Meantime the brothers had again been left alone.
As soon as the music below ceased, Mohr took his hat. "To envy this
happiness is one of my favorite occupations," he growled, twisting his
under lip awry. "I pity you for being able to listen to such a thing
quietly, without becoming filled with fiendish joy or rage, I tried to
express this mood in a somewhat rattling, but I think not wholly
meritless composition, which I call my _sinfonia ironica_. When I have
a lodging and a tin pan, I'll play it to you, and then read you my new
comedy: 'I am I, and rely on myself.'"
"A great many pleasures at once, Heinz," said Edwin.
"You need not fear the length of this _concert spirituel_. Only two
bars of the symphony and an act and a half of the comedy are finished.
A man who is but half a man, never brings any work to completion."
"Fortunately, as you know, the half is more than the whole,"
"You shall give me a lecture on that subject very shortly, Philosopher.
Adieu."
He went out to search for lodgings in the neighborhood. His mother, a
widow in easy circumstances, seemed to have provided him with
sufficient means to live for some time without work. At the pianist's
door he paused, and read on the little porcelain plate: "Christiane
Falk, music teacher." Within everything was still. He would gladly have
found some pretext to ring and to make her acquaintance; however, none
occurred to him, so he deferred it until a more favorable opportunity.
Balder had returned to his work again. He seemed in great haste to
complete a dainty little box of olive-wood, which contained all sorts
of implements for sewing.
In the meantime Edwin was dressing.
This was usually accomplished in the following manner: first he hung a
small mirror, scarcely the width of his hand, on a nail in one of the
book shelves, just under Kant's critique of pure reason and Fichte's
religion of science, and then while passing a comb minus numerous teeth
through his hair and beard, gazed less into the little glass than
across at Balder. To-day, however, he did something more; he shortened
the hair on his temples and chin with a pair of scissors, and moreover
looked somewhat carefully to see whether it was cut evenly on both
sides. "I find," said he, "that familiarity with the ballet has
demoralized me. I am already beginning to be vain, and have discovered
all sorts of defects in my honest face, with which I have hitherto been
perfectly satisfied. We should have divided our good mother's beauty
between us more equally. But perhaps after all, it is better that the
inheritance has remained intact, rather than squandered upon two. Come,
give your artistic opinion, my boy, has not the plantation been very
much improved by mowing?"
"I should have spared the beard," said Balder. "It was very becoming to
you."
"You don't understand, child. It has been much too long for some time,
even for a philosopher, and although, as in the times of Julius Caesar,
no one must wander about on working days 'without some sign of his
occupation,' it is now vacation with me and I want to go out to-day as
an ordinary mortal, not as an object to startle women and children.
Come, make up your mind to accompany me. We will take a droschky, stop
at the confectioner's, where you must be treated to ice-cream to-day as
I treated myself yesterday, and afterwards--"
"To-day, Edwin? To-day--excuse me--I don't feel exactly well--it will
be better to choose some other time--"
He bent his glowing face over his work.
Just at this moment some one knocked, and the round, good-natured face
of the owner of the house appeared in the doorway, for the little
artist had insisted upon his going first. In the half jocose, half
respectful manner, which he always adopted toward the brothers, he
introduced Herr Koenig to them as a cultivated artist, and the father of
a daughter already highly educated, but who desired to pursue her
education still further. Immediately upon entering, the little
gentleman had become absorbed in looking at the copperplate engravings
and busts, and, seemingly, had forgotten the cause of his visit. But
when the shoemaker paused, and Edwin glanced smilingly at Balder, he
recollected himself and modestly told his errand.
"My dear sir," replied Edwin, "I really feel very much honored, but I
do not yet know whether I am the man you seek, for I am not a
particularly good teacher, since I have not a particle of ambition to
become a pedagogue. For a thorough teacher is indifferent to the
calibre of his pupil's mind; the more idle, stupid, and destitute of
talent the scholar, the more eager should the teacher be to make
something out of him. I, on the contrary, still have too much to do for
myself, to be able to help others who have not at least the ability to
help themselves. I can indeed show the way, but the scholar must
perform the work. And as for young ladies, with all due respect for
your daughter, Herr Koenig, how are these poor creatures, even if the
roads are smoothed before them and the goal pointed out, to journey
forward on their own feet, when from their earliest childhood, every
natural, firm, and steady step has been prohibited as unwomanly! They
trip and dance and glide and hover and soar, with variegated wings over
the green meadows of youth, but when they at last reach the highway of
sober life, they lean on a husband's arm, and expect to be supported
and carried forward by him. Excuse this uncourteous language, I have
experienced these things, and I do not see why I should not speak
openly. However, as I am now at leisure, if you will venture to try me
upon the recommendation of our landlord and foster father, I will make
an attempt to ascertain whether you are not deceived in me."
He took his straw hat, and said in an undertone to Balder: "Don't wait
meals for me again to-day, my boy, I may wander out somewhere into the
green fields, after I have made the acquaintance of this king's
daughter,[1] who is so eager for education."
He passed his hand gently over the youth's hair by way of parting, and
accompanied the two men down stairs.
When he was alone in the hot street with the little artist, the
latter said: "You have not far to go, Herr Doctor, I live on the
Schiffbauerdamm, and we can walk in the shade all the way. But, that
you may understand my daughter's peculiar course of education, allow me
to tell you something of my domestic affairs. Your landlord has made
you acquainted with my name. You have probably never heard it mentioned
before. My pictures are not remarkable performances, and for several
years past I have turned my attention more to wood engraving. A trade,
Herr Doctor, takes root in a firmer soil than art, though it may not
always be a soil so golden, and it becomes a father of a family, even
if the family consists of but two persons--however, I have never wholly
relinquished painting, adhering always to my own very modest style,
which in art circles, has even earned me a nickname. Just as there is a
cat-Raphael, and a velvet-and-hell Breughel, so I am called, owing to
my predilection for introducing old fences into my landscapes, the
zaun-koenig.[2] Predilection?" he smiled as he continued, "that is not
exactly the right word either. God knows I would rather paint beautiful
woodlands, like Ruysdell, or clear, bright atmospheres like Claude
Lorraine, if my talent were but sufficient. But I always succeed best
in small, insignificant objects. So a bit of ground with stones, weeds,
and brambles, a clod of earth on which mother nature has developed her
productive powers as freely as if it were a world in itself, in
short what we call a 'foreground,' has always given me so much to
do--especially as I am somewhat near-sighted--that I have never arrived
at real landscapes. Well, everybody must cut his garment according to
his cloth. And when we reflect aright, do not God's power and glory
make themselves manifest in just as wonderful a guise behind a low
hedge or a garden fence, as in the romance of the primeval forest, or
the surpassing grandeur of the Swiss Alps? So what I do, I do because I
cannot help it; in short I work for my own edification, and try to
represent a small portion, a little corner or bit of creation, with so
much care and love, that in looking upon my work people may see that,
even this despised spot, God's breath has touched."
Edwin had given but partial attention to these remarks, which would
usually have interested him far more deeply. His thoughts were
wandering in vague, distant realms. But in order to say something, he
remarked: "And do you find purchasers for your pictures?"
The little gentleman smiled, in a half-embarrassed, half-conscious
manner.
"Well," said he, "I can't complain. I always dispose of at least every
fourth or fifth picture; for, is it not strange! now-a-days everybody
must have his specialty; a work may be ever so worthless, but it will
possess some value, because its producer has had the courage not to
flinch or retreat from the path he has appointed for himself even if
the critics assail him with their deadly weapons. Yes, yes, it is
indeed surprizing to me, myself, but patrons of the fine arts have come
hither from Holland and from England, who wanted a real zaun-koenig and
nothing better. So it is, that in the great economy of our creator,
every creature finds its appointed place, the mite as well as the
elephant.
"But I was going to tell you something about my domestic affairs,"
continued the little man. "You see, Herr Doctor, I have now been a
widower five years and seven months, but I cannot yet speak of my dear
wife without feeling, a perhaps unmanly or unchristian, but
nevertheless unconquerable grief. Therefore I will speak no further of
her, except that during the fifteen years I lived with her, there was
not an hour which I could wish effaced from my memory. She was a
Jewess, and I am a good evangelical Christian, but even that did not
cause a single moment of bitterness, for the God in whom we both
believed, was one and the same. As for our daughter, the mother agreed
that she should be educated as a Christian, and though she herself did
not wish to be baptised, she never tried to perplex the child. She was
buried in the Jewish churchyard, but that has never troubled me. The
spot to which this noble creature was carried for her eternal rest, is
_holy_, no matter whether it was consecrated by Christian minister or
Jewish Rabbi. Since she died, I can see that I have not been so pious
as when she was alive. The memory of her blends with all my thoughts of
heaven; I can no longer, as before, be alone in the presence of my God.
Ah well. He will not impute that to me as a sin."
The artist paused a moment. His voice seemed to fail him, but after a
moment he continued:
"She has left me a daughter, who in many respects is very like her; in
others not at all. She has far more independence, and often we do not
understand each other, and that never happened with her mother. The
child is nineteen years old, and--I will not praise her--but no one
could have a better heart, to say nothing of such a talent for drawing
and painting, that I only wonder how she came by it. In many things,
flower-pieces for instance, I am a bungler to her. I ought, long ago,
to have discountenanced her close application to it, that she might
have had more time for other things, I mean for intellectual culture.
But it gave her pleasure to think that she could earn something while
yet so young, and besides I was vain of her progress. Now, however, the
punishment has come. For some time she has been melancholy, because she
fancied that she was ignorant, or as she expressed it, that she had no
clear ideas. Now to me she seems clever and learned enough, and our old
friend, the widow of Professor Valentin, cannot understand what fault
she can find in herself, except perhaps, her somewhat singular opinions
on religious subjects. But I see that it is secretly destroying her
peace of mind, and, as I cannot help her myself, I have had recourse to
you, Herr Doctor, and, just because you are no pedantic schoolmaster, I
think you will soon discover what is the matter with the dear child."
Meantime they had walked down Friedrichstrasse to the Spree, and now
turned the corner to the right. "My house is only a few hundred paces
farther," said the artist. "It would be very difficult for me to make
up my mind to live in any other part of the city. People are always
speaking so contemptuously of our good Spree, and, to be sure, it is by
no means the proudest of our German rivers, nor the poorest just here,
in the midst of Berlin. But, to an artist's eye--apart from the
impression it makes in the open country, and especially in a romantic
spot like the Spreewald--can there be anything more charming than this
view of the canal, bridges, places of lading, water steps, and the
honest old Spree boats, lying so sleepily in the noonday sun, like
great fat crocodiles on the banks of the Nile? Look; the sailors have
already eaten their dinners; only here and there a thin blue column of
smoke, circles upward from some cabin chimney; the husband is lying on
deck, under a piece of sail near his cargo of coal, and his wife
sits beside him holding the baby in her lap, and brushing away the
water-flies. Notice how the brown wood is relieved against the pale
surface of the water, and behind it all, the bright sunlight effect.
See, too, the white Pomeranian, standing on the cabin stairs barking at
the little grey cat in the other boat? Here, in the midst of our
elegant capital, you have a fragment of Holland, as complete as you
could desire."
"You have been in Holland?"
"No; I have never gone so far. But when one has seen their pictures and
the excellent photographs that we have now--but stop a moment if you
please, I must show you something else."
They had just passed some high houses and reached a place, where a
narrow, ditch-like canal, bridged where the street crossed it, emptied
into the Spree. On one side stood the blank wall of a three-story
factory. Opposite was a low hut, very narrow in front, but extending
along the canal to a considerable depth. It seemed to have formerly
opened upon the quay, by a door beside its single window, but the door
was now walled up, and the window covered on the inner side by a dark
cloth. This decaying little house was connected by means of an iron
railing with its massive neighbor.
The artist leaned over the railing and gazed up the canal, whose dirty
brown water flowed so sluggishly, that it seemed stagnant and gave
forth a mouldering exhalation.
"Of what does this remind you?" he asked, turning to Edwin.
"What do you mean by 'this'?"
"Why, the canal, and yonder little bridge that connects the two banks,
the post to which the clothes-line is fastened, and the atmospheric
effect and coloring of the stones, which we artists call _tone_."
"It bears a distant, but by no means flattering resemblance, to Venice
and the Bridge of Sighs."
"Right!" cried the little man, who in his earnestness, failed to hear
the tinge of sarcasm in Edwin's remark. "True, I have not been in
Venice myself. But friends of mine, who have visited Italy, have
likewise been compelled to confess that this view was completely
Venetian, at least as the city is represented in Canaletto's pictures,
which, however, are doubtless somewhat cooler in tone, than the
reality. However, we are in Berlin, and it is only a harmless jest when
I talk of my lagune."
"_Your_ lagune?"
"Certainly. I live here."
"In this--"
"Yes, in this hut: you need not swallow the word. To be sure it is not
a doge's palace, this place where I have lived these twenty years, but
I would not exchange it for all the splendor of the old _sposo del
mare_, as the Venetians called their ruler. Besides, it is pleasanter
within than its exterior would lead one to expect. The door which is
now walled up, was formerly the entrance to a sailor's tavern, a
wretched, dirty wine-shop, and behind it were a few miserable rooms,
and a hole of a kitchen. Then came the stable and the wood-dealer's
shed, whose timber-yard, as you see, adjoins our little house. I had
just been married, and with all my treasures of hope and happiness, was
but a poor devil, when the host of this inn was arrested by the police
for concealing stolen goods and for other bad practices. The lumber
merchant would not have another dram-seller on his premises, and the
place was not exactly suitable for any one else. So I got it at a very
low price, had the door walled up to admit the light into my studio
from above, and though it has cost both toil and money to efface the
traces of the dirty inn--you shall judge for yourself if we have not at
last succeeded."
Taking the lead, he conducted Edwin through a large gate across the
spacious timber-yard. A narrow lane led between the huge piles of
odorous pine and beech wood, directly to the "hut," whose side view was
no more aristocratic than the front.
"These six windows belong to me," said the artist with modest pride.
Then he opened the low door and invited Edwin to enter.
The interior of the old barrack, apart from a certain gloom and
dampness, really did look more comfortable than one would have thought
possible from its exterior. An entry, painted in some light color, was
hung with etchings in plain wooden frames. A door, opposite, appeared
to open upon the canal.
"Turn to the right, if you please," said the artist, "the apartments on
the left are our sitting-room, my daughter's little room, a kitchen,
and a bed-chamber. Everything on the right belongs to art--according to
my modest style, for I sleep in my studio, and even in my dreams I
remain only the zaun-koenig, and never fancy myself a Canaletto because
I live beside a lagune."
As he concluded he opened the door of his studio.
Certainly the low room no longer showed any trace of having previously
sheltered drunken sailors, but to have painted Claude Lorraine
atmospheres there on gloomy days would have been a difficult matter.
Two windows opened upon the canal and the dark chimney of the next
house interposed itself between them and every ray of sunlight. At one
of these windows stood a low table, covered with the various tools of a
wood-engraver; at the other, a desk-like stand, before which sat a
young girl, absorbed in her work. Just in front of her a bouquet of
fresh flowers stood in a little vase, and she was evidently employed in
copying into the wreath which she was painting on a porcelain plate,
leaves and flowers from nature. On the walls hung all sorts of
sketches, interspersed with finished pictures which, even at a
distance, could not fail to be recognized as "genuine zaun-koenigs,"
while on an easel not far from the first window, stood a new
half-finished landscape, over which the artist instantly spread a
cloth.
"You must not see me too much in neglige," he said blushing. "I usually
begin very awkwardly, and make a great many strokes on my little piece
of canvas, before any clear outlines appear. But here is my daughter,
Leah. She bears her mother's name. What are you going to say, my child?
You will be pleased with me, for I have brought you something that you
have long been wishing for."
At her father's first words the young girl had arisen, but, on
perceiving the stranger she bowed modestly without moving from her
place.
"I was not conscious, dear father, of having particularly desired
anything," she now said, gazing in surprise at the merry, mysterious
face of the little man, who seemed to be revelling in her perplexity.
"'Not a teacher, child?' this very learned Herr Doctor will not get to
the end of his Latin as quickly as the good young lady. But he wishes
to ascertain how far advanced you are, before saying whether he will
give you lessons. Come, come, you need not be frightened. The
examination won't kill you, even if you should be obliged to rack your
brains a little now and then. Am I not right, Herr Doctor?"
The young girl, whose complexion was usually pale, crimsoned, and
remained silent, as if uncertain whether to take the matter in jest or
earnest. Edwin had time to observe her closely. She was taller than her
father, with a firm, slender figure, and seemed to resemble him in
nothing except the remarkably small size of her hands and feet. In the
beautiful, but perhaps rather high forehead, or in the large, dark eyes
which recalled her mother's race, there was no expression of
cheerfulness; but with the exception of the eyes there was nothing
Jewish in the face; the nose was perfectly straight, and the mouth
possessed a certain sensual fullness, which softened the sternness of
the other features. She had woven her thick black hair in braids, which
she wore in a singular fashion, crossed under her chin, so that the
pale oval face seemed set in a dark frame. A simple brown dress, worn,
despite the prevailing fashion, without crinoline, completed the
unusually grave appearance of the youthful figure.
At the first glance Edwin perceived that he had reason to congratulate
himself on the prospect of having such a scholar.
"Your father was but jesting," he said smiling. "Of course there is no
necessity for a thorough examination. On the contrary, if you can
assure me, Fraeulein, that you think yourself very ignorant, you shall
be spared any further questions."
"Well, _I_ will confess that!" laughed her father. "But you won't find
fault with the little knowledge she has acquired from school-books."
"Not at all," replied Edwin, as he approached the young girl and looked
at her work. "You see, Fraeulein, I once had to teach a young lady, who,
during the very first lesson, overwhelmed me with such a quantity of
learning, had so much to say about cuneated letters, Egyptian
mythology, besides relating various narratives about art and
literature, that, beside her, I seemed to myself like a child just
beginning its A, B, C. To be sure her wise little head was like a
lumber-room, where articles for the most varied and opposite uses are
stowed side by side without order or connection. But in her innocence
she had no suspicion of the existence of anything like clearness and
coherence, or cause and effect, in subjects and ideas. So I paid her
and her mother the compliment of saying that I found it impossible to
improve the young lady's education, and withdrew as speedily as
possible."
The father and daughter were silent. Edwin, as if thinking of entirely
different matters, walked about the room examining the sketches and
studies.
"Well, my child?" the little artist spoke inquiringly; he was growing
restless, for he did not exactly understand the state of affairs.
"You will not complain of me for a similar cause," the young girl now
said, her voice trembling with suppressed excitement, while her eyes
sparkled with a strange light. "My case is exactly the reverse of that
young lady's. So long as my mother taught me, all study was a pleasure.
She did not make it easy; I was compelled to study out everything by
myself, and I never dared to repeat anything by rote, for she chided me
when she discovered it. Perhaps I did not learn much, or a great
variety; but everything made a strong impression upon me, and I have
not forgotten a word. But she died when I was yet very young, and
afterwards when I tried to get on by myself with the aid of books
everything seemed uninteresting, and I no longer took any pleasure in
study. And besides all this I must hasten to confess, Herr Doctor,
that, after all, you may not expect too much, that I have an actual
aversion to history and geography, and no ability to remember them. On
the contrary--but you are smiling. I expected as much; you did not
suppose it was so bad."
"And for what have you a taste, Fraeulein? What is it you desire to
learn? Do not take offence at my smile. It only meant, that, at your
age, I was not very unlike you."
She made no reply but cast a timid glance at her father. The little man
seemed to understand it. He went to the other window, and busied
himself with his bits of wood.
"I should like," she now said in an undertone, fixing her dark eyes on
the flowers in the vase, "I should like to have a clear idea of many
things which are now dark to my mind. Often when I am sitting quietly
at work, thoughts come that frighten me. Then they vanish again,
because I cannot detain and think them out. It is like being at night
in a strange neighborhood during a thunder-storm; for an instant a
flash of lightning reveals streets and alleys, and then, suddenly, all
is dark again. Or perhaps I read a passage in a book, over which I am
constantly compelled to reflect, longing to ask the author what he
meant, but no answer comes. I feel," she added in a still lower tone,
"that in many things I am unlike my dear father and a friend of ours,
the Fran Professorin Valentin, who is half a theologian, while I--well
it is not for lack of good will if I am not like her. But what I do not
understand has no existence for me, at least to contemplate it makes me
unhappy rather than happy, and yet when they say that the final secrets
of the world, and the divine thoughts, cannot be comprehended by the
human mind, I am obliged to concede the point. Only I can have no rest
until I learn whether we can know _anything_, and if so how much, or if
one, who unfortunately is unable to believe what she cannot understand,
must renounce all truth."
She stopped suddenly, as her father made a movement as if to rejoin
them, and with a hasty beseeching glance at Edwin, seemed to entreat
him not to violate the secret of the confessional.
He smiled again and turned toward the innocent little man, who
approached. "My dear Herr Koenig," said he, "your daughter has passed
the preliminary examination with great credit. I only hope that the
pupil may be as well satisfied with her teacher, as he expects to be
with her. So if it suits your convenience, we will begin to-morrow, and
I will come to you every other day at any hour in the afternoon which
you yourselves may select."
The father looked at his daughter. "I thank you sincerely, dear Herr
Doctor," said he. "See how the child's eyes are sparkling with
pleasure. Now in regard to your other conditions--"
"I shall make but one, my dear sir: that no one shall be present during
the lessons. When I give private instruction, I always insist upon this
point. Either a public class-room, or entire privacy."
"Unless you prefer some other place, Leah, you might receive the Herr
Doctor in your sitting-room on the other side of the entry, where your
writing-table stands; but I think we had better show our friend the
whole house, that he may himself choose the best auditory."
When Edwin took his leave a half hour later, he had seen every nook and
corner in the little house; the niche in the sitting-room where the
bust of Leah's mother stood, the green sofa before it, the ivy at the
window, the steps leading to the lagune, where a pleasant-looking old
maid-servant was busy with her washing; glancing toward her young
mistress, she gazed curiously at the guest, who seemed to be
illustrating Jean Paul's pun about the _Lehrmeister_, who might become
a _Mehrleister_, Edwin himself would never have dreamed of such a
thing. He was very gay, and talked brilliantly as if among old
acquaintances. Later, when he had taken his leave, and found himself in
the street, he again paused a moment by the railing which ran alongside
of the canal; he no longer thought it incomprehensible that the
occupants of this insignificant "hut" would not have exchanged it for a
palace.