For Erna's sake! How often he repeated that phrase to himself in the
course of the day! He wanted nothing for himself. What, indeed, could
he have wanted for himself? Nothing more than a man who should see a
child lost, in danger, among a crowd of carriages, and who should bound
to the spot and carry the child away to some place of safety; nothing
more than a wanderer, who sees a fellow-traveller start upon a road of
which he knows of old the insecure state, and who warns the heedless
man to take some other road instead. One does so because it is one's
duty as a human being; one does so because one's heart urges one to do
it, because one cannot help doing it.
Yes, a man acts and speaks in such situations as he would hardly act or
speak for his own sake. He is more courageous or more anxious than he
would be, if his own weal or woe were at stake. One grows beyond one's
self, or else sinks beneath one's own everyday moral level.
"And the latter is meanwhile my case," said Bertram to himself, as he
played his part with due zeal, and, as he thought, with great success.
It was a natural consequence, of that part that he lectured Hildegard
(after the event), because she had not yesterday taken him at once into
her confidence; that he exchanged with his friend Otto looks of the
completest accord and understanding; that he used with Lydia--to her
evident delight--a tone of mingled melancholy and fun, which appeared
half to express and half to hide a deeper emotion; and that with the
Baron he completely dropped his calm manner of the day preceding. How
else could he form an opinion of the man? And how could he be a
faithful counsellor to Erna without having formed an opinion?
So he examined the Baron's portfolio with patient attention, whilst
that nobleman turned over the leaves and gave explanations. The
collection would have been a priceless treasure if the quality had
corresponded with the quantity. There were sketches from almost every
country in Europe; the northern coast of Africa, too--Algiers,
Tunis--was largely represented. And then the painter's talent
embraced all styles and kinds of painting:--landscape, architecture,
still-life, portraiture--nothing had escaped the unwearied brush,
nothing had appeared too difficult. On the contrary, there were the
most unlikely effects of light and shade, the oddest scenes, the most
_risque_ situations, involving the wildest inroads on the laws of
perspective and the most reckless foreshortening--and the daring
sketcher seemed positively to have revelled in these. And yet Bertram
had to confess to himself that a not inconsiderable talent, which, with
patient and careful schooling, might have borne beautiful fruit, had
been recklessly wasted--and, indeed, generally recklessness did seem to
him to be the Baron's leading characteristic. Anyhow, the painter's
fluent comments on his own sketches quite corresponded to the reckless
style of painting. Everywhere his ideas, good ones and bad ones, and
some really original ones, were clothed in the same hurried, flurried,
sometimes absurd form, showing a ready, but never a profound insight
into human relations, into manners and customs of nations; much, but
most desultory reading; extensive, and yet scattered knowledge. The man
spoke as he painted, and painted as he played music. Reckless,
superficial, inconstant, like his work and his talk, will and must his
love be too, thought Bertram.
Could love like that lastingly suffice for Erna? It seemed impossible.
But is there such a word as impossible in connection with the magic
world of the human heart? Are not the natures of truly noble women at
times visited by irresistible and undying passion for wavering,
unstable, yes, even for morally worthless men? Does it not well-nigh
seem to have all the stability of a law of nature, that totally opposed
characters, all inward resistance notwithstanding, feel drawn to and
fascinated by each other?
Was this fatal fascination visible in Erna?
Bertram kept his attention unconsciously fixed on that one decisive
point, but without being able to come to any definite result. True, he
had to confess to himself that even a still keener observer would have
vainly tried his hand at the task. Erna joined to-day even less
directly than on the previous day in the general conversation; nay
more, he thought he noticed what had not been the case yesterday, or
what had at least escaped him then, that her gaze, usually so firm,
seemed at times fixed on vacancy, then again appeared directed inward,
anyhow was not dwelling on her surroundings--a symptom which by no
means pleased the observer, because from it one might surely conclude
that there existed a deeper sentiment, one which absorbed her inner
life. And this sentiment was not likely to be one of aversion to the
Baron, to whom she talked more, in her own calm way, than to anybody
else; with whom she played music two or three times during the day; and
with whom she played chess after supper in her own grave, attentive
manner. Hildegard came and explained all these details to Bertram ...
"Believe me," she said, "I know Erna. Mind, my words of this morning.
She may be long in confessing her preference for any man, but if she
were to dislike any one, he would find it out pretty soon."
"I fear that I am experiencing something of the sort," Bertram replied.
"How so?"
"Have you not noticed that she has not said three words to me all the
evening?"
"Insatiable man! Are you not satisfied with Lydia who is ransacking her
repertory for your sake? Would you have all womankind at your feet? I
shall warn Lotter against you as against his worst rival."
"Do not destroy our budding friendship. But, joking apart, can there be
a rival?"
"What are you thinking of? And if there were, I should be sure to know
it through Lydia, who, like all elderly girls, is apt to err on the
side of seeing too much rather than too little. Moreover, we two, Lydia
and I, have never lost sight of the child, and in Erfurth, where, it is
true, she went alone once or twice during the last few years, she was
always in the company of my sister and her six girls, and I never heard
a word, nor the slightest hint. One of the girls, Agatha, the third,
Erna's bosom friend, is coming here, by the way, in a day or two; and a
good, modest, sensible girl she is, though not as pretty as the rest.
But you surely remember Agatha? Well, I'll question her a little when
she comes, but I know beforehand that she will not have anything to
tell. Oh, you'd better concentrate your jealousy upon Lotter!"
Hildegard surely felt very certain of her ground, else she would not
have jested--a rare occurrence with her. Bertram took up a similar
tone, and during the game of whist to which he and Otto soon afterwards
sat down with the two older ladies, he was remarkably merry and
talkative.
But two hours later Konski found him all the more gloomy and taciturn,
and so silent that he did not even reply to the "good-night, sir," of
that faithful servitor.
"It's the old one," soliloquised Konski, as he meditatively brushed his
master's boots in his own little room, "who is bothering him. 'Dear Mr.
Konski,' here, 'My good Mr. Konski,' there--I know what she is after.
And then, to give me a whole dollar! And she has not any to spare, I
can see that much, in spite of her grand airs and her trimmings. And
she to rule the roast for master and me! Not if we knows it! And now
we'll both marry; and marry smart young ones too! And may the devil fly
away with all old women!"