument; the steamer had
passed the bridge, and floated out on to the broad waters of the Aussen
Alster, which widened apparently into a great bay, the mist having
wiped out the boundary lines between its oily surface and the flat
shores which barely rose above it. The boat described bold curves from
side to side, touching at the different landing-places, and
presently--dimly at first and then more distinctly--the square tower
and ponderous, castle-like structure of the Fahrhaus Hotel came in
sight. The steamer had reached the furthest point of its journey.
Wilhelm found himself once more at the familiar spot which had so often
been the goal of his short walks with Willy. Scarcely ten months had
elapsed since he had looked at it for the last time, but his morbid
mental vision prolonged that time to an eternity. He felt like the
sultan of the Eastern legend, who fancied he had lived an entire
lifetime, while, in reality, he sank for one moment into his bath in
sight of his whole court. He overcame a strange attack of shyness, and
rang at the door in the Carlstrasse. The liveried servant opened it,
gave an exclamation of surprise, and hurried before him to the smoking
room. Wilhelm followed closely on his heels, and only left him time to
open the door and call loudly into the room:
"Herr Dr. Eyuhardt!"
"What! Is it you or your ghost? Well, I must say--" cried Paul,
overjoyed, receiving him with open arms.
The first tempestuous greetings over, he pressed him, down upon the
sofa, seated himself beside him, and rained down a torrent of questions
upon him--Where had he come from? How had he fared all this time? What
were his plans? And, above all things, where was his luggage?
"At the hotel," Wilhelm answered, a little nervously.
"At the hotel? Are you in your right senses? There is only one hotel
for you in Hamburg, and that is the hotel Haber. Were you so
uncomfortable there before that you have withdrawn your custom from it?"
"Don't try to persuade me, my good Paul. Believe me, it is best so.
Your hospitality oppresses me."
"Is that the remark of a friend?" grumbled Paul.
"It is a fault in me, I know, but I do beg of you to let me have my own
way."
"Just wait till I send Malvine to you--you will have to lay down your
arms before her."
"No, Paul, I really cannot live in your house again. I will come and
see you--so often that you will get tired of me--"
"Never!"
"But let me live here as I am accustomed to in Berlin, especially as it
will probably be for a long time."
"Then you are going to stay in Hamburg? That is splendid!"
"For the present at least. I see nothing else to be done."
"But in the summer you will surely come and spend some weeks at
Friesenmoor?"
"That is more likely."
The door opened and Malvine hurried in, and ran up to Wilhelm as he
rose to meet her.
"To think of you falling from the clouds like this!" she cried, and
shook both his hands warmly. "Not a letter, not a telegram, nothing!
Well, you knew, at any rate, that you would always be welcome."
Again he had to make a determined stand against having their
hospitality forced upon him, and kind, persistent Malvine would not
give up the struggle as easily as Paul. As Wilhelm, however, was
equally persistent in his refusal, and would not even divulge the name
of his hotel till they had sworn to leave him his independence, they
finally gave up the fight.
"And now tell us all that has happened to you," said Paul, patting him
on the shoulder. "You must have had a very good time, for you either
did not write at all or only in a flash--like this: 'Dear friend, am
quite well--how are you all? Best love--always yours.' Well, I don't
think any the worse of you. In gay Paris one has something better to do
than to think of dull old fogies on the Uhlenhorst."
"You don't think that seriously," answered Wilhelm, pressing his hand.
"I should rather be inclined to think that the doctor had been ill,"
said Malvine, whose woman's eye had instantly remarked the pallor and
weariness of Wilhelm's thin face.
"Really--have you been ill?" cried Paul, concerned.
"No, no, there is nothing the matter with me," Wilhelm hastened to
answer, with a forced smile.
The awakened anxiety of his friends would not be dispelled, however,
till he had repeated his assurance many times, and reinforced it by
additions and enlargements.
Paul then returned to his question as to Wilhelm's adventures, the
latter doing his best to get out of it by a few vague remarks on the
uneventful character of his life during the last few months, and then
hurried to descant on Paris, describing the town to them with the
volubility of a guide-book. On his inquiring in return about their
affairs, Paul and Malvine vied with one another in the redundancy of
their account. All was well, so far. At the last distribution of Orders
Paul had received the Order of the Red Eagle, and beside that, during
the course of the winter, two new foreign decorations. There were all
sorts of innovations on the estate, which he described in detail. At
present he was hard at work on an entirely new scheme: the founding of
a colony on the moor, composed of discharged prisoners, tramps, and
such like ne'er-do-wells; where, by supplying them with agricultural
labor, they might be brought back to a decent and remunerative way of
life.
Malvine had much to tell of the autumn and winter festivities, both at
her own and other houses, and also, that of the three heiresses whom
she had picked out for Wilhelm, one was married, another engaged, and
there remained only the third, the one with the curly hair, who still
asked after him from time to time.
Meanwhile the news of Wilhelm's arrival had penetrated as far as Willy,
who now came rushing in.
"Onkelchen, Onkelchen! have you come back?" he shouted, long before he
reached Wilhelm, and stretched out his little arms to him. He had not
grown much, but was plump and rosy as a ripe apple. Wilhelm kissed him,
and stroked the soft, fair curls that felt so much like Pilar's silky
hair.
"Have you been a good boy all this time?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, very good--haven't I, father?" the boy cried eagerly. "And I
can read now--everything--the newspaper too. I got a beautiful big box
of bricks for it at Christmas."
Wilhelm had taken him on his knee, but the lively child would not keep
quiet for long. He jumped down and hopped about in front of his
godfather and chattered away.
"I say, Onkelchen, you have just come in time for my birthday, haven't
you?"
Wilhelm had not thought of it.
"When is your birthday, my boy?" he asked, rather crestfallen.
"Why, don't you know? It is the day after to-morrow. And what have you
brought me?"
He did not wait for an answer, having caught sight, at that moment, of
Fido, who, shy as all dogs are in a strange place and among strange
people, had crept away under a table, and sat there very still with his
eyes firmly fixed on Wilhelm.
"A dog! A spitz!" Willy shrieked with joy. "Is he for me, Onkelchen?"
He rushed at Fido, took hold of him by the paw, and dragged him out.
Malvine cried anxiously:
"Let him go, Willy!"
But Wilhelm reassured her.
"He won't hurt him, he is quite gentle."
Fido allowed himself to be dragged without much resistance into the
middle of the room, only turning his head away nervously and eying the
child askance, as if doubtful as to his intentions. But when Willy
began to pat and stroke him kindly, and set him on his hind legs in the
first position for begging, Fido realized that no harm was going to
befall him, and attached himself instantly to the new friend with that
easy confidence which was this sociable creature's great fault of
character. He fell to wagging his bushy tail in a highly expressive
manner, tried to lick Willy's rosy face, and was altogether so overcome
by pleasing emotions that he got a severe attack of coughing, sneezing,
and snorting, and Willy exclaimed:
"My Spitz has caught a cold on the journey. We must give him some
black-currant tea, mother!"
The boy took a great delight in the dog, playing with him the whole
time of Wilhelm's visit, feeding him at dinner, and even wanted to make
him drink beer, which Fido steadfastly refused to do, and was much
disappointed when, at leaving, Wilhelm prepared to take the dog with
him.
"Didn't you bring him for me?" he asked with a pout.
Wilhelm consoled him by promising that he should see Fido every day,
and solemnly transferred to him all legal rights to the animal. On
these conditions Willy was content that Fido should go on living with
Wilhelm, and that he should come frequently on a starring tour, as it
were, to the Carlstrasse.
Wilhelm's first visit to his friends on the Uhlenhorst did not tend to
lighten his spirit. In their home he breathed a pure and wholesome
atmosphere, which, it seemed to him, he must contaminate by the heavy,
noxious perfume which still clung to him, and which he could not get
rid of. Their life was as transparent as crystal, every moment would
bear the scrutiny of the severest eye. He, on the other hand, had much
to conceal. His memory recalled many a scene; he saw himself again in
various situations, and thought--what would they say if they knew? Paul
and Malvine told him cheerfully of all that had occurred to them during
the last eight months; he was condemned to lock away his experiences in
the depths of his heart. His open and confiding nature was little used
to keeping a secret. It rose to his lips as often as he found himself
alone with his friend, and his longing to unburden himself was all the
more intense that he had himself formed no certain judgment on his
course of action, and yearned to hear from the mouth of an unprejudiced
person of sound moral tone and worldly experience, that he had done no
great harm. He carried in his own breast an accusing voice which called
him faithless and mean-spirited, and showed him Pilar as the victim of
his treachery; and he had need of an advocate, seeing that he was
himself unable to refute these accusations with any sort of confidence.
He was to receive the support he longed for. Soon after his arrival in
Hamburg he had written to Schrotter, telling him of his change of
residence, and expressing, at the same time, his intense desire to see
him again after their long separation, also, if it would not be asking
too much, to propose that he, Schrotter, should make a short journey,
say to Wittenberg, where they might meet and spend a few days together,
if it were possible for Schrotter to get away from Berlin for a short
time.
Schrotter answered by return of post. He was delighted to find that
Wilhelm was so near, and promised to take advantage of the first fine
days of April to make his little excursion to Hamburg. He would arrange
it so that he could at least spend a week with Wilhelm. It was not
impossible that he might bring Bhani with him.
Only a fortnight had passed since Wilhelm received this letter, when,
on his return one afternoon from the Uhlenhorst, the hotel porter
informed him that a gentleman had arrived from Berlin, and had asked
for him; that he was expecting him in his room, the number of which he
mentioned. With joyful foreboding Wilhelm hurried upstairs so fast that
Fido could not follow, and knocked at the door. A familiar voice
answered. "Come in!" and the next moment he was in Schrotter's arms.
The first greetings over, Schrotter gave his young friend a long and
penetrating look from under the half-closed lids, and remarked
"I suppose you are surprised that I did not wait till April, but
dropped down upon you unawares like this?"
"I am too delighted to be surprised," answered Wilhelm, and pressed
Schrotter's large, strong hand.
He had scarcely altered at all in the year and a quarter, and with his
herculean shoulders and powerful head, his fair hair, blushed into a
great tuft above his forehead, only just beginning to turn gray, he was
still the very type and picture of ripe manhood and strength.
"But I had a reason for changing my original plan," Schrotter went on.
"Unwittingly I have committed a breach of good manners against you, for
which I must personally ask you to forgive me." He drew a letter out of
his breast-pocket and handed it to Wilhelm. "This letter came
yesterday. Seeing the address, I took it for granted that it was for
me, and so I read it, and discovered then that it was for you."
Wilhelm turned pale as Schrotter handed him the letter. It bore the
Paris postmark, and Schrotter's name and address in a large, clumsy
hand. Nothing on the outside to betray that it was for Wilhelm.
Auguste--Wilhelm divined at once that he was the writer of the
letter--had not thought of putting it in a second envelope directed to
Wilhelm, or of adding his name to the original address.
Wilhelm's hand shook as he unfolded the letter, and a veil fell before
his eyes. For one moment he had the idea to put the letter in his
pocket, and say he would read it later on, for it was torture to him
that Schrotter should be a witness of the emotion he knew he must feel
on reading it. But of what use was it to dissemble? Schrotter would
have to know. He glanced over Auguste's stiff characters.
The man wrote in his ill-bred tone, with spelling to match:
"PARIS, March 26, 1880.
"MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR: It is a week now since you left, and time that
you should know what has been going on during that time. It was as good
as a play! But you shall hear.
"When Madame la Comtesse came home, and I opened the door to her, I
said nothing, but I thought to myself--what a row there will be
presently. And sure enough, she had hardly set foot in her rooms when
we heard an awful scream. It didn't scare me, because I knew all about
it; but Isabel came tumbling out, and howled in French and Spanish
mixed: 'Is it a fire? Are there thieves in the house?' It was enough to
make you die of laughing.
"I was called upstairs and questioned by Anne--the countess had not the
strength. She was kneeling in her ball-dress beside the bed, her face
buried in the pillows that still showed the pressure of your head, and
crying as if her heart would break. I know that madame cries very
easily--she has always been that way as long as I have known her--but I
really should not have thought, to look at her, that she could hold
such a quantity of tears. Anne cross-examined me like a magistrate, but
of course I made an innocent face, and knew nothing at all. I saw
plainly that she did not really care a bit, the viper, for while she
was cross-questioning me she gave me a look once or twice that told me
quite enough. But Madame la Comtesse is very sharp. She saw at once
that I knew more than I had a mind to tell. She turned a face to me, as
white as a cheese, and looked at me with such eyes, that I might well
have been frightened if I had not--I may say it without boasting--been
born in Carpentras. At first she tried it with kindness, and then she
threatened to turn me out of the house that minute, and then she wanted
to bribe me by all sorts of promises--ma foi! it was not a very easy
moment, but I stood firm, and madame threw herself back on the bed, and
the tap was turned on full again. Would you believe it, that that Anne
had the face to say to madame she had better look in the bureau to see
if her money and jewels were safe. 'Silence, wretch!' cried Madame la
Comtesse, so that the windows rattled, and gave the person a look that
made her double up like a penknife. She does not come from Carpentras.
To make a long story short, none of us went to bed that night. Madame
took it into her head you might have gone for a little walk in the
middle of the night, and would come back. Good idea, wasn't it? But
when the morning came, she saw that the bird had really flown, and that
changed the whole affair. She took to her bed, and stayed there for
five days with the room all darkened, ate nothing, drank nothing, was
delirious, had four doctors called in each at fifty francs the visit,
beside priests and nuns, and Madame la Marquise, her mamma, got three
telegrams, one longer than the other, and arrived here the day before
yesterday, and now they are trying which can cry the most. But the
daughter has the best of it. Since she had her mamma with her, madame
seems calmer. She got up yesterday for the first time, and--not to keep
back anything from you--I have great hopes that in a fortnight or three
weeks' time we shall see her going to balls again. That will do her a
world of good.
"She had your things taken up to the box-room, so that she might not
see them any more, and Madame la Marquise has your room, but Madame la
Comtesse never sets foot in it. The artist in hair says that there is
talk of renting a new house, or even of going to Spain. I should be
very sorry to leave Madame la Comtesse, but to Spain I would not go.
"I should be glad to know from Monsieur le Docteur whether, after
madame has consoled herself a little, I may give her monsieur's
address, that his things may be forwarded. I hope you are well, and
that you will write me a line. You need not be anxious about madame,
she will soon be all right again. You were not the first, and, let us
hope, you will not have been the last.
"I salute Monsieur le Docteur, "Your very obedient servant,
"AUGUSTE.
"POSTSCRIPT.--In spite of her desperation, madame had the presence of
mind to try and persuade Anne you very probably had to fly from your
political enemies, or had even been carried off and murdered by
Prussian agents. Anne said, 'Yes; such things have happened.' The
viper! You did well to take yourself out of this."
Wilhelm was unaware that he read the letter twice or three times over
without a pause between. When he was beginning for the fourth time, he
suddenly remembered that he was not alone, and that Schrotter was
sitting there watching him. He folded the letter in confusion. He had
not the courage to say anything, or even to look at his friend, but
dropped his hands and his head, and cast down his miserable eyes.
Schrotter was the first to break the silence.
"I must beg you once more to forgive me for opening the letter. Of
course, I could not have an idea--"
"No," said Wilhelm in a low voice, "it is for me to ask your
forgiveness for not having been open with you. But I had every
intention of making good my fault. It was for that I asked you to meet
me at Wittenberg."
"Spare yourself the telling of anything that might be painful to you,"
said Schrotter, with kindly forethought. "I can guess the drift of it,
and now understand your last letter. I thought you would probably be in
a frame of mind to need a friend near you, and so I came without delay."
"I will not leave you to guess anything," Wilhelm returned, and pressed
Schrotter's hand. "I will tell you all; it is an absolute necessity to
me, and will, at the same time, be a kind of atonement."
And he began his confession in a low, dull voice, and with downcast
eyes, like a sinner acknowledging a shameful deed, and Schrotter
listened to him gravely and in silence, like a priest before whom some
poor oppressed soul is casting down its burden of guilt. Wilhelm kept
nothing back, neither the mad intoxication of the first weeks, nor the
bitter humiliation of the last. He disclosed Pilar's passion and his
own weakness, the pagan sensuality and the artifices of the woman's
insatiable love, and the unworthy part he had played in her house
before the servants and strangers. He spoke of his tormenting doubts as
to the justice of his actions, and concluded: "And now, tell me, shall
I answer this letter?"
"What are you thinking of?" cried Schrotter, when Wilhelm stopped
speaking, and looked at him in anxious expectation. "Your only plan now
is to keep dark. If, notwithstanding your silence, they write to you
again, I would advise you to burn the letters unread. That will demand
a certain amount of fortitude, no doubt, but as the letters will come
to my address, I will do it for you, if you authorize me."
Wilhelm tried hard to make up his mind.
"No, do not burn them unread," he said, after a pause; "open the
letters, and then judge for yourself, in each case, whether you will
let me know the whole or part of the contents."
"Always the same want of will power!" returned Schrotter. "First you
free yourself, and then have not the courage to burn your ships behind
you. Believe me, it is best that you should have no further news from
Paris, and after some months you can send for your things through a
third person. Have you anybody in Paris who could arrange that for you?"
"No."
"Then I will do it. And even if you were to let the things go, it would
be no great loss. Above all things, no renewing of old fetters. This
lackey takes a healthy enough view of the matter, for all his
cynicisms. You must not take it too tragically. You have passed through
your heart crisis--it comes to most of us--only with you it has
happened late, and under unpropitious circumstances. That has tended to
make it more severe than is usually the case. But now, let it be past
and over, though naturally it will take some little time for your mind
to regain its normal balance. What I regret most in the affair is, that
it precludes the idea of marriage for you for some time to come, and I
had wished that so much for you. As long as the fascinations of this
siren are fresh in your memory, no respectable German girl will have
any attraction for you, and the love she is able to offer you will seem
flat and insipid."
"You only speak of me," Wilhelm ventured to remark, "but that is not
the worst side of the story; what weighs most heavily on my mind is,
that I have broken my faith with her."
"Do not let that worry you," Schrotter replied. "You were in such a
position as to be forced to act in self-defense. It would have been
inexcusable in you to have stayed any longer where you were. For a
liaison of that kind is only conceivable when the man loves the woman
very deeply. You, my friend, did not love the lady at all. If you have
any doubts about it in your own mind, you may take my word for it--had
you loved her, you would not have parted from her. You would, if
necessary, have carried her off from Paris, and continued to live with
her in some world-forgotten spot, as you did at St. Valery. Or you
would have gone off to the Philippines, and fought her husband to the
death, in order to gain free possession of her or die in the attempt.
That is how love acts when it is of that elemental force which alone
can justify such relations before the higher natural tribunal of
morality. But if your love is not strong enough to prompt you to do
these things, then it is immoral, and must be shaken off."
Wilhelm was still unconvinced.
"I surely owe her gratitude for having loved me? That imposes certain
duties upon me; I have no right to break a heart which gave itself
wholly to me."
"Your idea has a specious air of generosity," answered Schrotter
firmly, "but in reality it is morbid and weak. Love accepts no alms.
One gives oneself wholly or not at all. Do you imagine that any woman
of spirit would be satisfied if you said to her: 'I do not love you, I
should like to leave you, but I will stay on with you because I do not
wish to give you pain, or from pity--soft-heartedness.' Why, she would
thrust you from her, and rather, a thousand times, die than live on
your bounty. On the other hand, the woman who would still hold fast to
a man after such a declaration, must be of so poor a stuff that I do
not consider her capable of feeling any violent pain. Woman, in
general, has a far truer and more natural judgment in this question.
Where she does not love she has no scruples about want of
consideration, and the knowledge that it will hurt the man's feelings
has rarely restrained her from rejecting an unwelcome suitor. There is
such a thing as necessary cruelty, my friend--the physician knows that
better than anybody."
Wilhelm shook his head thoughtfully.
"Your cruelties are not for your own advantage, but for that of your
patient. I have no such excuse to offer."
"Yes, you have," cried Schrotter. "You cure the countess of a morbid
and hysterical sentiment. This Auguste is right--she will console
herself."
"And if does not?"
"If not--why, what can I say?--we must simply wait and see. But it
would surprise me very much. The worst is over. In such cases, if women
mean to commit some act of madness, they do it in the first moment. The
countess has her mother with her, she has three children, she has, from
all I hear, an extremely buoyant nature, her despair will soon calm
down. If not, it is always open to you to return in a year's time and
do the prodigal son, and have the fatted calf killed for you."
As Wilhelm looked at him with suppressed reproach, Schrotter laid his
hand on the young man's shoulder.
"You no doubt think me a hard-hearted old fogey--you miss the ring of
romance in what I say. That is quite natural. The language of reason
always sounds flat to the ear of passion--and not to passion only, but
to sentimentality and feebleness. Let us finish. You know my advice.
Give no sign of life, and so give time a chance to do its work. Try to
forgot the past, and help the lady to do likewise, and do not remind
her of it again by letters, or any other kind of communication. And now
let us talk of something else. What are your plans?"
"I have none," answered Wilhelm, with a dispirited gesture. "I have not
forgotten what you wrote to me at New Year. If our wishes make up our
future, I have no future before me, for I have no wish."
"Not even to be near me again?" asked Schrotter.
"Ah, yes," answered Wilhelm quickly, and looked him affectionately in
the deep-set blue eyes.
"You see now. This wandering life is no good for you. You must see
about getting back to Berlin."
"Yes, but you know--"
"Of course I know. But something must be done. You must apply to the
authorities to withdraw your sentence of banishment."
"And you advise me to do this?"
"Unwillingly, as you may well suppose. But I see nothing else for you."
"And how should I word such a petition? I could neither acknowledge a
transgression in the past, nor promise amendment in the future."
"No, it would be of no use going into details. It would have to be a
bald petition for pardon." And seeing Wilhelm recoil involuntarily, he
added: "It does not do to be too proud in such a case. In the
preposterously unequal struggle between the individual and the
organized power of the State, it is no disgrace to declare yourself
beaten and ask for quarter."
"A petition without any gush or protestations of loyalty, in which I
would simply say: 'Please allow me to come back to Berlin, because I
prefer it to any other place of residence,' would certainly be
ineffectual, and I should only have humiliated myself for nothing."
"We must get somebody to take up your cause. I shall do all in my power
to make the Oberburgermeister put in a good word for you."
"Would you yourself do what you are advising me to do?"
Schrotter was silent for a moment.
"I am not in the same case. If Berlin were as much a necessity to me as
it is to you I would do it--most certainly."
Wilhelm looked as if he were swallowing a bitter draught. But
Schrotter's strong hand lay tenderly on the dark head.
"Yes, friend Eynhardt," he said; "you will send in the petition, and it
will, I hope, have the desired result. Do it for my sake. Yes, look at
me; I have need of you. I miss you. I am getting to be an old man. At
sixty years of age one does not make new friendships. All the more
carefully does one keep those one has. Berlin has seemed to me a
desert--almost unbearable, without you. You do not know how impossible
things have become there. They are misusing, without one pang of
conscience, the most touching and lovable characteristic of our
people--its sense of gratitude, which it exaggerates to the point of
weakness. They are doing all they can to bind Germany hand and foot, to
gag her and drag her back into absolutism before her sentimentality
will allow her to put herself on the defensive. They are pandering to
the lowest instincts of the people, and enervating their manhood by
every artifice in their power. Thus they have successfully achieved the
introduction into Germany of that most degraded form of
self-worship--Chauvinism. They poison her morality by wisely organizing
that every conscience, every conviction, should have its price. They
debase her ideals by decreeing that henceforth the officer is to be the
national patron saint to whom the people are to offer up their devotion
and worship. The press, literature, art, lecturing-room--all preach the
same gospel, that the highest product of humanity is the officer, and
that "soldierly discipline and smartness"--in other words, slavish
submission, self-conceit, arrogance, and the upholding of mere brute
force--are the noblest qualities of a man and a patriot. The army is
taught to forget that it is the armed population of the country, and is
trained to be a band of body servants. And even when the soldiers
return to private life, the idea of servitude is carefully kept up, and
he finds again in the military 'Verein' the beloved barrack life, with
all its servile submissiveness and abnegation of free will. Whichever
way I look, I am filled with horror. Everything is ground down,
everything laid waste, the governing spirit has not left one stone
standing upon another. Even our youth, with whom lies our hope for the
future, is rotten in part. In many student circles I see a want of
principle, a low cringing to success, a cowardly worship of animal
strength, that is without its parallel in our history. Instinctively,
this corrupt youth sides, in every question, with the strong against
the weak, with the pursuer against the pursued, and that at the age
when my generation exerted itself passionately, without a question as
to right or wrong, for everyone oppressed against every oppressor. Of
course we were simpletons, we of '48, and the golden youth of to-day
scoffs superciliously at our naive ideals. In the present order of
things everything has become a curse--even the parliamentary system.
For that gives the people no means of making its will known, and has
simply become a vehicle for general corruption at the elections. Our
officials, on whose independence of spirit we used to pride ourselves
so much, have sunk into mere electioneering agents, and unless they
pursue, oppress, and grind the opponents of the government, have no
chance of promotion. It is a Police State such as we have never known,
not even before '48. For at least every man got his rights in those
days, scanty as those rights may have been, and the official was not
the enemy of the citizen, but his somewhat despotic guardian and
protector. Shall I say all? The most consoling class to me in Germany
to-day are the Social Democrats. They have independence of spirit,
self-denial, character, and idealism. Their ideals are not my
ideals--far from it--but what does that matter? It is relief enough to
find people who have any ideals at all, and who are ready to suffer and
die for them. I fear that not till this generation has passed away will
the German people become once more the upright, true-hearted,
incorruptible idealists they were, who, at every turning-point of their
history, were ready to bleed to death for freedom of opinion, and other
purely spiritual advantages. I take a very black view of things
perhaps. If only the harm done is not permanent, if only Germany
retains sufficient virile strength to throw off the poison instilled
into her veins and recover her former health!"
In his excitement he had risen, and was pacing the room like an angry
lion in a cage. Wilhelm did not like to interrupt the stream of words,
which seemed to be forced from him by some powerful inward pressure.
Now he said:
"I can well understand your point of view. You emigrated in '48, and
kept your democratic ideas fresh in your heart. Twenty years of
absence, and an intense longing for your home, glorified the Fatherland
in your eyes. You come back and find a country whose historical
development has taken a totally different turn in the meantime, and the
plain reality in nowise corresponds to the poetical picture you had
painted for yourself. Naturally you are painfully disappointed. I know
that of old from my own father. But may I venture to remark that your
criticism is hard, and perhaps not altogether well founded? A system of
government passes--the people remain. In its inner depths it is
untouched by official corruption, and you yourself acknowledge that the
aggressive boasters only formed a small part of our youth. I am not
uneasy for the future of my country."
"You may be right," returned Schrotter, grown calmer meanwhile, and
standing still in front of Wilhelm. "But the present is gloomy, that is
very certain. But enough of this. I came to cheer you, and have instead
lightened my own heart. It was overflowing, and I have no one in Berlin
to whom I can unburden myself. You see, I must have you near me. So
write your petition, and if it is not accepted, why then--then we will
go together to Switzerland or America, and love our country from afar,
and without any admixture of bitterness, just as I did in India."
In face of this deep and unselfish concern over the condition of the
commonalty which trembled in Schrotter's voice and spoke from his
gloomy blue eyes, Wilhelm felt half ashamed of having made so much of
his own small troubles. He declared himself willing to send in the
petition, and for the first time for weeks he was able to think of
something else than Pilar and his dealings with regard to her.
Schrotter stayed for a few days, which he passed almost exclusively
with Wilhelm and Paul. All three felt themselves younger by ten years
in this renewal of their intimacy, and Paul said more than once, "Would
it not be splendid, Herr Doctor, if you two would buy some property
near me? Then, in the summer months at any rate, we could all live
together, so to speak. I am quite convinced that that would be a sure
way of keeping ourselves young forever." Schrotter smiled at this
proposal. All he wanted was to have Wilhelm near him once more. In the
meantime, Bhani, his patients, his poor, recalled him to Berlin, and he
left in hope that Wilhelm might be able to follow him ere long.
Schrotter lost no time. He did his utmost to persuade influential
people to exert themselves on Wilhelm's behalf, but the difficulties
were greater than he had imagined. Wilhelm was in very bad odor with
the police authorities, who would not believe that he was not a
Socialist, and that he did not afford that party valuable support in
the shape of money.
Some three weeks after Schrotter's visit to Hamburg another letter came
from Auguste. He was surprised, he said, that Monsieur le Docteur had
not answered, and proceeded to inform him of a new turn in the affair.
They had discovered that Madame la Comtesse injected herself secretly
with morphine, pricked herself, Auguste said, and two Sisters of Mercy
had to watch her day and night to prevent it. Schrotter judged it
unnecessary to inform Wilhelm of the contents of this letter.
Schrotter's visit had had an extremely salutary effect on Wilhelm. His
self-torture grew less poignant, the memory of Paris receded into the
background, and in proportion as it paled the red returned to his
cheeks and the light to his dull eyes. He still held aloof from the
busy turmoil of the world, and was still dominated by a profound
consciousness of the aimlessness of his life, and yet, for the first
time for years, perhaps since he took his degree, he entertained a
desire, a hope, that he might be permitted to return to Berlin.
On the last Sunday in April Wilhelm was spending the afternoon at the
Uhlenhorst. The family were preparing to remove shortly to Friesenmoor,
and Paul had gone over to the estate to make some arrangements. He was
expected back in the evening, when they were all to go for a row on the
Alster.
Spring was unusually early that year; the trees showed gay sprigs of
green already, the air was wonderfully mild and balmy, and in the
exhilarating blue of the sky feathery white cloudlets were floating,
whose course one was fain to follow with sweet dreams and fancies. It
was a sin to stay indoors on such a lovely afternoon, Malvine declared,
and so proposed that they should go out to the terrace overlooking the
water and sit there till Paul came home.
The terrace belonged to the villa in the Carlstrasse, laying on the
path round the shore which bears with perfect right the name "An der
schonen Aussicht"--the beautiful view--and was built out in a square
into the Alster. A low stone parapet surrounded it on three sides, the
fourth--that toward the pathway--being formed by an iron paling with a
locked gate in it. One corner of the terrace, which was otherwise paved
with asphalt, was laid out in a round flower bed, in which the
primroses and violets were just beginning to come up. Near the
balustrade at the waterside, under a large tentlike umbrella, stood a
garden table and a few chairs. Here Malvine and Wilhelm seated
themselves, while Willy played about with Fido. To the right of the
terrace was a narrow little bay where the shallow boat was fastened in
which they were to make their pleasure trip later on. The boat was tied
to a wooden landing-place, which inclosed the little bay on the side
away from the terrace, and from which a few mossy steps led down to the
water. The Alster was swollen with melting snow and spring rains, and
almost washed the foot of the terrace; only one of the steps of the
landing appeared above the surface of the water. Willy, finding it
rather dull on the terrace, elected to play on the pier, and began
jumping in and out of the boat, into which Fido refused to follow him,
as he was afraid of the water.
The view was enchanting. The opposite shore gleamed silvery blue in the
delicate white light of a northern spring day. In the distance, the
masses of houses and the spires of Hamburg hung upon the horizon like a
faintly tinted, half-washed out transparency. A light breeze ruffled
the broad bosom of the Alster, and the red and green steamboats plowed
dark furrows in its brightness, which remained there long after the
boats had passed, and faded away finally in many a serpentine curve.
Numbers of little rowing and sailing-boats floated upon the slow
current, peopled by couples and parties in their Sunday clothes, their
talk and merry laughter sounding across the water to the shore. A
sailing-boat passed quite close to the terrace on its way to the
Fahrhaus. A young boatman handled the sails, a little boy was steering,
and in the stern sat a young man and a pretty rosy girl, their arms
affectionately intertwined, softly singing, "Life let us cherish."
Malvine smiled as she caught sight of the little idyll, and turning to
Wilhelm, who was gazing dreamily into the quiet sunny beauty of the
surrounding scene: "Can you imagine any more delightful occupation on a
spring day like this," she said, "than to go love-making like those two
little people over there?"
A shadow passed over Wilhelm's face. He saw himself lying in the high
grass under a wide-spreading tree in St. Valery, and over him there
hovered a white hand that strewed him with fresh blossoms.
At that instant they heard a little frightened cry, followed
immediately by a second one, and then a gurgle. Both sprang to their
feet, and Malvine uttered a piercing shriek of terror. Right in front
of them, not more than a step from the terrace, they saw Willy in the
midst of a whirl of foam which he had churned up round him with his
desperate, struggling little limbs. His arms were tossing wildly above
the water, but the head with its floating golden curls dipped under
from time to time, and the little distorted mouth opened for an
agonized breath and scream, only to be stopped by the in-rushing water.
The boat rocking violently close by explained with sufficient clearness
how the accident had happened. The boy had clambered on to the edge of
the boat to rock himself, had overbalanced and fallen into the water,
and in his struggles had already drifted some paces from the shore.
Fido stood barking and gasping on the step and dipping his paws into
the water only to draw them out again.
Malvine stretched out her arms to the child, but her feet refused their
office, she stood rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but utter
terrible inarticulate screams. Only a few seconds elapsed--just long
enough to realize what had happened--when Wilhelm sprang with lightning
rapidity on to his chair, and from thence, with one bound, over the
parapet into the water. He disappeared below the surface, but rose
again at once just beside the child, who clung to him with all his
remaining strength. How he managed it he did not know, but, although he
could not swim, he managed to push the boy in front of him toward the
terrace, crying anxiously, "Catch hold of him! Catch hold of him!" Life
returned to Malvine's limbs, she leaned over the parapet and stretched
out her arms. Wilhelm made a supreme effort and lifted the boy so far
out of the water that she could grasp him, put her arms round him, and
drag him up, and with him apparently Wilhelm, for his head and
shoulders rose for a moment above the water. With a jerk she dragged
the fainting boy over the parapet and held him in her arms, while she
continued to scream for help. People came running from the shore the
Carlstrasse, the Fahrhaus, and in an instant the terrace was crowded.
They relieved the still half-demented mother of the dripping child to
carry him across to the house. She was pushing her way through the
closely packed groups and tottering after them when a cry reached her.
"There is another one in the water!" Only then did she remember
Wilhelm. Terrified to death, she turned and flew back to the edge of
the terrace. A crowd stood there gesticulating wildly, all talking at
once, and obstructing the view. A gap opened when two or three men with
more presence of mind than the rest rushed down to the landing, jumped
into the boat, untied it, and pushed off from the shore. And now, to
her unspeakable horror, she saw that Wilhelm had disappeared, and the
thick muddy waters gave no clew to the spot where he had gone down.
This was too much, and she altogether lost consciousness. When she came
to herself she was lying on the sofa in her husband's smoking room, her
dress in disorder, and the maids busy about her. She first looked round
her startled, then her memory returned with a flash, and she cried with
quivering lips: "How is Willy--and Dr. Eynhardt?"
"Master Willy has quite come round, and they are putting him to bed,"
the servants hastened to answer.
"But Dr. Eynhardt?"
To that they had no reply.
Malvine jumped up and would have rushed out.
"Gnadige Frau!" cried the girls, horrified, "you can't go out like
that!"
They held her back; Malvine struggled to free herself, but at that
moment there was a sound of heavy footsteps and a confused murmur of
voices in the hall, some one flung open the door, the man-servant put
in his head, but started back at sight of his mistress and closed the
door abruptly. Then he went on, and the footsteps and murmuring voices
followed him.
"They are bringing him in!" shrieked Malvine, and they could hold her
back no longer. A moment later and she knew that she was right. On the
billiard-table, in the room to the right of the hall, lay Wilhelm's
motionless form, while the people who had carried him in stood round.
Water flowed from his clothes and made little pools on the green cloth
and trickled into the leather pockets of the billiard-table. His breast
did not move, and death stared from the glazed, half-open eyes.
A doctor was soon on the spot, the curious were turned out of the
house, and they began the work of resuscitation. They had labored
uninterruptedly for nearly an hour when Paul burst in, crying in a
choking voice: "Doctor--doctor, is he alive?" The servants had told him
all in flying haste outside.
The doctor shook his head. "There is nothing more to be done."
But Paul would not believe it. He would not suffer them to cease their
efforts. The rubbing, the movements, the artificial respiration had to
be kept up for another full hour. But death held his prey fast, and
would not let them force it out of his clutches.
Two days later, on a gray rainy day, they buried him. Schrotter came
over from Berlin for the funeral. He looked quite broken down, and
grief had aged his leonine features to an appalling extent. Malvine and
Willy were lying ill in bed, so that Paul and Schrotter followed their
friend alone to his last resting-place. When the coffin was carried out
and lifted into the hearse, and Paul came out of his house, he saw
through the veil of tears that obscured his vision that several hundred
men were standing in orderly array on the opposite side of the
Carlstrasse. They were young for the most part, but there was a
sprinkling of older men among them; all were poorly, but cleanly and
decently dressed, and every man had a red everlasting in his
buttonhole. They stood as motionless as a troop under arms, and
apparently followed the orders of a gray-bearded man who paced
authoritatively up and down the silent line.
Paul was surprised, and asked the undertaker, who was waiting for him
beside the hearse, who these people were. He had not invited anybody,
and did not expect there would be a crowd of any kind, although the
Hamburg papers had devoted whole columns to the accident.
The undertaker went over and addressed himself to the man who was
evidently the leader of the party. He informed Paul on his return:
"They are workingmen's societies from Hamburg and Altona. Their leader
says the deceased was not one of them, but they wanted to show him this
last mark of respect because he had been kind to them during his
lifetime."