It was a long time before the princely party appeared. When the

Sovereign approached them, all present were struck by his ill

appearance: his movements were hurried, his features disturbed, and his

looks passed unsteadily over the company. He turned first to the

forester, who was in attendance, and asked him, harshly:

"How can you tolerate the disagreeable screaming of the daws on the

tower? It was your business to remove them."

"Her Highness the Princess last summer requested that the birds be

left."

"The noise is insupportable to me," said the Sovereign; "bring out the

weapons, and prepare yourself to shoot among them."

As the practice of shooting was one of the regular country pleasures of

the Court, and the Sovereign had, even in the neighborhood of the

castle, frequently used his gun on birds of prey or other unusual

objects, the Court thought less seriously of this commission than did

the Scholar.

The Sovereign turned to the Lord High Steward.

"I am surprised to find your Excellency here," he said; "I did not know

that you too had taken leave of absence for this quiet life."

"My gracious master would have been surprised if I had not done my

duty. It was my intention to have reported to your Highness to-day at

the palace concerning the health of the Princess."

"So it was for that," said the Sovereign. "I had forgotten that my Lord

High Steward is never weary of his office of guardian."

"An office that one has exercised almost half a century in the service

of the illustrious family becomes in fact a habit," replied the High

Steward. "Your Highness has heretofore judged with kind consideration

the zeal of a servant who is anxious to make himself useful."

The Sovereign turned to the Marshal, and asked, in a suppressed voice:

"Will he remain?"

The Marshal replied, distressed:

"I could obtain no promise, nor even a wish from him."

"I knew it already," replied the Sovereign, hoarsely. He turned to the

Professor, and violently forced himself to assume a friendly demeanor,

as he said: "I have heard from my daughter of your campaign against

broken chairs. I wish to have some talk with you alone about it."

They sat down to table. The Sovereign gazed vacantly before him, and

drank several glasses of wine; the Princess also sat silent, the

conversation flagged, the High Steward alone became talkative. He asked

about a bust of Winkelmann, and spoke of the lively interest which the

nation took in the fate of their intellectual leaders.

"It must be an agreeable feeling," he said, politely, to the Professor,

"to be in a certain measure under the protection of the whole civilized

world. In the majority of cases the private life of our great men of

learning passes away uneventfully, but our people delight in occupying

themselves with the course of life of those who have departed. If happy

accident brings a person into contact with gentlemen of your standing,

he must take care that he does not suffer for all eternity under the

hands of later biographers. I confess," he continued, laughing, "that a

fear on this point has robbed me of many interesting acquaintances."

The Professor answered, quietly:

"The people are conscious that they have by the labor of scholars first

been raised from misery; but with greater experience in political life,

their interest in the promoters of our present culture will assume more

moderate proportions."

"I have told the Sovereign that you have found something here,"

remarked the Princess, across the table.

"There has been a remarkable discovery made in an ancient sepulchre,"

interrupted the High Steward; and he gave a diffuse account of a

funeral urn.

But now the Sovereign himself turned to the Scholar.

"Surely you may hope to find the rest?"

"Unfortunately, I do not know where to search further," replied the

Professor.

"What you have found, then," continued the Sovereign, with

self-control, "is unimportant."

It did not please the Professor that the conversation should again turn

upon the manuscript; he felt annoyed at having to talk about his

Romans.

"It is a few chapters from the sixth book of the Annals," he replied,

with reserve.

"When your Highness was at Pompeii," interposed the High Steward, "the

inscriptions on the walls attracted your attention. In those days a

beautiful treatise upon the subject came into my hands; it is

fascinating to observe the lively people of lower Italy in the

unrestrained expression of their love and their hatred. One feels

oneself transplanted as vividly into the old time by the naive

utterances of the common people, as if one took a newspaper in one's

hand that had been written centuries ago. If any one had told the

citizens of Pompeii that at the end of eighteen centuries it would be

known who they, in accidental ill-humor, had treated with hostility,

they would hardly have believed it. We indeed are more cautious."

"That was the hatred of insignificant people," replied the Sovereign,

absently. "Tacitus knew nothing of that, he only concerned himself

about the scandal of the court. Probably he also held office."

The Princess looked uneasily at the Sovereign.

"Is there anything in the contents of the parchment leaves which would

be interesting to us ladies?" she said, endeavoring to turn the

conversation.

"Nothing new," replied the Scholar. "As I had the honor of telling your

Highness, the same passage was already known to us from an Italian

manuscript: it is about small events in the Roman senate."

"Quarrels of the assembled fathers," interposed the Sovereign,

carelessly. "They were miserable slaves. Is that all?"

"At the end, there is another anecdote of the last years of Tiberius.

The disturbed mind of the prince clung to astrology: he called

astrologers to him to Capri, and caused those to be cast into the sea

whom he suspected of deceit. Even the prudent Trasyllus was taken to

him over the fatal rock path, and he announced the concealed secret of

the Imperial life. Then the Emperor furtively asked of him whether he

knew what would happen to himself that day? The philosopher inquired of

the stars, and called out, trembling: 'My situation is critical; I see

myself in danger of death.' At this passage our fragment breaks off.

The incident may have been repeated--the same anecdote attaches to more

than one princely life."

A couple of daws flew round the battlements of the tower, they cawed

and screamed, and told one another that underneath there stood a

sportsman who was seeking his game. The Sovereign suddenly arose.

"There must be an end to the screaming of these birds."

He beckoned to the forester. The man approached, and placed a weapon in

his hands. The Sovereign placed the but-end on the ground and turned to

the Professor, while the Princess, disquieted by the last words of the

Scholar, stood aside with her suite, struggling for composure.

"The Princess has told me," began the Sovereign, "that you have some

hesitation as to fulfilling a wish that we have all much at heart. I

hope that the hindrances may not be insurmountable."

"It becomes me," replied the Professor, delighted by the kind words of

the Sovereign, "to weigh calmly so honorable a proposal. But I have

other things to take into account besides the cause of learning."

"What others?" asked the Sovereign.

"The wish of a loved wife," said the Professor. A sudden convulsion

shook the limbs of the Sovereign.

"And how do you consider your relations to me?" asked the Sovereign, in

a hoarse voice.

The Scholar looked at the man, from whose eyes darted a look of deadly

hatred and malignity. He saw the muzzle of the weapon directed toward

his breast, and the raised foot of the Sovereign feeling for the

trigger. The flash of lightning impended, there was no room for flight,

no time for movement; the thought of the last moment passed through his

mind. He saw before him the distorted countenance of the Emperor

Tiberius, and he said, in a low voice:

"I stand on the verge of death."

"The Sovereign is sinking," called out the High Steward.

He threw himself with outstretched arms towards his master, and seized

his hands. The Sovereign tottered, the weapon fell to the ground, he

himself was received in the arms of those who hastened toward him. The

Princess flew up to them, and looked inquiringly into the pale face of

the Scholar.

"The Sovereign has been attacked by a sudden dizziness," answered the

latter calmly.

"My master is losing consciousness," cried the High Steward. "How are

you, Mr. Werner?"

The hands of the old man trembled. The Sovereign lay senseless in the

arms of his attendants, and was carried to the castle.

The by-standers expressed with much concern their terror at the event

and the Princess hastened after the stricken Sovereign. Before the High

Steward followed, he said to the Professor, whilst giving him a

searching look:

"It is not the first time that the Sovereign has been taken ill in such

a manner. Was that a surprise to you? You did not know that the

Sovereign was suffering in this way?"

"I know it to-day," replied the Scholar, coldly.

A few minutes afterwards the High Steward entered the room of the

Professor, who was preparing for his journey.

"I come to beg your indulgence," began the High Steward; "for I must

trouble you with an acknowledgment which is painful to me. You have

talked much lately in my presence to the Sovereign of the Caesarian

madness of the Roman emperors. What you then said was very instructive

to me."

"I now find," replied the Professor, gloomily, "that the place was ill

chosen."

"More than you assume," replied the courtier, drily. "To me it was

peculiarly instructive, but not so much what you said as that you said

it. I should not have thought it possible that any one would so acutely

reason upon the past, and so completely give up all judgment of that

which was around him. You then told a sick man the story of his own

disease."

"I have just discovered that," replied the Scholar.

"The Sovereign is diseased in mind. It is now necessary that you should

know it. I have a second confession to make to you. I discover that I

have misjudged you."

"I shall be glad if your present opinion is more favorable to me than

the former one," replied the Professor, with dignity.

"In your point of view, yes," continued the High Steward. "I have for a

long time regarded you in your relations here as a cautious man, who

was cleverly following out his objects. I have learnt that you are not

that, but something different."

"An honorable man, your Excellency," replied the Professor.

"We have nothing to reproach one another with," rejoined the courtier,

bowing; "as you misjudged the Sovereign, so did I misunderstand you;

but my mistake is the greater, for I am an older man, and I have not

the excuse of a specially intellectual mind, which sometimes makes it

difficult for a man to judge correctly of other natures. But we have

both one excuse. It is seldom easy to form a just estimate of those who

have grown up in other circles, and show a different combination of

virtues and weaknesses. We are all liable to be confused in our

judgment, according as our self-respect is satisfied or wounded. Where

genial tendencies find no response, displeasure erects a barrier; and

where powerful tones echo sympathetically to one's breast, there is the

danger of too rapid intimacy. Thus I have put too low a value on your

honorable openness and candor. I now pay the penalty, for I have to

confide to you a secret that I have no doubt you will accept with

proper regard."

"I assume that your Excellency does not make this communication to me

without a specific cause."

"There is a plan for keeping you in our city," interposed the High

Steward.

"Proposals of this nature have been made to me since yesterday."

The High Steward continued: "It is not necessary for me to be anxious

about your answer. You have learnt the meaning which is concealed under

a veil of civility. Do you know why the Sovereign made you the

proposal?"

"No; up to this morning I have not doubted that a certain personal

feeling of kindness, and the view that I might be useful here, were the

motives."

"You are mistaken," replied the High Steward. "It is not a wish to keep

you here merely for passing private interests. The real motive is, as

appears to me, the freak of a diseased mind, which sees in you an

opponent, and fears a sharp-sightedness that will remorselessly

disclose to the world a diseased spirit. You were to be fettered here;

you were to be cajoled, watched, and persecuted. You are an object of

interest, of fear, and of aversion."

The Professor rose.

"What I have experienced and what you tell me compel me to leave this

place instantly."

"I do not wish," said the High Steward, "that you shall depart from

here with displeasure, if this can be avoided; both on your own account

and for the sake of many of us."

The Professor went to the table, on which lay the parchment leaves.

"I beg your indulgence if I do not regain my composure immediately. The

situation in which we are placed is like that of a distant century; it

stands in fearful contrast to the cheerful security with which we are

wont to consider our own lives and the souls of our contemporaries."

"Cheerful security?" asked the High Steward, sorrowfully. "In courts,

at least, you must not seek this, nor under any circumstances in which

the individual passes out of private life. Cheerful security! I must

ask whether we have it in this century? It would be difficult to find a

time in which there is so much that is insecure; in which the old is so

decayed, and the new so weak."

The Professor raised his head, astonished at the bitter complaints of

the old man. The High Steward continued, indignantly:

"I hear everywhere of the hopes that one has in the nation, and I see

an abundance of young student-like confidence. There is not much mature

power, and I do not blame a sanguine man if he places his hopes on it;

nay, I even admit that this youthful spirit is in fact the best hope

that we have. But I am an old man; I cannot among these novelties find

anything that commands my respect, where they affect the interests of

private life. I feel the decay of vital power in the air which

surrounds me. My youth belonged to a time when the best culture of the

nation was to be found at Court. My own ancestors have for six

centuries taken an eager part in the follies and crimes, and also in

the pride, of their times; and I have grown to be a man in the

conception that princes and nobles were the born leaders of the nation.

I see with sorrow that they have for long, perhaps for ever, lost this

lead. Much of what you lately said exactly coincides with the last

decades that I have passed through. It has been a sorrowful time; the

hollow weakness in the life of the people has in a great measure

deteriorated the higher classes. But there has not been altogether a

deficiency of honorable and powerful men. What time has been entirely

without them? But what should be the noblest blossom of the national

strength is just what in this empty shallow time is most deeply

diseased."

The Professor interposed:

"It is a cause for sorrow; but where, perhaps, the individual loses,

the whole gains?"

"Undoubtedly not," replied the courtier; "if only the gain to the whole

was certain. But I see with astonishment that the greatest concerns of

the nation are carried on, on all sides, with school-boyish pettiness.

Much that is valuable is lost; nothing better is gained. The delicacy

of feeling which formerly expressed itself beneficially in all forms of

intercourse, and the discreet management of important affairs, become

rare. If these advantages did not suffice to form the character, as is

perhaps needed in the present, they made life pleasing and beautiful. A

secure feeling of superiority, and a gracious rule over others, was

general at courts and in business; of this we are deprived. Diplomacy

has ceased to be distinguished. One sets bluntly to work; not only

nobleness of feeling, but even the pleasing show of it is wanting; an

uncertain pettiness, a grumbling, irritable, reserved character has

gained the upper hand at courts, and in diplomacy ill-bred frivolity,

without knowledge and without manly will. Our princes rattle about like

accoutred idlers; the old court discipline is lost, and one feels

oneself incessantly on the defensive, and seeks for safety in senseless

attacks. It is impossible not to feel that by these acts one is

irretrievably going downward."

The Professor smiled at the sorrow of the old lord.

"I do not blame you," continued the High Steward, "if you do not feel

the misfortune of this change as deeply as I do. It is only a pity that

it should always be the highest earthly interests which are thus

trifled with."

"But is this misfortune so general?" replied the Professor.

"Some splendid exceptions have not been wanting," said the High

Steward; "some were granted us at a time when we played the greatest

tragedy before the world, as if here and there to preserve a bright

romance. They have scarcely been wanting in a country which possesses

the five qualities which are necessary to form a good court: an upright

sovereign, an amiable princess, a high-minded statesman, some

intellectual court ladies, and a superior spirit among the cavaliers.

But these requisites are seldom found."

"Were they ever frequent?"

"They were the pride of our nation at the time from which my earliest

recollections date," replied the High Steward.

"Just at this time we gained something else of which we may still be

proud," rejoined the Scholar. "There was a short period during which

the Court became the home of the most liberal culture of the time, and

it was only through the rare political circumstances of our nation that

this leadership was possible. Now it has passed into other circles, and

we have exchanged the increased capacity of many for the distinguished

culture of individuals."

"In this also there is a loss," returned the High Steward;

"distinguished men have become rare. I am ready to acknowledge the

advance which the citizen classes have made in the last fifty years.

But the capacity which a people develop in trade and commerce is

seldom united with secure self-respect, nay, seldom also with that

firmly-established position which is necessary to political strength.

Too frequently we find a wavering between discontented insolence and

over-great subserviency; covetousness abounds, and self-sacrifice is

small. Wealth increases everywhere; who can deny that? But not in the

same degree a comprehension of the highest interests of the nation."

"Time will improve," rejoined the Scholar, "and our sons will become

firmer and freer; here too our future belongs to those who work

laboriously."

"Much may be lost," said the High Steward, "before the improvement

which you expect becomes great enough to secure to those who are

struggling onward a salutary and active participation in the affairs of

government. I am too old to nourish myself with hopes, and therefore

cannot adopt your sanguine conception of our situation. I wish for the

good of our nation, in whatever way it may come. I know it has passed

through crises more critical than its present swaying between a

decaying and a rising culture. But I feel that the air in which I live

is growing more sultry; the tense excitement of contrast more

dangerous. When I look back on a long life, I sometimes feel horror at

the moral pestilence that I have contemplated. It was not a time of

gigantic vices like your Imperial era, but it was a time in which,

after short poetic dreams, the weakness of petty souls ruled and

brought distraction. The figures which in this lamentable time have

passed away will appear to posterity, not fearful, but grotesque and

contemptible. You, Professor, live in a new epoch in which a younger

generation awkwardly endeavors to rise. I have no sympathy for the new

style. I have not the courage to hope, for I have no power to promote

the culture of the younger generation."

He had risen. The old man and the young, vigorous man, the diplomat and

the scholar, stood opposite to each other; the one an advocate for the

world which was tending downwards; the other a proclaimer of a teaching

which was unceasingly to renew the old world; secret sorrow lay on the

calm countenance of the old man, and feeling, vigorous feeling, worked

in the animated features of the younger: a high mind and a refined

spirit were visible in the open countenance of both.

"What we had to say to one another," continued the High Steward, "is

said. I have endeavored to make amends for my mistake in regard to you.

May the gossiping openness with which I have exposed myself to your

judgment be some small compensation for my having been so long silent.

It is the best satisfaction that I can give to a man of your sort. As

respects the diseased state of mind of others, which was the subject of

our conversation, there need be no further words between us; both of us

will endeavor to do what is our duty concerning the men that are

entrusted to our care, to preserve them from danger and to guard

ourselves. Mr. Werner, farewell. May the occupation which you have

chosen preserve your joyful confidence in your time and your generation

for as many years as I bear on my head. This highest happiness of man,

I, an insignificant individual, have painfully felt the want of, as did

your great Roman."

"Allow me, your Excellency, to express one request to you," replied the

Scholar, with warm feeling. "Often may the unpractical activity of the

new apostles evoke a bitter smile from you, and the unfinished work

which we pioneers of learning throw off will not always satisfy the

demands which you make upon us; but when you are compelled to blame us,

remember, with forbearance, that our nation can only bear within it the

guaranty of renewing youth so long as it does not lose respect for

intellectual aspiration, and retains its simple honesty, in love and

hate. So long as the nation renews itself, it may inspire its princes

and leaders with new life; for we are not Romans, but staunch and

warm-hearted Germans."

"Nero no longer ventures to burn the apostles of a new doctrine,"

replied the High Steward, with a sad smile. "May I say something kindly

from you to the Sovereign, as far as is compatible with your dignity?"

"I beg you to do so," replied the Professor.

The Professor hastened to take leave of the Princess. She received him

in the presence of her ladies and the Marshal. Few words were

exchanged. Upon expressing the hope of seeing him soon again at the

capital, speech almost forsook her. When he had left the room, she flew

up to her library and looked down on the carriage into which the chest

was being put. She plucked some flowers which the gardener had placed

in her room, and fastened them together with a ribbon.

"His eye looked upon you, and his voice sounded in the narrow halls in

which you are passing your life. It was a short dream! No, not a dream,

a beautiful picture from a new world."

"As the womanly heart submits, in loving devotion, to the stronger mind

of a life-companion, her eye fixed upon his, such is the happiness of

which I have had a presage. Only once has my hand touched his, but I

feel as if I had lain on his heart, invisible, bodiless. No one knows

it, not even himself, I alone felt the happiness. Light, airy bond,

woven of the tenderest threads that ever were drawn from one human soul

to another, thou must be torn and blown away! Only the consciousness

remains that the inclination which drew two strangers together has been

forever a blessing to one of them.

"You, earnest man, go on your path, and I on mine; and if accident

should bring us together, then we shall bow civilly to each other, and

greet one another with courtly speeches. Farewell, my scholar. When I

meet with one of your associates, I shall henceforth know that he

belongs to the silent community, in whose porch I have humbly bowed my

head."

From the tops of the trees on which the princely child was looking down

the birds were singing. The carriage rolled away; she bent down, and

held the nosegay with outstretched hand; then with a powerful swing she

threw the flowers on to the top of a tree; they hung among the leaves;

a little bird flew out, but the next moment he again perched by the

nosegay, and continued his song. But the Princess leaned her head

against the wall of the tower.

The Scholar drove to the city with the chest he had found beside him.

More rapid and stormy than on his coming were the thoughts that flitted

through his soul; he hastened the coachman, and an indefinite anxiety

fixed his looks on the rising towers of the capital. But amidst all, he

ever saw the figure of the High Steward before him, and heard the

sorrowful words of his soft voice.

"Immeasurably great is the difference between the narrow relations of

this Court and the mighty greatness of Imperial Rome; immeasurably

great also the difference between the troubled Court lord and the

gloomy power of a Roman senator. And yet there is something in the

structure of the soul that has this day displayed itself to me which

reminds me of a figure from a time long past; and what he said sounds

in my soul like a feeble tone from the heart of the man whose work I

seek in vain. For just as we endeavor to explain the present from the

past, so do we interpret circumstances and figures of a past time in

the light of the men that live around us. The past unceasingly sends

its spirit into our souls, and we unceasingly adapt the past to conform

to the needs of our hearts."

_CHAPTER XXXVIII_.

THE MAGISTER'S EXIT.

Professor Raschke was sitting on the floor of his room. The bright

colors of his Turkish dressing-gown were faded; constant perseverance

in scientific service had given it a tinge of pale grey, but it still

continued worthily to cover the limbs of its master. The Professor had

seated himself by the side of his eldest son Marcus, in order to

facilitate the latter's study of the first book of A, B, C. While the

little one, tired of the pictures, was resting, his father made use of

the pause to draw a small copy of Aristotle out of his pocket. He read,

and made remarks with a pencil, not observing that his son Marcus had

long thrown away the picture book, and with the other children danced

round their father.

"Papa, take your legs away; we can't get round them," exclaimed Bertha,

the eldest, from whom, indeed, one might have expected greater

discretion.

Raschke drew in his legs, and as after that he found his seat

uncomfortable, he desired the children to bring him a chair. They

brought the chair, and he supported his back against it.

"We can't get around yet," cried the dancing children.

Raschke looked up. "Then I will sit upon the chair."

That was satisfactory to the children, and the noisy hubbub continued.

"Come here, Bertha," said Raschke; "you may act as my desk." He laid

the book on her head whilst he read and wrote; and the little one stood

as still as a mouse under the book, and scolded the others because they

made a noise.

There was a knock; the Doctor entered.

"Ha, Fritz!" called out the Professor; "I hardly recognized you; I must

try to recall your face. Is it right to set your friends aside in this

way, when a friendly greeting might do you good? Laura has told me what

has happened to your dear father. A heavy loss," he continued,

sorrowfully: "if I am not mistaken, two hundred thousand."

"Just one cipher too much."

"It matters little," replied Raschke, "what the loss is, compared with

the sorrow it occasions. I should have been with you, Fritz, at that

time. I started immediately, but a circumstance interfered with my

intention," he added, embarrassed. "I have long been accustomed to go

to your street in the evening, and--well--I got to the wrong house, and

with difficulty found my way back to the lecture."

"Do not pity me," replied the Doctor; "rejoice with me--I am a happy

man. I have just now found, what I despaired of obtaining, Laura's

heart and the consent of her father."

Raschke clapped the Doctor on the shoulder, and pressed first one hand,

then the other. "The father's!" he exclaimed; "he was the hindrance. I

know something of him, and I know his dog. If I may judge of the man by

his dog," he continued, doubtingly, "he must be a character. Is it not

so, my friend?"

The Doctor laughed. "There has been an old enmity brooding over our

street. My poor soul has been unkindly treated by him, like the Psyche

in the tale of Venus. He vents his anger upon me, and gives me

insoluble tasks. But beneath all his insolence, I perceive that he is

reconciled to my attachment. I anticipate happiness, for I am to-day to

accompany Laura to Bielstein. On my friend's account alone have I

wished to start earlier on this journey. I cannot rid myself of one

anxiety. I am disturbed that the Magister is in the neighborhood of

Werner."

Raschke passed his hand through his hair. "Indeed," he exclaimed.

"I have distinct reasons for this," continued the Doctor. "The dealer

who was said, to have brought the forged parchment strip of Struvelius

to the city was sent to me by the mother of the Magister. I dealt

severely with him, as was natural; but he assured me that he knew

nothing of such a parchment, and never had sold such a sheet to the

Magister. The anger of the man at the false assertion of the Magister

has made me very anxious. It confirms a suspicion that I have expressed

in a letter with respect to the genuineness of another piece of writing

which has been mentioned to me by Werner from the capital. I cannot

help fearing that the Magister himself was the forger, and a terror

comes over me at the thought that he is now exercising his art upon our

friend."

"That is a very serious affair," exclaimed Raschke, pacing up and down,

disquieted. "Werner trusted the Magister implicitly."

The Doctor also paced up and down. "Only think, if his noble confidence

should make him the victim of a deceit. Fancy what a bitter sorrow that

would be to him. He would long struggle sternly and self-tormentingly

with a painful impression, which we should not be able to obliterate

without great effort."

"You are quite right," said Raschke, again passing his hand through his

hair. "It is not in him to be able to overcome moral delinquency

without great excitement. You must warn him at once, and that face to

face."

"Unfortunately I cannot do that for several days; meanwhile, I beg of

you to make Professor Struvelius acquainted with the statement of the

dealer."

The Doctor went away. Raschke forgot Aristotle, and meditated anxiously

on the treachery of the Magister. Whilst so doing, there was a knock,

and Struvelius, with Flaminia, stood at the open door.

Raschke greeted them, called his wife, begged them to sit down, and

quite forgot that he was in his Turkish dressing-gown.

"We come with one wish," began Flaminia, solemnly. "It is with respect

to our colleague Werner. My husband will impart to you what has moved

us both deeply."

Raschke started up from his chair. Struvelius, whose emotion was only

visible in his bristly hair, began: "We were called yesterday to the

police-station. When the brother of Magister Knips fled to America, his

things were taken possession of on the application of petty creditors,

and as the greater portion of his effects were at his mother's house,

they were taken away from there. Amongst them were utensils and

portfolios which evidently did not belong to the fugitive, but to his

brother; one of those portfolios contained tracings after the style of

manuscripts, unfinished attempts to imitate old writings, and written

parchment sheets. The officials had been surprised at these, and

requested me to inspect them. It appeared upon closer observation that

the Magister had long been occupied in acquiring the skill of imitating

the characters of the Middle Ages. And from the fragments I have found

in the portfolio, there can be no doubt that he has other forgeries in

his collection, some of which answer exactly to that parchment strip."

"That is enough, Struvelius," began his wife. "Now let me speak. You

may imagine, dear colleague, that Werner at once occurred to us, and

that we were greatly alarmed lest the husband of our friend should get

into trouble through the deceiver. I asked Struvelius to write

Professor Werner, but he preferred to inform him through you. This

method also appeared most satisfactory to me."

Raschke, without saying a word, took off his dressing-gown, and ran in

his shirt-sleeves about the room, searching in all the corners. At last

he found his hat, which he put on.

"What are you about, Raschke!" exclaimed his wife.

"Why do you ask?" he said, hastily; "there is no time for delay. I beg

your pardon, Mrs. Struvelius," he said observing his sleeves, and again

put on his dressing-gown, but in his excitement he still kept on his

hat, and thus attired, seated himself opposite his friends. Bertha, at

a sign from her mother, gently took his hat off.

"A quick decision is necessary in this case," he repeated.

"There is no reason," continued Struvelius, "for withholding the

property of the Magister from his mother; but, meanwhile, they would

willingly allow you an inspection of the writings."

"That I do not wish," exclaimed Raschke; "it would spoil the day for

me. Your judgment, Struvelius, satisfies me."

There was some further excited interchange of views, and the visitors

left. Again Raschke rushed stormily about, so that the skirts of his

dressing-gown flew over the chairs.

"Dear Aurelia, do not be frightened; I have made up my mind. I shall

set out to-morrow."

Mrs. Raschke clasped her hands together.

"What are you thinking of, Raschke?"

"It is necessary," he said. "I despair of shaking the firm views of

Werner by letter. My duty is to try whether persuasive words and

detailed representations will have greater effect. I must know in what

relation my friend stands to the Magister. From certain intimations of

the Doctor, I fear the worst from the activity of the forger. I have a

short vacation before me, and I cannot employ it better."

"But, Raschke, you wish to travel!" asked his wife, reproachfully. "How

can you engage in such an undertaking?"

"You mistake me, Aurelia; in our city I sometimes do lose my bearings,

but in foreign parts I always find my way."

"Because you have never yet been alone in foreign parts," replied the

prudent wife.

Raschke approached her, and raised his hand warningly.

"Aurelia, it is for our friend, and one must pay no regard to trifles."

"You will never get there," rejoined his wife, with sad foreboding.

"It is much easier to speed through half the world in a secure vessel

than to go on two legs through our streets; half acquaintances are the

most unreliable."

"Then the money for the journey, Raschke?" whispered Mrs. Aurelia, in a

low voice, that the children might not hear.

"You have in your linen cupboard an old black savings-box," replied

Raschke, slily. "Do you think I know nothing of it?"

"What I have collected in that is for a new dress-coat."

"You wish to take away from me my old one?" asked Raschke, indignantly;

"it is well that I have made the discovery. I would now travel to the

capital even if I had no occasion for it. Out with the box!"

Mrs. Aurelia went slowly, brought the savings-box, and with silent

reproach, put it into his hands. The Professor tossed the money,

together with the box, into his breeches' pocket, threw his arm round

his wife, and kissed her on the forehead.

"You are my own dear wife," he exclaimed; "and now there must be no

delay. Bring me Plato and Spinoza."

Plato was the silk cap, and Spinoza the thick cloak of the Professor.

These treasures of the house were so called because they had been

bought with the money earned by two books on those philosophers. The

impression which the works had made on the learned world had been very

great, but the remuneration very small. A commotion arose among the

children, for in winter these beautiful articles were sometimes brought

out for a Sunday walk. The little troop ran with their mother to fetch

them.

"Be sure and bring them back, Raschke. I am so afraid you will lose one

of them."

"As I have told you, Aurelia, in traveling you may depend upon me."

"I will write a few lines to Werner; he must take care that you keep

them both. I will put the letter in your coat pocket, if you will only

give it to him."

"Why not?" exclaimed Raschke, courageously.

The following morning Mrs. Aurelia accompanied her husband to the point

from which the coach started and took care that he came to the right

place.

"If you were only safely home again!" she said, piteously.

Raschke kissed her gallantly, and seated himself on his traveling-bag.

"The seats are remarkably high," he cried out, with his legs dangling.

His traveling companions laughed, and he said, civilly, "I beg the

gentlemen to excuse me."

* * *

The lamps burned, and the moon shone through the white mist on the

walls of the Pavilion when the Professor returned there. No ray of

light fell from the windows. The house stood gloomy and abandoned, and

a blue phosphorescence seemed to glimmer above it. The door was closed;

the lackey had disappeared. The Scholar pulled the bell. At last some

one came down the stairs. Gabriel appeared, and gave vent to a cry of

joy when he saw his master before him.

"How is my wife?" asked the Professor.

"Mrs. Werner is not at home," replied Gabriel, shyly. He beckoned his

master into the room: there he gave him Ilse's letter. The Professor

read the lines, and held them in his hands as if stunned. This also was

a manuscript which he had found. It informed him that his wife had gone

from him: every word went like a dagger to his heart. When he looked at

Gabriel he perceived that he did not yet know all. The servant told him

what had happened. The Scholar pushed the chair from him; his limbs

trembled as in a fever.

"We will leave this house immediately," he said, faintly; "collect all

the things."

Like a Romish priest who prays in secret devotion to his God, he had

veiled his head from the sounds which sought to penetrate his soul from

the outward world. He had closed his ears and eyes to the figures that

moved about him. Now fate had torn the veil from his head.

"Mr. Hummel would not depart before your arrival," continued Gabriel;

"he is in great haste."

"I shall go to his inn; follow me," said the Professor; "but first

mention at the castle that I have departed."

He turned away and left the house. As he passed by the castle, he cast

a wild look on the windows of the room which the Sovereign inhabited.

"He is not returned yet; patience," he murmured. He then went, as if in

a state of stupor, to the inn. He ordered a room, and inquired after

his landlord. Immediately afterwards Mr. Hummel entered.

"Good news," began the latter, in his softest tone; "a messenger from

the Crown Inspector brings me the report that they have all made a safe

journey. It must have been a matter of caution that there is no letter

for you."

"It was indeed a matter of caution," repeated the Scholar, and his head

sank heavily on his breast.

Mr. Hummel seated himself close to him, and whispered in his ear. At

the last words the Professor sprang up in terror, and a groan sounded

through the room.

"A man is not a screech owl," declared Mr. Hummel, pacifyingly; "and it

would be unjust to expect of him that he should be able to distinguish

in the darkness the head from the tail of a rat; but every householder

knows that there are also worthless contrivances of architecture. These

intimations I make to you only, to no one else. I sent my card a few

days ago to your father-in-law. Little Fritz Hahn has, in your absence,

become a Doctor Faustus, who will carry off my poor child under his

fiend's cloak to Bielstein. May I announce your arrival there?"

"Say," replied the Scholar, gloomily, "that I will come as soon as I

have settled matters here."

He held Mr. Hummel firmly by the hand, as if he did not like to part

from the confidant of his wife, and led him down to the hall. New

travelers had arrived there, and a little gentleman in a cloak and a

beautiful silk traveling-cap, turned, without looking from under a

large umbrella, to the Professor, and said:

"I should be much obliged if you would show me to a room, waiter. Am I

in the right place here?"

He mentioned the name of the city; the Professor took the gentleman's

traveling-bag from him, seized him by the arm without saying a word,

and took him rapidly up the stairs.

"Very polite," exclaimed Raschke, "I thank you sincerely, but I am not

at all tired; my only wish is to speak to Professor Werner. Can you

arrange for an audience with him?"

Werner opened his room, took off his hat, and embraced him.

"My dear colleague," cried Raschke, "I am the most fortunate traveler

in the world: usually a pilgrim on the highroad is contented if no

misfortune happens to him, but I have met in the carriage with modest

and thoughtful men. The conductor on changing carriages carried my cap

after me, and some one kindly accompanied me to this house; and now

when, for the first time, I stand on my own feet, I find myself in the

arms of him whom I came to see. It is a pleasure to travel, colleague:

at every mile-stone one observes how good and warm-hearted the people

are among whom we live. We are fools that we do not deliver our

lectures in carriages; the anxieties of our wives are unjustifiable; a

man can manage by himself."

Thus did Raschke exult.

"Who lives in this room--I or you?"

"You may remain with me or have the adjacent room, as you please,"

replied Werner.

"Then with you; for I wish to be without you, my friend, as little as

possible."

"You come to a man who is in need of consolation," said the Scholar.

"My wife is with her father; I am alone," he added, with faltering

voice.

"You look to me like a traveler who draws his cloak around him in bad

weather," exclaimed Raschke; "therefore what I bring you will at any

rate not disturb you in cheerful repose. My business as messenger is to

lower a human soul in your eyes; that is hard for us both."

"I have to-day experienced what would shatter the foundations of the

strongest structure. There can be but little that would shock me now: I

am composed enough to listen."

Raschke seated himself by him and told his story. He fidgeted about on

the sofa, slapped his friend on the knee, stroked his arm, and begged

for composure.

Again was a veil drawn from the head of the seeker, who had believed

himself to be speaking alone with his God. The Scholar was silent, and

did not flinch.

"This is fearful, friend?" he said, at last.

With that he broke off, and the whole evening he did not say a word

about the Magister.

The following morning the Professors sat together in Werner's room.

Werner at last threw the two parchment sheets on the table.

"With these at least the Magister has had nothing to do. I myself

fetched them out of the old rubbish: there lies the missal on

the chest. It demands great self-control for me to look at that

dearly-bought acquisition."

Raschke examined the parchment.

"Highly valuable," he exclaimed, "if it is genuine, as it appears." He

hastened to the chest and examined the missal. "Probably the initial

letters of the book will afford some evidence as to whether the missal

was used in the cloister of Rossau," he said. "I regret that my

knowledge of monastic customs does not extend to this test."

He opened the chest and took up the contents. Of the absence of mind

which usually disturbed him nothing was to be observed: he looked round

with sharp eyes, as if he were searching the dark words of a

philosopher.

"Very remarkable," he exclaimed. "Only one thing surprises me. Has the

chest been cleaned out?"

"No," replied Werner, irritably.

"The three companions of a century's repose are wanting--dust, cobwebs,

and grubs; yet there ought to have been something on the inside of the

lid or on the bottom, for the chest has crevices which allow of the

entrance of insects."

He rummaged again, and examined the bottom.

"Under a splinter of wood there hangs a bit of paper."

He drew out a tiny piece of paper, and a deep shadow passed over his

noble features.

"Dear friend, compose yourself, and be prepared for an unwelcome

discovery. On this fragment there are only six printed words, but they

are the characters of our time: it is a piece of one of our newspapers,

and one of the six words is a name well known in the politics of our

day."

He laid the bit of paper on the table. Werner stared at it without

saying a word; his countenance was changed; it seemed as if one hour

had done the work of twenty years of care.

"The things were unpacked by me and again put back; it is possible that

the paper may have fallen in."

"It is possible," replied Raschke.

The Professor jumped up, and sought in great haste for his pocket copy

of Tacitus.

"Here is the reading of the Florentine manuscript, comparison with the

parchment sheets will throw light on it." He compared some sentences.

"It appears an accurate copy," he said, "too accurate--awkwardly

accurate."

He held the manuscript searchingly towards the light; he poured a drop

of water on the corner of the parchment and wiped it with a towel; the

next moment he flung towel and parchment to the ground, and clasped his

hands over his face. Raschke seized the leaves, and looked at the

damaged corner.

"It is true," he exclaimed, sorrowfully; "a writing that had been on

the parchment six hundred years would leave other traces on the

material."

He paced hastily up and down, his hands in his coat pocket, rubbed his

face with the towel, and, perceiving his mistake, threw it away from

him.

"I only know of one word for this," he exclaimed--"a word that men

unwillingly allow to pass their lips--and that word is villainy!"

"It was a piece of vile and rascally knavery," exclaimed Werner, in a

strong voice.

"Here let us stop, friend," begged Raschke; "we know that a deception

has been intended; we know that the attempt has been made lately; and

when we compare the place of the discovery and your presence here, we

may assume as a fact, without doing injustice to any one, that the

trick was intended to deceive you. Of the person who has practiced it

we have only suspicion, well-grounded suspicion, but no certainty."

"We will make it certainty," explained Werner, "before the day becomes

many hours older."

"Undoubtedly," replied Raschke, "this certainty must be obtained, for

suspicion ought not to continue in the hearts of men; it destroys all

ideas and thoughts. But the ultimate question remains: For what object

was the deceit practiced? Was it the willfulness of a knave? If so, the

wickedness of it is not, to an honorable mind, thereby lessened; yet it

is not the worst kind of turpitude. But if it was deliberate malice

with intent to injure you, then it deserves the severest condemnation.

On what terms are you with the Magister?"

"It was deliberate malice to injure a man, body and soul," replied

the Professor, with solemn earnestness; "but the doer was only the

tool--the idea was that of another."

"Hold," cried Raschke, again, "no further; this also is only

suspicion."

"It is only suspicion," repeated the Professor; "therefore I seek for

certainty. When I wished to go to the country castle I was detained

from day to day under trivial pretexts; the Magister was absent not

long ago for a day from the work which was entrusted to him; he excused

himself on the score of illness, and as he was profuse in his excuses I

was struck by a shyness in his manner. There was a wish to keep me here

for reasons which you, in your sphere of feelings, can scarcely

understand. It was hoped to attain this object by exciting the

fanatical zeal with which I was afflicted, without entirely contenting

it. Such is my suspicion, friend; and I feel myself miserable, more

miserable than I have ever been in my life."

He threw himself on the sofa, and again concealed his face.

Raschke approached him, and said, softly:

"Does it distress you so much, Werner, that you have been deceived?"

"I have confided, and deceived confidence gives pain; but in my sorrow

I feel not only for myself, but for the destruction of another who

belongs to us."

Raschke nodded his head. He again paced vehemently about the room, and

looked angrily at the chest. Werner rose and rang the bell.

"I wish to speak to Magister Knips," he said, to Gabriel, who entered.

"I must beg him to take the trouble of coming here as soon as

possible."

"How will you speak to him?" asked Raschke, stepping anxiously before

his friend.

"I need so much consideration myself," replied Werner, "that you need

not fear my violence. I also have been laboring under a disease, and I

know that I have to speak to one who is more diseased than I."

"You are not diseased," exclaimed Raschke, "only shocked, as I am. You

will say what is necessary to him, for the rest you will leave him to

his own conscience."

"I will only say what is necessary," repeated the Professor,

mechanically.

Gabriel returned, and reported that the Magister would call when he

left the Museum in the evening.

"How did the Magister take the message?" asked Raschke.

"He appeared alarmed when I told him that the Professor was stopping at

the inn."

The Professor had ensconced himself in a corner, but the philosopher

left him no rest; he kept talking to him about the occurrences at the

University, and compelled him to take part by frequent questions. At

last he expressed a wish to take a walk, to which the Professor

unwillingly consented.

Werner led him through the gate of the city; as they walked along he

briefly answered the lively talk of his friend. When they came to the

inn from which Ilse had got into the carriage of the Crown Inspector,

the Scholar began, with hoarse voice:

"This is the road along which my wife escaped from the city. I came

early this morning along this same road, and at every step I felt what

is the deepest humiliation to man."

"Before her was light, and behind her darkness," exclaimed Raschke.

He talked of Ilse, and now thought of the commission which his children

had given to their aunt.

Thus the afternoon passed. Werner again sat brooding in his room, when

Gabriel announced the arrival of the Magister. Before Raschke hastened

into the next room, he once more pressed the hand of the other, and,

looking imploringly at him, said:

"Be calm, friend."

"I am calm," replied he.

Magister Knips had profited by the refining influence of the Court. His

black suit had been made by a tailor who had the princely coat of arms

above his workshop; his hair was free from feathers, and his vocabulary

had been replenished with new expressions of respect. He now looked

furtively and defiantly around him.

Werner measured the man as he entered with a steady look; if, before,

he had had a doubt of the guilt of the Magister, he now recognized it.

He turned away for a moment in order to struggle with his aversion.

"Examine this," he said, pointing with his finger to the parchment

leaves.

Knips took a leaf in his hand, and the parchment trembled as he cast a

shy glance upon it.

"It is another forgery," said the Professor; "the reading of the first

Florentine manuscript, and even the peculiarities of its orthography,

are copied with a careful accuracy which would have been impossible to

any old transcriber. The writing, too, betrays itself to be recent."

The Magister laid the sheet down, and answered, with hesitation:

"It appears undoubtedly to be an imitation of an old script, as the

Professor has already discovered."

"I found this work," continued the Scholar, "in the tower of the castle

in the country, inserted in that torn missal, laid in that chest, and

concealed among old furniture. And you, Magister, have prepared this

leaf, and you have concealed it in this place. That is not all. Long

before, in order to put me on a false track, you placed the register of

a chest in the old records; you invented the figures 1 and 2 for the

chests, and further, you yourself wrote the register in order to

deceive me."

The Magister stood with lowered head, seeking for an answer. He did not

know on what confession of others these deliberate assertions were

grounded. Had the Castellan betrayed him? Had the Sovereign himself

exposed him? Terror came over him, but he replied, doggedly:

"I did not do it."

"In vain do you seek to deceive me anew," continued the Scholar. "If I

had not already sufficient ground to say to your face that you did

this, your demeanor in the presence of this sheet would be ample

evidence. No sound of astonishment, no word of horror at such an

attempt at forgery escaped you. What true scholar would look upon such

a thing and remain silent, if his own conscience did not close his

mouth? What have I done to you, Magister, that you should inflict upon

me this bitter anguish? Give me some excuse for your action. Have I

ever injured you? Have I ever aroused in you secret ill-will against

me? Any reason that will make this abomination comprehensible will be

welcome to me; for I look with dismay on this depravation of a human

soul."

"The Professor has never given me any ground for complaint," replied

Knips, submissively.

"Nevertheless," said the Professor, "in cold blood, with indifference,

with malicious levity, you have done your worst to me: it was wrong,

very wrong, Magister."

"Perhaps it was only a jest," sighed the Magister; "perhaps it was only

put in that way to him who prepared the writing. He only perhaps acted

by the command of another, not by free choice, and not of his own

will."

"What power on earth could command you to practice towards another so

deliberate a piece of knavery?" asked the Professor, sorrowfully. "You

yourself know right well what consequences this deception may have for

myself and others."

Magister Knips was silent.

"I have done with you," continued the Scholar. "I shall say nothing of

the plan which this falsehood was to serve nor make any further

reproaches concerning the injury that you have practiced towards a man

who trusted in your honor."

He threw the parchment under the table. Knips seized his hat silently

to leave the room.

"Stop!" exclaimed the Professor; "do not move from the spot. I must be

silent as to what you have endeavored to do personally against me. It

is not so much on account of this manuscript that I have sent for you.

But the man whom I see before me, on whom I look with an abhorrence

that I have never yet felt, is something more than an unscrupulous tool

in the service of a stranger; he is an unfaithful philologist, a

traitor to learning, a forger, and deceiver in that in which only

honorable men have a right to live, a cursed man, for whom there is no

repentance and no mercy."

The Magister's hat fell to the ground.

"You wrote the parchment strip of Struvelius; the trader has informed

against you in your native city. Your writings are confiscated and are

in the hands of the police."

The Magister still remained silent. He fumbled for his

pocket-handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

"Now, at least, speak out," cried Werner. "Give me an explanation of

the fearful riddle, how any one who belonged to us could willfully

destroy all that made his life noble. How could a man of your

attainments become untrue to science in so despicable a way?"

"I was poor and my life full of trouble," replied Knips, in a low

voice.

"Yes, you were poor. From your earliest youth you have worked from

morning to night; even as a child you have denied yourself much that

others thoughtlessly enjoy. You have in this way the secret

consciousness of having obtained for yourself inward freedom, and a

humble friendship with the great spirit of our life. Yes, you have

grown up to be a man amidst countless sacrifices and self-denials which

others fear. You have thus learnt and taught what is the highest

possession of man. In every proof-sheet that you have read for the

assistance of others, in every index of words that you have drawn up

for a classical work, in every word that you have corrected, in every

number that you have written, you have been obliged to be truthful.

Your daily work was an unceasing, assiduous struggle against what was

false and wrong. Yet more, and worse than that, you have been no

thoughtless day-laborer; you have fully and entirely belonged to us;

you were, in fact, a scholar, from whose learning many with higher

pretensions have frequently taken counsel. You not only treasured in

your mind a mass of rare knowledge, but you well comprehend the

thoughts to which such knowledge gives rise. You were all this--and yet

a forger. With true devotion and self-denial, you united malicious

willfulness; you were a confidential and assiduous assistant, and at

the same time a deceiver, bold and mocking like a devil."

"I was a tortured man," began Knips. "He who has lived otherwise does

not know how difficult it is, in the service of science, to be ever

following in the foot-steps of others. You have never worked for others

who knew less than yourself. You do not understand the feeling that

possesses one when others use haughtily, without acknowledgement and

without thanks, what one has given them from one's own knowledge. I am

not insensible to friendship. The Professor was the first who, in the

last lines of the introduction of his maiden work, mentioned my name

because I had been of use to him. And yet I have done less for you than

any other of my old patrons. The copy which you then gave me I have put

in the place of honor among my books. Whenever I have felt tired from

my night's work I have read those lines; I have seldom experienced the

like kindliness. But I have felt the torment of having more knowledge

than I had credit for, and I have had no opportunity to work my way out

of my narrow sphere. That has been the cause of all."

The Magister suddenly stopped.

"It was pride," said the Professor, sorrowfully, "it was envy, that

burst forth from an oppressed life against more fortunate ones, who,

perhaps, did not know more; it was the craving for superiority over

others."

"It was that," continued Knips, plaintively. "First came the idea of

mocking those who employed and despised me. I thought, if I chose, I

had you in my power, my learned colleagues. Then it became a purpose

and took fast hold on me. I have sat many nights working at it before I

went so far, and frequently have I thrown away what I have done,

Professor, and hid it under my books. But I was allured to go on, it

became my pride to master the art. When at last I had done so, it was a

pleasure to me to make use of it. It was less for the gain than for the

superiority it gave me."

"It is easy," replied the Professor, "to deceive men of our sort where

they are accustomed to place firm confidence. Where the acuteness that

we acquire in our work is not brought into play, many of us are like

children, and he who is colder and wishes to deceive may easily for a

time play with us. It is a weak glory to exercise the art of Satan

against the innocent."

"I knew that it was a devil with whom I was dealing; I knew it from the

first day, Professor, but I could not guard myself from him. Thus it

was," concluded Knips, seating himself exhausted on the chest.

"Thus it was, Magister," exclaimed Werner, raising himself up; "but

thus it cannot remain. You were one of us, you can no longer be so. You

have done an injury to the highest good which is granted to the race of

man--the honor of learning. You yourself knew that he who endangers

this honor is a mortal enemy to our souls. In our realm, where error

daily threatens the limited powers of individuals, the determination to

be true is a preliminary which none can be wanting in, without

involving others in his own destruction."

"I was only an assistant," sighed Knips, "and few cared about me. If

others had esteemed me as a scholar it would not have happened."

"You considered yourself so, and you had a right to do so," rejoined

the Professor. "You felt the pride of your learning, and you well knew

your high vocation. You well knew that you also, the humble Magister,

had your share in the priestly office and in the princely office of our

realm. No purple is nobler, no rule is more sovereign than ours. We

lead the souls of our nation from one century to another; and ours is

the duty of watching over its learning and over its thoughts. We are

its champions against the lies and spirits of a past time which wander

amongst us clothed with the semblance of life. What we consecrate,

lives; and what we condemn, passes away. The old virtues of the

Apostles are required of us--to esteem little what is earthly, and to

proclaim the truth. You were in this sense consecrated, like every one

of us; your life was pledged to God. On you, as on all of us, lay the

responsibility for the souls of our nation. You have proved yourself

unworthy of this office, and I grieve, I grieve, wretched man, that I

must separate you from it."

The Magister jumped up, and looked imploringly at the Scholar.

The Professor spoke impressively:

"It is my duty both towards you and others to speak out. What you have

done to my fellow professors, and what you have prepared for similar

attempts, cannot remain secret. Honorable men must be warned against

the art which you have been led by a demon to exercise. But in this

last hour in which you stand before me, I feel that I have done too

little to help you against temptation. Without intending to be unkind,

I have perhaps sometimes undervalued you, in comparison with others,

and have forgotten how hard was your daily life. If you have ever felt

depressed and embittered by my severity, I now atone for it. For when

I, short-sighted, erring man, advised you to accept a position which

was to raise you out of external need, I participated in your guilt, by

exposing you to new temptation here. That gives me bitter pain,

Magister, and I feel the anguish of this hour."

Magister Knips sat exhausted and cowering on the chest: the Scholar

stood over him, and his words sank like blows on the Magister's head.

"I cannot conceal the fact, Magister, that you are a forger; you can

never again move in our circle; your career is closed by your

transgression, you are lost to learning, lost to all who took an

interest in your work. You have vanished from the place which you held

amongst us; nothing remains but a black shadow. Human powers

laboriously trained, a spirit of uncommon acuteness and fullness, are

lost and dead to us; and I mourn over you as over a dead man."

The Scholar wept, and Knips covered his face with his hands. Werner

hastened to his writing-table.

"If you require means to maintain your ruined life in some other

neighborhood, here it is. Take what you require."

He threw some money on the table.

"Try to conceal yourself where no member of our community will meet

you. May all the good become your portion, which is still possible for

you to have on earth. But fly, Magister; avoid those places where one

shall think of you with the sorrow and repugnance that the faithful

workman feels towards one who is untrue."

Knips rose; his face was paler than usual, and he looked distractedly

about him.

"I need no money," he said, with faint voice; "I have enough for my

journey. I beg of the Professor to care for my mother."

The Scholar turned away, the strong man sobbed. Magister Knips went to

the door; there he stopped.

"I have the Homer of 1488; tell my mother to give you the book. Though

the thought of me be painful, yet keep the book. It was a treasure to

me."

The Magister closed the door and went slowly out of the house. The wind

drove through the streets; it blew against the back of the Magister,

and hastened his steps.

"It drives," murmured Knips again; "it drives me onward."

At the open square he remained standing in the wind; looking towards

the clouds, which were passing in hasty flight beneath the moon.

Distorted figures hovered in the grey vapor and glided over his head.

He thought of the last proof-sheets which he had read in his native

town, and spoke some Greek words; they were verses from the Eumenides

of AEschylus:--

"Rush on! rush on! rush on! ye messengers of vengeance!"

He went up to the castle, and remained standing before the lighted

windows; the four black steeds which brought the Sovereign back from

the tower castle to the city dashed past him, and he clenched his bony

fist at the carriage. He then ran round the castle to the park side.

There, against a tree, beneath the windows of the Sovereign's

apartment, he cowered; looked up to the castle, and again raised his

fist against the lord of it, and sighed. He looked up at the dark

boughs that towered over him, gazed at the sky and the grey flitting

shadows which coursed along under the moon, and desperate thoughts

passed through his mind:

"When the moon vanishes that will be a token to me also."

He looked long at the moon. Amidst his wild thoughts a Latin sentence

entered his confused brain: "'The moon and the earth are but as little

points in the universe;' that is beautifully said by Ammianus

Marcellinus. I have compared the manuscripts of this Roman; I have made

conjectures on all sides with respect to his mutilated text; I have

pored for years over him. If I do here, in order to vex this ignorant

lord, what was done to Haman, all this preparation for my Roman would

be lost."

He rushed from under the trees and ran to his dwelling. There he

collected all his possessions, put his small copy of Ammianus into his

pocket, and hastened with his bundle to the gate.

They say he went to the same country to which his brother had gone

before him--far off in the West.

He passed away, he hid his head--an unfaithful servant, and at the same

time a victim of science. All his life long he had pondered over

written words; now the living words, which penetrated from another soul

into his, drove him from his home. Day and night he had been surrounded

with the letters of books and learned writings which had flowed from

the pen on to the white sheets; but the blessing of living words which

pass from the mouth to the ear, and echo from heart to heart, had

failed him at the right time; for what is in common use with us is also

our highest boon. Its power is as mysterious to us to-day as it was to

our ancestors; the generation of our literary period, accustomed to

contemplate tones in their imaginations, and to estimate the powers of

nature by measure and weight, seldom think how powerfully the echoing

word from the human heart rules within us; it is mistress and servant,

it elevates and annihilates us, it produces disease and health. Happy

the living being in whose ear it sounds full and pure, who incessantly

receives the soft sound of love and the hearty call of friendship. He

who is deprived of the blessing of the conversation which flows from

warm hearts, wanders among others as a living being in whom the spirit

is separated from the body, or like a book that one opens, makes use

of, and puts away at pleasure. The Magister had sinned by the written

word; a cry of agony uttered by a human voice had frightened him into

the misty and silent distance.

_CHAPTER XXXIX_.

BEFORE THE CRISIS.

The cattle lowed and the sheep-bells tinkled, and the springing blades

of wheat waved in the wind. The eldest daughter of the family was again

walking in the garden, surrounded by her brothers and sisters. What has

become of the glad brightness of your eye and the hearty child's laugh,

Lady Ilse? Your countenance has become serious and your demeanor

subdued; your looks scan critically the men about you and the paths

that you tread, and calm commands sound from your lips. Your home has

not made your heart light, nor given you back again what you lost among

strangers.

But it zealously exercises its right to be loved by you and to show you

love; it recalls familiar images to your soul, and old recollections

awake at every step; the people whom you fostered faithfully in your

heart, the animals that you cared for, and the trees that you planted,

greet you, and labor busily to cover with bright colors what lies

gloomily within you.

The first evening was painful. When Ilse, accompanied by her neighbor,

entered her home a fugitive, striving to conceal what tormented her,

amidst the terror of her father and the inquisitive questions of her

brothers and sisters, anger and dismay once more threw their black

shadows over her. But on the breast of her father, under the roof of a

secure house, together with the feeling of safety, her old energy

revived, and she was able to conceal from the eyes of her loved ones

that which was not her secret alone.

Another painful hour came. Ilse was sitting late in the evening, as

years before, on her chair opposite her father. After her story was

told, the strong man looked down anxiously, used hard words concerning

her husband, and cursed the other. When he told her that even in her

father's house danger threatened her, when he desired her to be

cautious at every step, and when he told her that in her childhood

there had been a dark rumor that a maiden from the house on the rock, a

child of a former possessor, had been the victim of a distinguished

prince, she raised her hands to heaven. Her father seized them and drew

her towards him.

"We are wrong to forget in an uncertain future how mercifully

Providence has guarded you. I hold you by the hand and you stand on the

soil of your home. We must do what the day requires, and trust

everything else to a higher Being. As for the talk of strangers we care

not; they are weather-cocks. Be calm and have confidence."

The younger children chattered innocently; they asked about the

charming life at the capital, they wished to know accurately what their

sister had gone through, and above all how the Sovereign of the country

had treated Ilse, he whom they thought of as a holy Christ, as the

unwearied dispenser of joy and happiness. But the elder ones were more

cautious in their language without exactly knowing why, with that kind

of natural tact which children show towards those whom they love. Ilse

accompanied her sister Clara through the upper floor, they arranged the

room for the guests who were expected, and placed an immense bunch of

flowers in the room which Mr. Hummel was to occupy. Her brothers took

her through the kitchen-garden into the narrow valley, and showed her

the new wooden bridge over the water to the grotto, which their father

had built as a surprise for Ilse. Ilse passed by the swollen brook, the

water rushed yellow and muddy over the rocks, it had overflowed the

small strip of meadow by its banks and flowed in a strong stream down

the valley to the town. Ilse sought the place where she once, under the

foliage and wild plants, lay concealed, when she read in the eyes of

her Felix the acknowledgement of his love. This cosy nook was also

flooded; the stream ran muddily over it, the flowers were broken down

and washed away, the alder bushes covered to their upper branches, and

reeds and discolored foam hung round them: only the white stem of a

birch rose out of the devastation, and the flood whirled round its

lowest branches.

"The flood is passing away," said Ilse, sadly; "in a few days the

ground will again be visible, and where the verdure has been injured

the mild rays of the sun will soon restore it. But how will it be with

me? There is no light so long as he is not with me, and when I see him

again how he will be changed? How will he, so serious and zealous, bear

the cold wind of adversity that has passed through his life and mine?"

Her father watched her carefully; he talked to her more frequently than

formerly. Whenever he returned from the field he told her of the work

that was doing on the farm; he was always taking care not to touch on

thoughts that might give her pain, and the daughter felt how tender and

loving was the attention of the busy man. Now he beckoned to her from a

distance, and near him was walking a thick-set figure, with a large

head and comfortable aspect.

"Mr. Hummel!" exclaimed Ilse, joyfully, and hastened with winged

footsteps towards him. "When will he come?" she called out, with eager

expectation.

"As soon as he is free," replied Hummel.

"Who detains him there?" said the wife, looking sorrowful.

Mr. Hummel explained. At his report the wrinkles on Ilse's forehead

disappeared, and she led her guest into the old house. Mr. Hummel

looked astonished at the tall race that had grown up on the rock: he

looked with admiration on the girls and respectfully at the heads of

the boys. Ilse did not to-day forget what becomes a good housewife in

welcoming a guest. Mr. Hummel was happy among the country people, and

delighted with the flowers in his room; he took the sprightly lad Franz

upon his knee, and made him drink almost too much out of his glass.

Then he went through the farm with the proprietor and Ilse; he was

clever in his judgment, and he and his host recognized in each other

sound common sense. At last Ilse asked him frankly how he was pleased

with her home.

"Everything is magnificent," said Hummel; "the development of the

family, their curly heads, the flowers, the cattle, and the domestic

arrangements. Compared to the business of H. Hummel, it is like a gourd

to a cucumber. Everything capacious and abundant, only to my taste

there is too much straw."

Ilse was called aside by her father. "The Prince is preparing to

depart. He has expressed a wish to speak to you first. Will you see

him?"

"Not to-day. To-day belongs to you and our guest, but to-morrow," said

Ilse.

On the morning of the day following, Professor Raschke entered his

friend's room prepared for the journey.

"Has the Magister disappeared?" he asked, anxiously.

"He has done what he was obliged to do," replied Werner, gloomily.

"Whatever his future life and fortune may be, we have done with him."

Raschke looked anxiously on the furrowed countenance of his colleague.

"I should like to see you on the road to your wife, and better still,

with her on the road back to us."

"Have no doubt, friend, that I shall seek both roads as soon as I have

a right to do so."

"Ilse counts the hours till your return," said Raschke, in still

greater anxiety; "she will not be at rest till she has fast hold of her

loved one."

"My wife has long been deprived of rest while she was with me," said

the Scholar, "I have not understood how to defend her. I have exposed

her to the claws of wild beasts. She has found from strangers the

protection that her own husband refused her. The indifference of her

husband has wounded her in that point which it is most difficult for a

woman to forgive. I have become a mere, impotent dreamer," he

exclaimed, "unworthy of the devotion of this pure soul, and I feel what

a man never should feel--ashamed to meet my excellent wife again." He

turned his face away.

"This feeling is too high-strained, and the reproaches that you angrily

make yourself are too severe. You have been deceived by the cunning

prevarication of a worldly wise man. You yourself have expressed that

it is ingloriously easy to deceive us in things in which we are not

cleverer than children. Werner, once more I entreat of you to depart

with me immediately, even though by another road."

"No," replied the Scholar, decidedly; "I have all my life long been

clear in my relations with other men. I cannot do things by halves. If

I feel a liking, the pressure of my hand and the confidence that I give

does not leave a moment's doubt of the state of my heart. If I must

give up my relation to any one, I must have the reckoning fully closed.

I cannot leave this place as a fugitive."

"Who demands that?" asked Raschke. "You only go like a man who turns

his eyes away from a hateful worm that crawls before him on the

ground."

"If the worm has injured the man, it is his duty to guard others from

the danger of like injury, and if he cannot guard others, he ought to

clear his own path.

"But if he incurs new danger in the attempt?

"Yet he must do what he can to satisfy himself," exclaimed Werner. "I

will not allow myself to be robbed of the rights that I have against

another. I am called upon by the insult to my wife; I am called upon by

the ruined life of a scholar, whom we both lament. Say no more to me.

Friend, my self-respect has been severely wounded, and with reason. I

feel my weakness with a bitterness that is the just punishment for the

pride with which I have looked upon the life of others. I have written

to Struvelius, and begged his pardon for having so arrogantly treated

him in the uncertainty that once disturbed his life. Here is my letter

to our colleague. I beg you to give it to him, and to tell him that

when we meet again I wish to have no words upon the past, only he must

know how bitterly I have atoned for having been severe with him. But,

however much patience and consideration I may require from others, I

should lose the last thing that gives me courage to live, if I went

from here without coming to a reckoning with the lord of that castle. I

am no man of the world who has learnt to conceal his anger beneath

courtly words."

"He who seeks to call a man to account," exclaimed Raschke, "should

have the means of getting firm hold of his opponent, otherwise what

should be satisfaction may become a new humiliation."

"To have sought this satisfaction to the utmost," replied Werner, "is

in itself a satisfaction."

"Werner," said his colleague, "I hope that your anger and indignation

will not draw you into the thoughtless vindictiveness of the weak fools

who call a brutal playing with one's own life and that of others

satisfaction."

"He is a prince," said the Professor, with a gloomy smile; "I wear no

spurs, and the last use I made of my bullet mould was to crack nuts

with it. How can you so mistake me? But there are things which must be

expressed. There is a healing power in words; if not for him who

listens to them, yet for him who speaks. I must tell him what I demand

of him. He shall feel how my words are forced down into his joyless

heart. My speaking out will make me free."

"He will refuse to hear you," exclaimed Raschke.

"I will do my best to speak to him."

"He has many means of preventing you."

"Let him use them at his peril, for he will thereby deprive himself of

the advantage of hearing me without witnesses."

"He will set all the machinery that his high position affords him in

motion against you; he will use his power recklessly to restrain you."

"I am no bawling soothsayer who will attack Caesar in the open street,

to warn him of the Ides of March. My knowledge of what will humble him

before himself and his contemporaries, is my weapon. I assure you he

will give me opportunity to use it as I will."

"He is going away," said Raschke, anxiously.

"Where can he go to that I cannot follow him?"

"The apprehension that you will excite in him will drive him to some

dark deed."

"Let him do his worst; I must do what will give me peace."

"Werner!" cried Raschke, raising his hands, "I ought not to leave you

in this position, and yet you make your friend feel how powerless his

honest counsel is against your stubborn will."

The Professor went up to him and embraced him. "Farewell, Raschke. As

high as any man can stand in the esteem of another, you stand in mine.

Do not be angry if, in this case, I follow more the impulse of my own

nature than the mild wisdom of yours. Give my greeting to your wife and

children."

Raschke passed his hands over his eyes, drew on his coat, and put the

letter to Struvelius in his pocket. In doing so he found another

letter, took it out, and read the address. "A letter from my wife to

you," he said; "How did it come into my pocket!"

Werner opened it; again a slight smile passed over his face. "Mrs.

Aurelia begs me to take care of you. The charge comes at the right

moment. I will accompany you to your place of departure; we will not

forget the cap or cloak."

The Professor conducted his friend to the conveyance; they spoke

together, up to the last moment, of the lectures which both wished to

give in the approaching term. "Remember my letter to Struvelius," were

Werner's last words, when his friend was seated in the carriage.

"I shall think of it whenever I think of you," said Raschke, stretching

out his hand from the carriage.

The Professor went to the castle for a last conversation with the man

who had called him to his capital. The household received him with

embarrassed looks. "The Sovereign is just starting on a journey, and

will not return for some days; we do not know where he is going," said

the Intendant, with concern. The Professor, nevertheless, desired him

to announce him to the Sovereign, his request was urgent; the servant

brought as an answer that his master could not be spoken to before

his return; the Professor might impart his wishes to one of the

aides-de-camp.

Werner hastened to the adjacent house of the Lord High Steward. He was

taken into the library, and gave a fleeting glance at the faded carpet,

the old hangings, which were covered with engravings in dark frames,

and on the large bookshelves, with glass doors, lined within, as if the

possessor wished to conceal what he read from the eyes of strangers.

The High Steward entered hastily.

"I seek for an interview with the Sovereign before his departure,"

began the Professor, "I beg of your Excellence to procure me this

audience."

"Pardon my asking you your object," said the High Steward. "Do you wish

again to speak to a sufferer concerning his disease?"

"The diseased man administers a high office, and has the power and

rights of a healthy one; he is answerable to his fellow-men for his

deeds. I consider it a duty not to go from here without informing him

that he is no longer in a condition to perform the duties of his

position."

The Lord High Steward looked with astonishment at the Scholar.

"Do you insist on this interview?"

"What I have learned since my return here from the country compels me

to do so; I must seek this interview by every possible means in my

power, whatever may be the consequences."

"Even the consequences to yourself?"

"Even these. After all that has passed, the Sovereign cannot refuse to

hear me speak before I go."

"What he ought not to do he will yet try to do."

"He will do it at his peril," replied the Professor.

The High Steward placed himself in front of the Professor, and said,

impressively:

"The Sovereign is going to Rossau to-day. The plan is secret. I

accidentally learnt the orders, which were given at the princely

stables."

The Scholar started.

"I thank your Excellence from my heart for this communication," he

exclaimed, with forced composure. "I will endeavor to send a speedy

warning beforehand. I shall not start, myself, till your Excellence has

seconded my efforts to speak to the Sovereign before his journey."

"If you seek an audience through me," said the High Steward, after some

consideration, "I will, as an officer of the Court, and from personal

esteem for you, immediately convey your wish to the Sovereign. But I

will not conceal from you, Professor, that I consider a criticism from

you upon past events as very risky in every point of view."

"But I am thoroughly impressed with the conviction that the criticism

must be made," exclaimed the Professor.

"To the Sovereign alone, or before others?" asked the High Steward.

"If the ears and mind of the Sovereign remain closed, then before the

world. I shall thus fulfil an imperative duty to all who might suffer

from the dark fancies of this disordered mind; a duty from which I, as

an honest man, cannot escape. If calm remonstrance will not move him, I

shall publicly arraign him before the rulers and people of our nation.

For it is not to be borne that the conditions of ancient Rome should

again rise to life among our people."

"That is decisive," replied the High Steward.

He went to his bureau, took out a document, and presented it to the

Scholar.

"Read this. Will you renounce a personal interview with the Sovereign

if this paper is signed by his hand?"

The Professor read, and bowed to the High Steward.

"As soon as he ceases to be what he has been, I shall consider him

merely as an afflicted man; in this case my interview with him would be

useless. Meanwhile I repeat my request to procure an audience before

the Sovereign's departure."

The High Steward took back the document.

"I will endeavor to act as your representative. But do not forget that

the Sovereign travels to Rossau in another hour. If we ever see each

other again, Mr. Werner," concluded the old lord, solemnly, "may both

our hearts be free from anxiety about that which sometimes one esteems

lightly, as you do at this moment, but which one does not willingly

allow one's self to be robbed of by the intervention of another."

The Professor hastened to the inn and called for his servant.

"Show me your fidelity to-day, Gabriel: none but a messenger on

horseback can arrive at Bielstein in time. Do your best, take courier's

horses, and put a letter into the hands of my wife before the Court

carriages arrive there."

"At your command, Professor," said Gabriel, with a military salute, "it

is a hard ride even for a hussar; if I am not detained in changing

horses, I trust to be able to deliver the letter in due time."

The Professor wrote in haste, and despatched Gabriel; then he returned

to the dwelling of the High Steward.

* * *

The Sovereign was lying wearily on his sofa, his cheeks pale and his

eyes dim--a thoroughly sick man.

"I had formerly other thoughts, and could, when I had touched the keys,

play more than one melody; now everything changes itself into a

discordant measure: she has gone, she is in the neighborhood of the

boy, she laughs at her foolish wooer. I see nothing before me but the

track on the high road that leads to her. A strange power eternally

strikes the same notes within me, a dark shadow stands near me and

points with its finger incessantly to the same path; I cannot control

myself, I hear the words, I see the road, I feel the dark hand over my

head."

The servant announced the High Steward.

"I will not see him," said the Sovereign, imperiously. "Tell his

Excellence that I am on the point of departing for the country."

"His Excellence begs admittance, it is a question of an urgent

signature."

"The old fool," murmured the Sovereign, "usher him in."

"I am unfortunately much pressed for time, your Excellence," he called

out to him, as he entered.

"I do not wish to make a long demand upon the time of my most Serene

Lord," began the courtier. "Prof. Werner begs that your Highness will

consent to receive him before his departure."

"What is the cause of this importunity?" exclaimed the Sovereign; "he

has already been here, and I have refused him."

"I must be permitted to make the respectful remark that after all that

has passed, the honor of a personal interview cannot well be refused

him. Your Highness would be the last to approve of so marked a

violation of seemly considerations."

The Sovereign looked vindictively at the High Steward.

"All the same, I will not see him."

"Besides these considerations, it is not advisable to refuse this

interview," continued the old lord, with emphasis.

"Of that I am the best judge," replied the Sovereign, carelessly.

"This person has become privy to certain things, the exposure of which,

for the sake of the princely dignity, must be avoided, even at a heavy

sacrifice, for he is not bound to keep the secret."

"No one will listen to an individual, and a dreamer at that."

"What he will divulge will not only be believed, but will excite a

storm against your Highness."

"Gossip from bookworms will not hurt me."

"This person is a highly-respected man of character, and will use his

observations to demand of the whole civilized world that the

possibility of similar occurrences at this Court should be made

impossible."

"Let him do what he dare," cried the Sovereign, with an outbreak of

fury, "we shall know how to protect ourselves."

"The exposure may yet be guarded against; but there is only one last

and radical remedy."

"Speak out, your Excellence; I have always respected your judgment."

"What inflames the Professor," continued the courtier, cautiously,

"will become generally known; at all events it will produce a great

sensation and dangerous scandal; nothing further. It was a personal

observation only that he was compelled to make at the foot of the

tower; it was a conjecture only which he gave vent to beneath the same

tower. According to his assertion, two attempts have been made, and yet

neither has been followed by evil consequences. To be able to provoke

the public judgment of the civilized world on such grounds is doubtful.

However upright the narrator may be, he may himself have been deceived.

Your Highness remarks rightly that the irritation of a single scholar

would occasion disagreeable gossip, nothing further."

"Most admirable, your Excellence," interrupted the Sovereign.

"Unfortunately there is one important circumstance that I have not yet

added. With respect to that personal observation at the foot of the

tower, the Scholar has a witness, and _I_ am that witness. When he

calls upon me for my testimony and speaks of my personal observation, I

must declare that he is right, for I am not accustomed to consider

half-truth as truth."

The Sovereign started.

"It was I who restrained the hand," remarked the courtier; "and because

that simple scholar is in the right, and because I must confirm his

views concerning the state of my gracious master's health, I tell you

there is only one last and radical remedy." The High Steward took the

document out of the portfolio. "My remedy is, that your Highness

should, by a great resolve, anticipate the storm, and high-mindedly

consent to make this declaration the expression of your will."

The Sovereign cast a look on the paper, and flung it away from him:

"Are you mad, old man?"

"Insanity has not yet been discovered in me," replied the High Steward,

sorrowfully. "If my gracious master would but weigh the circumstances

with his usual acuteness! It has unfortunately become impossible for

your Highness to carry on the duties of your high calling in the way

you have hitherto done. Even if your Highness considered it possible,

your faithful servants are in the painful position of not partaking of

this opinion."

"These faithful servants are my High Steward?"

"I am one of them. If your Highness will not consent to give your

princely approbation to this project, consideration for that which is

dearer to me than your Highness's favor will forbid my remaining in

your service."

"I repeat the question, have you become insane. Lord High Steward?"

"Only deeply moved; I did not think that I would ever have to choose

between my honor and my service to your Highness."

He took out another document from the portfolio.

"Your resignation," exclaimed the Sovereign, reading. "You should have

added to it, 'with permission.'" The Sovereign seized the pen. "Here,

Baron von Ottenburg, you are released from your office."

"It is no joyful thanks that I express to your Highness for it. But now

it is done, I, Hans von Ottenburg, express to you my respectful request

that your Highness would still, at this hour, be pleased to sign the

other document. For in case your Highness should hesitate to fulfil the

earnest entreaties of a former servant, this same request, from now on,

will be forced upon your Highness's ear in many ways, and by persons

who would not use so much consideration for your Highness as I have

hitherto done. Till now there has been one who has begged of you, a

professor,--now there are two, he and I,--in another hour the number

will become burdensome to your Highness."

"A former High Steward, a rebel!"

"Only a petitioner. It is your Highness's right, of your own free will,

to make the high decision to which I endeavor to influence you. But I

beg you once more to consider that it can no longer be avoided. Your

Highness's Court will, in the next hour, be brought front to front with

the same alternative as myself; for my regard for the honor of these

gentlemen and ladies will compel me, on the same grounds which have led

to my decision, not to be silent with respect to them. Without doubt,

the gentlemen of the Court will, like me, approach your Highness with

earnest entreaties, and, like me, will resign in case their entreaties

are unsuccessful, and without doubt your Highness will have to find new

attendants. Respect for the honor and the office of those who rule

under you will oblige me to make the same communication to your

Highness's ministers. True, these also might be replaced by less

important servants of the State. But further, from loyalty and devotion

to your Highness's house, from anxiety about the life and welfare of

the Hereditary Prince and his illustrious sister, as well as from

attachment to this country in which I have grown gray, I see myself

obliged to appeal to every Government connected with ours for an

energetic enforcement of this my request. As long as I was a servant of

the Court, my oath and allegiance compelled me to silence and careful

regard for your Highness's personal interests. I am now relieved from

this obligation, and I shall from henceforth advocate the interests of

our people in opposition to those of your Highness. Your Highness may

yourself judge what that would lead to; this signature may be put off,

but can no longer be avoided. Every delay makes the situation worse;

the signing will no longer appear as the voluntary act of a high-minded

decision, but as a necessity forced upon you. Finally, let your

Highness bear in mind that the Professor has made in the Tower Castle

another important observation,--another with respect to the conduct of

a certain Magister; it is my destiny to know much which does not belong

to the secrets of my department."

The Sovereign lay on his sofa, with his head turned away. He folded his

hands before his face. A long oppressive silence intervened.

"You have been my personal enemy from the first day of my reign,"

suddenly put in the Sovereign.

"I have been the faithful servant of my gracious master; personal

friendship has never been my portion, and I have never simulated it."

"You have always intrigued against me."

"Your Highness well knows that I have served you as a man of honor,"

replied the Baron, proudly. "Now, also, when once more I beg of you to

sign this document, I do not stand upon the right which many years of

confidence give me with your Highness; I do not advance as an excuse

for this repeated importunity the interest that I have been entitled to

take in the dignity and welfare of this princely house; I have another

ground for relieving your Highness from the humiliation of a public

discussion of your Highness's state of mind. I am a loyal and

monarchically-minded man. He who has respect for the high office of a

prince is under the urgent necessity of guarding this office from being

lowered in the eyes of the nation. This he must do, not by concealing

what is insupportable, but by extirpating it. Therefore, since that

scene in the tower, there has been this struggle between me and your

Highness, that I, in order to maintain your Highness's exalted office,

must sacrifice your Highness's person. I am determined to do so, and

there consequently only remains to your Highness the choice of doing

that which is inevitable, of your own free will, and honorably in the

eyes of the world, or dishonorably and at the instance of importunate

strangers. The words are spoken; I beg for a speedy decision."

The old lord stood close before the ruler. He looked firmly and coldly

into the restless eyes of his former master, and pointed with his

finger fixedly to the parchment. It was the keeper conquering the

patient.

"Not now--not here," exclaimed the Sovereign, beside himself. "In the

presence of the Hereditary Prince I will take counsel and come to a

decision."

"The presence and signature of your ministers are necessary for the

document, not the presence of the Hereditary Prince. But as your

Highness prefers signing in the presence of the Prince, I will do my

self the honor of following your Highness to Rossau, and beg one of the

ministers to accompany me for this object."

The Sovereign looked reflectively down.

"I am still a ruler," he exclaimed, springing up; and seizing the

signed resignation of the High Steward, he tore it up. "High Steward

von Ottenburg, you will accompany me in my carriage to Rossau."

"Then the minister will follow your Highness in my carriage," said the

old lord, calmly. "I hasten to inform him."

_CHAPTER XL_.

ON THE ROAD TO THE ROCK.

Towards the quiet country town which pious colonists had once built

about the monastery walls of praying monks, and towards the rock on

which the heathen maiden had once whispered oracles to her race, were

now hastening along different roads horses and wheels, together with

living men who were seeking the decision of their fate; here joyful,

rising hopes--there downward, declining powers; here the pure dream of

enthusiastic youth--there the destructive dream of a gloomy spirit. In

the valley and over the rock hovered the spirits of the country; they

prepared themselves to receive the flying strangers with the

hospitality of home.

The early dawn sent its pale glimmer into Laura's study; she stood by

her writing-table, and cast a lingering look on the familiar book in

which, with rapid hand, she had written the concluding words. She

fastened the book and the Doctor's poems together, and concealed them

under the cover of her trunk. She cast another look on the sanctuary of

her maiden life, and then flew down the stairs into the arms of her

anxious mother. It was a wonderful elopement--a quiet Sunday morning, a

mysterious light, gloomy rainclouds, contrasting strongly with the deep

red glow of morning. Laura lay long in the arms of her weeping mother,

till Susan urged her departure; then she passed into the street, where

the Doctor awaited her, and hastened with him into the carriage; for

the carriage was ordered to wait in a deserted place around the corner,

and not before the house; upon this Laura had insisted. It was a

wonderful elopement--a modest, sedate traveling-companion, the object

of the journey the house of a loved friend, and, lastly, a large

leather bag containing cold meat and other victuals, which Mrs. Hahn

herself carried to the carriage, in order that she might once more kiss

her son and Laura, and bless them amid tears.

Spitehahn had for several days found it difficult to bear his lonely

existence; since the departure of the learned lodgers he had been much

disturbed, but when the master of the house also disappeared, there was

no one to recognize him. This morning he cast cold glances on Laura as

she hovered round her sorrowing mother, and looked askance at Susan

when she carried the great traveling-trunk to the carriage; then he

sneaked out into the street in order to give expression to his hatred

of the neighboring house. But when Mrs. Hahn hastened to the carriage

with the leather bag, he saw that something was wrong and he crept

after his neighbor from across the way; and whilst she mounted on the

step of the carriage to warn her Fritz of the sharp morning air, and to

kiss Laura once more, he sprang upon the footboard and ensconced

himself under the leather apron of the coachbox, determined to abide

his time. The coachman seated himself, and supposing the dog belonged

to the travelers, cracked his whip and started off. Another look and

call to the mother, and the adventurous journey began.

Laura's soul trembled under the pressure of passionate feelings, which

were called forth by this long-desired but dreaded hour. The houses of

the city disappeared, and the poplars on the high road seemed to dance

past. She looked anxiously at her Fritz, and placed the tips of her

fingers in his hand. He smiled, and pressed the little hand warmly.

His cheerfulness was a support to her. She looked tenderly into his

true face.

"The morning is cool," he began, "allow me to fasten your cloak."

"I am very comfortable," replied Laura, again putting her trembling

hand within his.

Thus they sat silently together, the sun peeped modestly from behind

his red curtains and smiled on Laura, so that she was obliged to close

her eyes. Her whole childhood passed before her in fleeting pictures;

and finally, she heard the significant words of her friends at her last

visit. Her godmother had said to her. Return soon again, child; and

Laura now felt with emotion that this return was at an immeasurable

distance. Her other godmother had kindly asked, When shall we see each

other again? and a touching echo sounded in Laura's heart, Who knows

when? All Nature was stirring in the fresh morning: a flock of pigeons

flew across the field, a hare ran along the road as if racing, a

splendid cluster of blue flowers grew on the border of the ditch, and

red roofs shone from among the fruit trees. Everything on earth looked

green and hopeful, blooming and waving in the morning breeze. The

country people who were going to the city met them, a peasant sitting

on his waggon smoking his pipe nodded a good morning to Laura, who held

out her hand as if she wished to send a greeting to the whole world.

The milkwoman in her little cart, who was going to sell her milk, also

greeted her, saying, "Good morning. Miss Laura." Laura drew back, and,

looking alarmed at Fritz, said:

"She has recognized us."

"Without doubt," replied the Doctor, gaily.

"She is a gossip, Fritz; she cannot hold her tongue, and will tell all

the servant-girls in our street that we are driving together along this

road. This distresses me, Fritz."

"We are taking a drive," replied the Doctor, triumphantly; "going to

pay a visit to some one; we are going to act as sponsors together in

the country. Do not mind these trifles."

"It began by our being sponsors together, Fritz," answered Laura,

tranquilized. "It has all been owing to the cat's paws."

"I do not know," replied Fritz, slyly, "whether this misfortune did not

originate earlier. When you were quite a little girl I kissed you

once."

"I do not remember that," said Laura.

"It was for a basket of colored beans that I brought you from our

garden. I demanded the kiss, and you consented to give the price, but

immediately after wiped your mouth with your hand. From that time I

have liked you better than all others."

"Do not let us talk of these things," said Laura, troubled; "my

recollections of old times are not all so harmless."

"I have always been kept at a distance," exclaimed Fritz, "even to-day.

It is a shame. It must not go on so; I must have some serious talk

about it. Travelling together as we are, it is not fitting that we

should use the stiff _you_ in talking to one another."

Laura looked reproachfully at him. "Not to-day," she said, softly.

"It is of no use now," replied Fritz, boldly. "I will no longer be

treated as a stranger. I once heard the honest _thou_ from you, but

never since. It pains me."

Laura regretted that. "But only when we are quite alone," she

entreated.

"I propose it for all time," continued Fritz, undisturbed, "otherwise

there will be continually mistakes and confusion."

He offered her his hand, which she shook gently, and before she could

stop him she felt a kiss on her lips.

Laura looked at him tenderly, but then immediately drew back and

ensconced herself in a corner of the carriage. Fritz was quite

different to-day from usual; he looked confident and bold. In the house

he had always been modest, while Laura had more than once thought of

this relation, and had written in her book: "When two human beings are

united in soul they ought to let each other know it." Now he used

little ceremony. He looked boldly out of the carriage, and when they

met travelers did not retreat as she had done after meeting the

milkwoman, but looked as if challenging notice, and greeting people

first.

"I must begin about the Hindus," she said to herself, "in order to turn

his thoughts to other subjects."

She asked him about the contents of the Veda.

"I cannot think of it to-day," exclaimed Fritz, gaily. "I am too happy

to think of the old books. I have only one thought in my heart: 'Laura,

the dear girl, will become mine.' I could dance in the carriage for

joy."

He jumped up from his seat like a little boy.

Fritz was fearfully changed; she did not know him again; she withheld

her hand from him, and looked at him, suspiciously, askance.

"The heavens are covered with clouds," she said, sadly.

"But the sun shines above them," replied Fritz; "it will come out again

in a few minutes. I propose that we examine the great leather bag which

my mother gave us; I hope there will be something good in it."

Thus did the prose of the Hahn family betray itself, and Laura observed

with secret regret how eagerly the Doctor rummaged the bag. She had,

however, in her excitement thought little of her breakfast, so when

Fritz offered her some of its contents she extended her little hand for

it, and both ate heartily.

Something darkened the seat next the coachman; a misshapen head showed

itself at the window, and a discordant snarl was heard in the carriage.

Laura pointed terrified at the apparition.

"Merciful heavens, there is the dog again!"

The Doctor also looked angrily at the hostile figure. "Drive him away,"

cried Laura; "make him run home."

"He will hardly find his way back," replied the Doctor, thoughtfully;

"what would your father say if he were lost?"

"He has been the enemy of my life," exclaimed Laura; "and must we now

take him with us into the world? The idea is insupportable, and a bad

omen, Fritz."

"Perhaps we shall meet a wagon that will take him back again," said the

Doctor, consolingly; "meanwhile we must not let him starve."

In spite of his aversion he handed him some breakfast, and the dog

disappeared again under the apron.

But Laura continued disturbed.

"Fritz, dear Fritz," she exclaimed, suddenly, "you must leave me

alone."