The new comer was a tall and very broad-shouldered young man, who
carried a travelling-satchel and a shawl thrown over his shoulder;
unceremoniously tossing a faded brown felt hat on Balder's bed, he
nodded, and smiling called out a "good morning" to the brothers. The
first impression made by the ash-colored face, furrowed by several
scars, and the somewhat crooked mouth, was not particularly favorable.
An expression of bitterness or malice dwelt about the strongly cut
lips, and the teeth, which, in speaking, were fully revealed, increased
the fierce, unamiable look. But when the countenance was in repose, the
melancholy expression of the eyes predominated over the more ignoble
features, and the brow beneath the short bristling hair seemed to have
been developed by grave mental labor. His movements were restless and
impetuous, and his whole attire was that of a man who thought little of
his personal appearance, though his stately figure was well worthy to
command attention, had but a little care been bestowed upon it.
"Why, Mohr! Heinrich Mohr! What wind has blown you to us again?" cried
Edwin, advancing to meet him and cordially shaking hands.
"The same thoughtless whirlwind, I suppose, that tosses all the
sweepings of humanity into confusion," replied the other. "It is only
those individuals, who possess a certain specific weight, that do not
change their places without special cause. You, for instance, I find in
the same old house where I left you three years ago. And, if I must be
honest, the only sensible reason I can give for venturing out of my
dull little birthplace back to this huge, clever, mad Berlin, was the
desire to see you again. After all, you have the most friendly faces,
and that you really seem to feel a sort of pleasure in being troubled
with me again, proves that you are still the same as of old."
"And you, too, seem to have altered little; less, perhaps, than would
have been advisable," said Edwin, laughing.
Mohr's only answer was a shrug of the shoulders. He threw down his
satchel and went to the turning-lathe, beside which Balder was leaning.
"Still as conscientious as ever; trying to kill himself," he muttered,
taking up some of the little articles which were waiting for the last
touches. "But I can't blame you, Balder. You at least accomplish
something every day, and only hurt your chest by bending and stooping.
Other people would be fairly beside themselves with impatience, if they
had to sit doubled up all day long turning their stock in trade.
Besides, it seems to me you have made considerable progress. You are an
enviable fellow, Balder."
The youth looked at him with a smile.
"Would that you could only convince Edwin of it!" he said; "he is
always trying to persuade me to give up my trade. He won't believe that
to sit perfectly idle, and see everybody else work would kill me much
sooner."
"Idle! As if you ever could be idle!" cried Edwin indignantly. "As if
it were not the most insane obstinacy to refuse to accept from his own
and only brother, that which even he has means sufficient to procure--a
pitiful mouthful of bread! But we will let it pass, though it is the
only real annoyance of my life, and this hard heart might so easily
spare it me,--Basta! I will _not_ be vexed to-day. So begin your
confession, my friend! To-day, at least, you are secure from any
moralizing on my part."
Mohr having seated himself in a chair beside the open window, had begun
to twist a cigarette, the materials for which he took from a tin box.
"There is absolutely nothing new to tell," he replied with great
apparent indifference. "The old apothegm that no one can add one inch
to his stature, has been once more ratified, that's all. I left Berlin,
as you will remember, because I thought that the noise and bustle alone
prevented me from becoming a great man. 'Talent developes in a quiet
life.' Well, I've lived quietly enough with my old mother, but nothing
has developed. So, thinks I to myself, as no talent developes let us
try character--'character is formed in the current of the world'--and
so back I have come again, and have already selected a character to
which I intend to adapt myself. A match, Edwin!"
He puffed huge clouds of very strong Turkish tobacco out of the window.
"So nothing came of the editing of the newspaper, from which you
expected so much?"
"It was a miserable sheet, children, a commonplace, provincial,
gossiping little paper, in which appeared, twice a week, bad novels,
stolen from various quarters, or 'original contributions' by the
buergermeister's daughter or chief customhouse officer's son, and lastly
charades and rebuses. However, all the citizens swore by it, and not a
syllable was lost. The right kind of fellow might have made something
of it, or at least in time have smuggled in something better, and, in
so doing, might himself have found room to grow. But there is the
point. After first turning up my nose at this narrowmindedness, I at
last discovered that I really could not do much better myself. You know
I always believed that if I could once form a correct appreciation of
my own powers, a thing not to be accomplished in the intellectual
ant-hill of Berlin, the world would be astonished. Well, I have really
arrived at this just appreciation, and for a long time have been unable
to endure myself! God be thanked, that my good taste yet remains to
save me from that."
"Still the same old Mohr, whose favorite pastime it is to blacken his
character instead of washing himself white."
"Let me go on, and don't suppose that I am making myself out bad in
order that you may praise me the more. Besides, I don't _wish_ to make
myself out 'bad'; I am really quite a passable fellow, neither stupid
nor tedious, with fair acquirements, and powers of judgment by no means
ordinary, _nota bene_, for what _others_ do. If I were a rascal, I
might by means of them, accomplish something, open a booth for
criticism, for instance, and sell myself as dearly as possible. But the
misfortune is that I have, or at least had, the ambition to accomplish
something myself, and what is worse, desired to possess all sorts of
talents. I have a most decided capacity for becoming a mediocre poet or
musician, and in political articles, which appear to mean something and
really say nothing, I have yet to find my superior. You will say there
are many such wights. Certainly. But not many who have in addition such
an honest, devout envy of the real men who can accomplish something
genuine, such a loathing of all botching, such disgust when they have
caught themselves at it. It was this that drove me away from you. I
could not endure to see you all, each in his own field of labor, busy
tilling and planting and at last reaping,--real grain, whether much or
little--and stand by with my cockle-weed. I felt like spitting in my
own face from chagrin at my mediocrity in everything that is worthy to
be called work, achievement, getting on in the world, while in talking
I was a very hero. Now, however, I have discovered _that that is my
destiny_. A sorry creature, created by Nature through some malicious
whim, and condemned always to stick halfway at everything. But I will
spoil her jest; I will at least do something completely and well, and
in one point, at all events, I will reach virtuosoship."
"I don't understand why this idea did not occur to you long ago,"
replied Edwin. "You were born for a critic, and as such can have as
much influence on the world and society, as if you were a poet."
"I should be a fool!" exclaimed the other, tossing his cigarette into
the courtyard, as he started up and clasped his hands behind his head.
"Attempt to improve the world, tell it plain truths in black and white,
which of course every one will apply to his worthy neighbor, try to
educate artists who fancy that thinking paralyses the imagination, or
tell truths to authors, who upon perusing them fail more signally to
comprehend themselves than when they penned their thoughts,--no, my
dear fellow, _vestigia terrent_. A certain Lessing tried all that a
hundred years ago, and broke his teeth on the hard wood. All these
philanthropic sacrifices make the world no happier, and only render the
individual wretched. The only pure and noble calling left for such a
superfluous mortal as myself to choose, is _pure envy_. In that I have
hitherto made considerable progress, and, as I said before, I expect to
attain in it a tolerable degree of eminence."
"Upon my word," laughed Edwin, "this is a novel way of attaining
happiness."
"Don't laugh, wiseacre," sighed Mohr, impressively. "You see, my child,
everybody in this miserable world, which all about us is so unfinished
and incomplete, is endeavoring to the best of his ability, at least to
perfect his own perishable self. The really gifted individuals have a
surplus, from which they impart a portion to others, and thereby help
them to patch up their poverty, and perhaps even scantily to complete
themselves. I, for my part, can only obtain repose when I fervently
envy every thing that is great, entire, exuberant. Through this envy I
shall become, in a certain sense, allied to it; for if I appreciated,
tasted, felt, and deserved to possess no portion, how could I envy it?
Only those things that are somewhat homogenous attract each other. And
when I have sat during an entire morning, thoroughly permeated with the
sense of my own insignificance, sincerely envying a Shakespeare, a
Goethe, or a Mozart, have I not fulfilled the purpose of my life better
than if I had spent the same time in composing a poor tragedy, some
wretched love-songs, or a mediocre sonata?"
He went to the window and gazed at the top of the acacia-tree.
"You are right," said Balder's clear voice. "Only you ought not to give
the name of envy to what is really love, reverence, and the most
beautiful and unselfish enthusiasm."
"Balder has hit the nail on the head, as usual," said Edwin.
Mohr turned. The brothers noticed that he was winking rapidly, as if
desiring to make way with a suspicious moisture.
"It would be beautiful, if it were true," said he. "But this is only
the bright side of my virtuosoship; it has its shadows too, and they
grow broader than I like. I can see nothing that is complete and in
harmony with itself, without envy; no self-satisfied stupidity, no
broad-mouthed falsehood, no snobbish faces. And as if these worthies
had really no right to be happy, the demon of envy induces me to say
something cutting, merely to show them their own pitifulness. Thus in a
short time I had all my worthy fellow-citizens about my ears, and
wherever I went was decried, avoided, and warned off like a mad dog. It
makes all the blood in my body boil, when I see how everywhere the
scamps get on in the world, and how the honest fellows, who don't use
their elbows, remain behind. You, for instance, if I had my way, should
be driving in a handsome coach with servants at your command, as
beseems the aristocracy of the human race. Instead of that, that
insignificant fellow, Marquard, whom I met below, has his equipage, and
graciously nods as he drives by, after reconnoitering me from top to
toe through his gold spectacles. Death and perdition, who can see such
things and not go wild--"
"Don't abuse our medical counsellor," said Edwin. "In spite of all you
have said he is a good fellow, and his carriage would suit my trade and
Balder's as little as my slow-stepping scientific methods would suit
his empirical gallop. Besides--"
At this moment they heard from the windows below, the first bars of the
overture to Glueck's "Orpheus."
Mohr approached the window again, and listened attentively.
"Who is playing?" he asked after a time, in an undertone.
"One of the inmates of the house, a young lady of whom we know little
more than that she gives music-lessons. Last night--I have not yet told
you of it, Balder--I found her absorbed in Schopenhauer's Parerga. She
spoke enthusiastically about the chapter on 'the sorrows of the world.'
"Her music bears witness that in those sorrows she had had experience,"
said Mohr. "Women only play as she does when their hearts have been
once broken and then pieced together again. It is with them as it is
with old violins, which must be shattered several times before they
have the right resonance. But hush, it is growing still more
beautiful."
He sat down on the window-sill, and, gazing without, became completely
absorbed in listening. Balder worked noiselessly at his little boxes,
while Edwin had taken a book though his gaze became fixed upon one
page. It was so quiet in the room, that during the pauses in the music,
they could hear the stealthy footsteps of the cat, which had just
previously leaped into the chamber, and eaten the remnants of the
breakfast.