ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES--A BAD ONE.
Probably no more terrifying a figure could have presented itself at the
Persepolitan Hotel than the major of cavalry, and he looked the type of
his class, insolent with aristocratic hauteur, martial to the point of
arrogance, and domineering and as blustering toward inferiors as he
would have been bland and meek to his superiors. The landlord, one of
the hybrid Levantines in whose blood that of a dozen races flowed, was
as alarmed as the maid, whom he sent up the stairs to announce the
visitor to Herr Daniels. Strange to say, the officer, who had taken a
seat in the sitting-room, unasked, with his heavy sabre held upright
between his knees, bore the somewhat lengthy delay with patience. The
girl returned to say that Herr Daniels would be honored with the visit,
although, he had said, he had not a pleasant remembrance of the
gentleman. In fact, before his assault in the street upon La Belle
Stamboulane, the major had persecuted her and deserved the reproof from
her father which it was too dangerous, as Munich society was ruled, for
him to utter.
But, contrary to all precedent, the military Lovelace quietly walked
into the room where Claudius was restored to health and whence he had
been removed to the inmost chamber vacated by the young singer. The
major's accident might account for his meekness, but his manners and
voice accorded with his speech so that one attributed the change to an
altogether different cause than a purely physical one.
He approached the Jew with open countenance, wearing a chastened and
subdued expression, and extended his hand as to a brother officer.
Daniels accepted it, struck by the unexpected mien, although he could
not, in his astonishment and inveterate prudence, return the pressure.
The major spoke an apology for his outrageous conduct, in a faltering
voice and with moist eyes, spacing the apparently unstudied phrases with
a cough as if to master tearfulness unbecoming even an invalid soldier.
He laid the blame on the surpassing charms of the songstress who had
enflamed him beyond his self-control and, partly, on the infernal French
wine in which he had imprudently over-indulged at the evening's garrison
officer's dinner. Had he but patriotically stuck to the beer! But that
was not worth lamenting now. He tendered his regrets to the father of
the young lady and promised to use his poor influence--here he smiled at
the disparagement as if he knew his power and that his hearer was sure
of it--for her professional advancement as long as she rejoiced Munich
with her beauty and accomplishments.
The night in the dead-house, on the very brink of the deathpit, had
transformed him, he freely acknowledged. He hardly recognized his own
voice in communicating the sentiments that carried him into new
directions, so strange was it all, but he was eager to show by deeds
that his conversion was great and sincere. He had engaged his protection
for the distinguished turkophone-player and his unparalleled daughter,
but he felt that was enough.
"Ample," said Daniels, at last able to speak a word on the torrent of
glib language momentarily pausing; "but we are going away to fulfill an
engagement in Paris."
"One moment," said the major, politely lifting his hand from which he
kept the buckskin gauntlet as if he meant again to shake hands with the
Ishmael at their farewell. "Perhaps I cannot, then, be of service to
you, but there is another to whom my assistance is of other value--nay,
of the highest consequence. I am not referring to the young lady--whom
Munich will be so sorry to part with and whom I do not expect to see
again even to accept my excuses--but the student from the Polish
University who deservedly corrected me and brought me to my sober
senses--although, perhaps, he had a heavy hand." He spoke with an
assumption of manly regret, which enchanted the hearer and completed his
revocation of the bad opinion of the rough suitor of his daughter. Still
the Jew had not laid aside all his habitual caution and he did not by
word or movement betray that he had an acquaintance with his champion.
"I see that I must drop all flourishes and speak unfettered," went on
the major, bluntly. "In two words, our brawl has got to the ears of the
provost-marshal as well as those of the town guardians, and the search
is going to be thorough for that young gentleman. I know it is absurd,
and I protested against it, but the idea has penetrated their wooden
heads that he is one of those tramp-students who are permeating the
masses--worse, the dangerous classes--with seditious ideas, and they
think he and Baboushka's gang too long lording it in the poor quarter,
are hand and glove. In fact, in a day or two--perhaps now--the forces
will be a-foot in uniform and in disguise to make a keen and searching
inspection of the dwellings suspected of harboring the liberal-minded;
and God knows that you have, Herr Daniels, chosen a veritable hot-bed!
Two months ago, we arrested a Nihilist with a portmanteau full of glass
bombs, luckily uncharged, in the attic upstairs; not three weeks since,
two Hungarian malcontents were stopped at the door--but why enter into
these details, fitter for the police than a soldier to relate? You, of
course, were not told of these blots on this hotel's fame or you would
have selected it as the last roof to shelter your talented daughter. It
is one thing to cross swords--I mean staves--with a man, and another to
guide the watchmen to clap their coarse paws on his shoulder. I have
made honorable amends, I hope, to the lady and yourself, for my
rudeness; as for the gallant fellow, I bear him no ill will--on the
contrary! since I could wish to meet with him again, and tell him that
the Great Prison of Munich is not badly constructed and promises little
chance of an escape. I beg you to convey the warning to him that he must
lose not one instant if he can escape beyond the walls."
Still Daniels believed it prudent, if not polite, to make no
compromising admission. But the speaker was not offended. He smiled
wisely, not without good humor, and offered his hand so frankly that the
Jew again took it and this time slightly returned the generous pressure.
But on the way to the door, he was stopped by the entrance of Rebecca.
Although she was clad in the plain garments affected by the Jewess in
ordinary days, and they were in the most striking contrast with the
stage flippery in which the officer had previously seen her, her
loveliness was as manifest as the stars when even a fleecy cloud veils
them on an autumnal eve. In her anxiety as regarded her father--or,
perhaps, the student, who can tell?--she must have stooped to listening
to some portion of the singular and one-sided dialogue. For she said,
without any prelude:
"Herr Officer, you have acted a noble part and it would be a grief if I
had not taken the occasion to accept your apology and thank you for the
warning which may save the life of one who--believe me--is no longer
your foe, if he had been one. I am not able to judge the greatness and
loftiness of your act from your people's point of view, but I shall no
longer have a mean opinion of the creed which can perform such a
conversion as yours--that is, making you a true gentleman instead of
leading one to believe you a heartless libertine."
She held out her hand and he took it so reverently, without haste and
with tenderness, and kissed it so respectfully that her last doubt
vanished--although she scarcely had the ghost of one.
He had triumphed completely, and he retired with an airy step and a
heart replete with gratification.
"If he is dragged into the prison and locked up to rot in the dungeon,
they will blame me the last of all," he muttered. "Heavens, how
supernally beautiful she is! There are times when I think that if she
and her rival occupied the scales of the balance, a butterfly's wing
would turn them. My heart would be divided in their mutual favor."
With the same aerial step, he passed two or three men in threadbare
suits and shabby hats, who were hovering about the Persepolitan, and who
carefully exchanged glances of understanding with him. He went straight
to the superintendent-inspector of police, and sat down in his cabinet
to concert with him on the best way to suppress, without scandal, the
dangerous emissary from ever-restless Poland, lodged in consultation
with the Jew, the bugbear of the monarchies of Europe.
"Tut, tut! tell not the official that Daniels and his daughter, for the
paltry lucre of the drink-halls or for artistic satisfaction, made the
tour of the capitals!"
In the meantime, the "suspects," not themselves suspicious, commenced,
with Rebecca a listener, upon the move counseled by the chivalrous
major. It was one they had almost settled upon and they determined to
put it all the sooner into execution. The post chaise was kept in a
state of readiness, alike with the horse that drew it on these important
occasions, a surefooted nag whose pace was better than her appearance.
Claudius, to be sure, rested under the disadvantage of being a stranger
to the roads, as he had traveled only upon one to enter this
city--commonly accounted dull, but so far crammed with serious
adventures. This blank in his topographical lore was easily filled: the
bright-eyed Hedwig was to meet him at the first corner, mount into the
vehicle of which the capacious hood of enameled cloth would hide her,
and there pilot him in steering to the Sendling _Thur_ or gate. Once in
the open country, the road was plainer--in fact, he could be guided
by the locomotive's smoke and whistle till he reached the little
station. Even twenty miles out, the Persepolitan's landlord had
acquaintances--perhaps they were brothers in some occult league--and the
vehicle could be left without misgivings at any of the inns which he
named.
There was nothing in this plan, so simple as to promise success, to
trouble the brain, but, all the same, Claudius had a sleepless night,
though he retired early to be prepared for the probably eventful
morrow.
He wished to think only of Rebecca, who had added sound hints to her
father's and the host's experienced advice; but, do what he could, it
was another's image that haunted him. It was the winning one of the
aristocratic singer. Again he beheld her matchless shape, her caressing
and enthralling eyes, her supple undulations in the waltz and her
shimmering golden curls. And whatever the sounds in the street, where
there seemed more footfalls than before that evening, all though actual,
were overpowered and formed the burden to the ghostly but delightful
strains from that silvery voice. He was not only at the age to be
impressionable, but he had not known one of those college amorettes
which may be as innocent as a page of a scientific text-book. No woman
even in the poetry had caused him to vibrate in the untouched
heart-chords like this unexpected star in the firmament of beer fumes
and tobacco smoke! But it was not joyous to muse upon this vision for he
had no doubt that she marked a new starting-point in his life.
Did he love her, or Rebecca? They had appeared to him so closely
together that he was confused. He viewed them as a double-star, without
yet having the coolness to separate them. He was a man to love once
only, and there is but one love. There are different phases of it as
there are different lodgers in the same house; they do not know each
other, but they come in and go forth by the same staircase-way.
Of this he was instinctively certain that if he loved Kaiserina, she
would guide him in altogether another direction than he had looked and
whither his proud and admiring professors had pointed. Enormous wealth
in our days is to the monopolist, immense fame to the specialist. To
rise above contestants, one must be patient, resigned, long toiling and
abhorrent of the social ties which fetter one when most of the time is
demanded to solve a problem, and pester one to recite the two or three
letters he has learnt when he ought to study till he masters the entire
alphabet. A man must immolate himself.
Oh, he had been so happy at whiles with the thought, accounted
providential, that he stood alone, with no one to distract him, to
impose burdens on him and to claim a right to make inroads on his
precious hours. He loved the loneliness in which he sank when he stepped
out of the lecture-room and the amphitheatre. He had not felt the need,
which others confessed, of some one with whom to share griefs, debate
enigmas and communicate projects. Since he saw Rebecca, he had, indeed,
had an almost momentary glimpse of a home where a dashing woman, moving
silently and airily, guarded his meditations from the external plagues.
Such a woman was created to comfort, cheer and encourage if he flagged.
But the love she inspired was ideal, perceived hazily during the hours
when he was out of health, and divined rather than watched her tender
ministrations.
The courtships are long when love is based on respect. She gave repose
to the soul, not excitement to the spirit. He saw that she admired him
for his courage in daring so much--more than he had fully realized--for
the despised and trampled-upon, and she pitied one before whom yawned
the dreadful prison which rarely lets out the political prisoner with
enough life in his wrecked frame to be worth living out. But he did not
see that she was truth and that he should follow her. As the sailors
drive the ship toward the false beacon, near them and garish and
flaring, so he thought the erratic orb brighter than the serene fixed
star.
He felt ungrateful. This sneaking out of the town was ridiculous after
the heroic introduction to La Belle Stamboulane. He examined a pair of
pistols which the host had generously presented him with, when, after
the restless night, he rose with the dawn, and he determined to use them
if assailed. It is the inoffensive, quiet man who works most mischief
when roused--nothing so terrible even to the wolves as the sheep gone
mad. The student, having dipped his hand in blood, was now eager to be
attacked on the highway by a company of unrepentant Von Sendlingens.
This was no mood, however, in which to start on a journey of possible
peril. Rebecca did not appear at the breakfast table. She, too, had
passed a wakeful night, but it was in prayer for the safety of the first
real friend she had so far met among the Gentiles. The host looked in at
the conclusion of the meal. Nothing could wear a fairer aspect. Even the
hovering figures which he, for good reason, set down as spies, had
become tired of their useless quest, and disappeared with the fog that
floated amid the smoke of the numerous brewery chimneys.