CHAPTER I.

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive

[Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:

http://www.archive.org/details/inparadiseanove01heysgoog

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].]

COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS,

No. XII.

* * * * *

IN PARADISE.

VOL. II.

COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS.

I. _SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY_. A Novel. From the French of Victor

Cherbuliez. 1 vol., 16mo. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.

II. _GERARD'S MARRIAGE_. A Novel. From the French of Andre Theuriet.

Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

III. _SPIRITE_. A Fantasy. From the French of Theophile Gautier. Paper

cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

IV. _THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT_. From the French of George Sand. Paper

cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

V. _META HOLDENIS_. A Novel. From the French of Victor Cherbuliez.

Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

VI. _ROMANCES OF THE EAST_. From the French of Comte de Gobineau. Paper

cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.

VII. _RENEE AND FRANZ_ (Le Bleuet). From the French of Gustave Haller.

Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

VIII. _MADAME GOSSELIN_. From the French of Louis Ulbach. Paper cover,

60 cents; cloth, $1.00.

IX. _THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS_. From the French of Andre Theuriet. Paper

cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

X. _ARIADNE_. From the French of Henry Greville. Paper cover, 50 cents;

cloth, 75 cents.

XI. _SAFAR-HADGI_; or, Russ and Turcoman. From the French of Prince

Lubomirski. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.

XII. _IN PARADISE_. From the German of Paul Heyse. 2 vols. Per vol.,

paper cover, 60 cents; doth, $1.00.

XIII. _REMORSE_. A Novel. From the French of Th. Bentzon. Paper cover,

50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

XIV. _JEAN TETEROL'S IDEA_. A Novel. From the French of Victor

Cherbuliez. Paper cover, 60 cents; doth, $1.00.

XV. _TALES FROM THE GERMAN OF PAUL HEYSE_. Paper cover, 60 cents;

cloth, $1.00.

XVI. _THE DIARY OF A WOMAN_. From the French of Octave Feuillet. Paper

cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

IN

PARADISE

_A NOVEL_

FROM THE GERMAN OF

PAUL HEYSE

VOL. II

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

549 AND 551 BROADWAY

1879

COPYRIGHT BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1878.

IN PARADISE.

_BOOK IV_.

CHAPTER I.

A mile or two from Starnberg, on the shore of the beautiful lake,

stands a plain country-house, whose chief ornament is a shady and

rather wild little park of beeches and cedars. This stretches from the

highway that connects Starnberg with the castle and fishermen's huts of

Possenhofen, down to the lake--a narrow strip of woodland, separated

only by picket fences from the neighboring gardens, so that a person

wandering about in it is scarcely aware of its boundaries. The

house itself is equally small and simple, and contains, besides one

good-sized apartment, with several sleeping-rooms to the right and

left, only a turret-room in the upper story, whose great north window

shows at the first glance that it is a studio. From it can be seen,

over the tops of the cedars, a bit of the lake, and beyond it the white

houses and villas of Starnberg, at the foot of the height from

whose summit the old ducal castle--now converted into a provincial

court-house--rises like a clumsy, blunt-cornered box.

Some years before, a landscape painter had built this modest summer

nest, and had made his studies of cloud and atmosphere from this turret

window. When he died, childless, his widow had made haste to offer the

property to the one among her husband's acquaintances who passed for a

Cr[oe]sus; thus it was that the villa came into the possession of

Edward Rossel, to the great surprise and amusement of all his friends.

For our Fat Rossel was known as an incorrigible and fanatical despiser

of country life, who was never tired of ridiculing the passion of the

Munichers for going into the mountains for refreshment in summer, and

who preferred, even in the hottest weather, when none of his friends

could hold out in the city any longer, to do without society altogether

rather than to give up the comforts of his city home even for a few

weeks.

He maintained that this sentimental staring at a mountain or woodland

landscape, this going into ecstasies over a green meadow or a bleak

snow-field, this adoration of the rosy tints of sunrise and sunset, and

all the other species of modern nature-worship, were nothing more or

less than a disguised form of commonplace, thoughtless indolence, and

as such certainly not to be condemned, particularly by so zealous a

defender of _dolce far niente_ as himself. But they must not suppose

that this particular form of idleness was the highest and worthiest of

human conditions; at the best the benefit which the mind and soul

derived from it was not greater than if one should look over a book of

pictures, or listen for hours to dance-music. Let them drivel as much

as they liked about the sublimity, beauty, and poetry of Nature, she is

and remains merely the scenery, and the stage of this world first

begins to repay the price of admission when human figures make their

appearance upon it. He did not envy the simplicity of a man who would

be willing to sit in the parquet all the evening, staring at the empty

scene, studying the woodland or mountain decorations, and listening to

the voice of the orchestra.

To this the enthusiastic admirers of Nature always responded: It was

well known that his ill-will toward Nature arose from the fact that no

provision had been made for a comfortable sofa and a French cook at all

the beautiful spots. He never made the slightest attempt to defend

himself against these hits, but, on the contrary, he maintained in all

seriousness, and with much ingenuity, his argument that a thinking

being could derive more enjoyment of Nature, and a deeper insight into

the greatness and splendor of the creation, from a _pate de foie gras_

than from watching a sunrise on the Rigi, with sleepy eyes, empty

stomach, and half-frozen limbs enveloped in a ridiculous blanket--a

melancholy victim, like his neighbors, to Alpine insanity. Whereupon he

would cite the ancient races who had never known such an exaggerated

estimate of landscape Nature, and yet, for all that, had possessed the

five senses in enviable purity and perfection, and had been very

intellectual besides. It is true, they had not known the celebrated

"Germanic sentiment;" but there was every probability that the decline

of the arts dated from the uprisal and spread of this epidemic, for

which reason it was particularly out of place for artists to favor this

sort of _Berghuberei_ (as the Munichers call the country fever), with

the exception, of course, of those who get their living by it--the

landscape, animal, and peasant painters--a degenerate race of whom Fat

Rossel never spoke without drawing down the corners of his mouth.

But much as he liked to disparage German sentiment, he could not find

it in his heart to refuse the widow of the landscape-painter when she

offered him the house on the lake for a price that could hardly be

called low. Without any further inspection of the place he concluded

the bargain, and, without changing a muscle, quietly suffered the

malicious laughter which burst upon him from all sides to die out. "To

possess something," he said, calmly, "was not at all the same thing as

to be possessed by something." For that reason he would not need to

join in their raving, merely because he found himself among people who

were crazy and enraptured. And, true to his theory, whenever he was at

his villa he pursued his usual comfortable sybarite life, and

maintained that Nature had very great charms if one only looked at it

with one's back.

He had had the house, which was built in a rustic style, most

comfortably fitted up, with a great variety of sofas, rugs, and

easy-chairs, and always had this or that friend with him as a guest; so

that even the studio above the tree-tops, in which he himself never set

foot, was not altogether lost to its proper use. Heavenly repose, he

used to say, would not be nearly as sublime if there were not mortals

in the world to bestir themselves and cultivate the field of art with

the sweat of their brows.

Now, this year he had taken his aesthetical opposite, good Philip

Emanuel Kohle, out with him; had quartered him in the chamber to the

left of the little dining-room--he himself occupying the one on the

right--and it is almost unnecessary to add, had given him the exclusive

use of the studio. For the rest, they only met at dinner and supper,

since the morning slumbers of the host lasted too long for the

industrious guest to wait breakfast for him. Moreover, they could never

come together without getting into some discussion, which was always

welcome to Rossel, and, as he asserted, highly favorable to his

digestion at any time of the day except in the morning. The more he saw

of him the more pleasure Rossel took in this singular, self-communing

man, who, bloodless, insignificant-looking, and unsophisticated as he

seemed, bore about with him a truly royal self-respect, and the

consciousness of immeasurable joys and possessions, without for a

moment demanding that any mortal being should acknowledge his inherent

sovereign rights.

Then, too, though he was so unassuming and so thankful for proffered

friendship, he conducted himself toward his host with perfect freedom,

for he held the most sublime doctrines in regard to the earthly goods

that were lacking in his own case, but were so richly at the disposal

of his friend.

A little veranda, with a roof supported on wooden pillars and overgrown

with wild grape-vines, had been built out into the lake. A table and a

few garden-chairs stood upon it, and from it one could look far away

over the beautiful, unruffled water and the distant mountains. At night

it was delicious to lean over the balustrade and see the moon and stars

dancing in the waves. The nights were still warm, and the scent of the

roses was wafted over from the garden; on a day like this one could sit

in the open air until midnight.

Fat Rossel had seated himself in an American rocking-chair, with his

back toward the lake; a narghili stood by his side, and on the table,

in a cooler, was a bottle of Rhine wine, from which he filled his own

and his friend's glass from time to time. Kohle sat opposite him, his

elbows resting on the table, his shabby black hat pulled down over his

forehead, from beneath which his eyes gleamed fixedly and earnestly out

of the shadow like those of some night-bird. They appeared to be

magically attracted by the lines of silver that furrowed the lake, and

it was only when he spoke that he slowly raised them to the level of

his friend's high, white forehead, from which the fez was pushed back.

Rossel wore his Persian dressing gown, and his silky black beard hung

picturesquely down upon his breast. Even in the moonlight Kohle looked

very shabby in comparison with him, like a dervish by the side of an

emir. The truth was, Kohle had but one coat for all times of the day

and year.

"You may say what you like, my dear friend," said Fat Rossel,

concluding a rather long dispute about the difference in character

between the North and South Germans--he himself was from Passau and

Kohle from Erfurth--"there is one talent you people on the other side

of the Main are lacking in; you can swim excellently, but you can't lie

on your back and let yourself drift. Didn't I drag you put here to this

tiresome summer retreat because your aspect had become positively

unbearable to a flesh-painter, your skin having dried to a respectable

parchment, and you standing in danger of composing yourself into an

early grave? And now you don't do anything better out here; but consume

one yard of paper after another, while the shadows in your face grow

blacker from day to day. Why are you in such haste, my dear Kohle, to

produce things for which no one in the world is waiting?"

Kohle's pale face never moved a muscle. He slowly drank a few drops of

wine from his glass, and then said, calmly:

"Forbid the silkworm to spin!"

"You forget, my dear godfather, that the worm you cite as your model

has at least the excuse that it spins silk. If you could get so far as

to do that, the thing would have a practical purpose. But your

spinning--"

"Now you are talking again against your better convictions,"

interrupted the other, coolly, "There are more than enough people

nowadays who pursue their so-called art for a practical purpose. Just

listen once when our colleagues talk about their 'interests.' One would

imagine he was at the Bourse: for this picture, five thousand gulden;

for that, ten thousand, or even twenty and twenty-five thousand; and

that a certain artist has an annual income of so and so much, and owns

several houses besides--these things make up the motive power of an

incredible number of them. Their pictures have no longer a value, but

merely a price. How to go to work and make an equal amount from the

fabrication of painted canvas, that is the pivot on which all the labor

of an artist's fancy turns, instead of steering straight for the thing

itself, as it ought by rights to do. Well, I have nothing in common

with this worm that nourishes itself by crawling about in the dust. But

what does it matter to me whether I spin silk, or only a plain thread

that delights me alone, and from which I can beat my wings and soar

away into space?"

"You are a thousand times too good for this century of banks and

bourses, my dear enthusiast!" cried Rossel, with a sigh of honest

admiration. "But, even though you despise the golden fruit on the tree

of life, still all sorts of other things flourish there, which even the

best of men need not be ashamed to find beautiful and desireable: for

instance, fame or love, upon which you also turn your back with sublime

contempt. Your life is quite as earnest as your art, and yet you know

what Schiller says. If you go on in this way a few years longer, your

flame of life will have consumed all its wick; and the magic-lantern

pictures which the light has thrown on the dark background of your

existence will go down with you into eternal night."

"No!" cried the other, and his yellow face lit up with a red flush. "I

do not feel this fear! _Non omnis moriar!_ Something of me will be left

behind; and though you may be right that no glory will come to me

during my life, a soft shimmer of posthumous fame will warm my bones

under the ground, of that I am certain. For better times are coming, or

else may God take pity on this wretched world, and dash it to pieces

before it becomes one vast dung-heap from which no living flower will

spring. Many a day when I have begun to lose faith, amid the

wretchedness of the present, I have repeated to myself those comforting

verses of Hoelderlin's about the future of mankind."

"Now don't bring in your Hoelderlin as a bondsman for yourself," cried

Rossel. "To be sure, he was just as unpractical and as little suited to

the times as you; and, moreover, one of those erratic fellows who have

strayed out of the grand Greek and heathen worlds, and lost themselves

in our shallow present--an artist for art's sake, a dreamer and

ghost-seer in broad daylight. But for all that, he knew very well what

makes life worth living; and though he despised gold, and did not run

after fame very eagerly, he took love so seriously that he even lost

his reason over it. But you, my dear Philip Emanuel--"

"Are you so certain that I am not on the straight road to it?" Kohle

interrupted, with a peculiar, half-shy, half-bashful smile. "It is

true, neither this nor that particular beautiful woman has caused me to

tremble for the little sense I possess. But the woman and the beauty

which I, being what I am--"

He broke off, and turned round in his chair, so as to present only his

profile to his friend.

"I don't understand you, godfather."

"The thing is simple enough, I have never found a beautiful woman who

claimed so little of a suitor as to be willing to take up with my

insignificant self; that is to say--for I despise alms--who could

seriously be satisfied with this drab-tinted sketch of a human figure

that bears my name. And as I am too ignorant of the art of making the

best of it, and seeking out a sweetheart who shall be suited to me in

all ways and shall bear the stamp of the same manufactory, I stand but

a poor chance so far as love is concerned. You will laugh at me,

Rossel, but, in solemn earnest, the Venus of Milo would not be

beautiful enough for me."

A short pause ensued. Then Rossel said: "If I understand you rightly, I

must confess that I don't understand you at all. Besides, your estimate

of woman is quite wrong. What you want is a husband; some one who shall

show you that she is lord and master, and not a mere puppet. Put aside

both your humility and your arrogance, and pitch in whenever you

stumble upon a cheerful life. However, do just as you see fit. Who

knows but what some time the Venus of Milo herself will take pity on

you for having passed over all lesser women-folk in order to wait for

the goddess?"

"And what if she has already appeared to me, ay, has visited me day by

day up there above the tree-tops?" said Kohle, with a mysterious smile.

He pointed with his hand toward the studio, whose window sparkled

softly in the starlight.

Rossel stared at him in amazement.

"You fear I am on the point of breaking into a divine frenzy," laughed

the little man. "But I haven't yet confounded dreams and reality. That

I have seen her, and have learned from her all sorts of things that

other mortals do not yet know, is certain. But I believe myself that I

only dreamed all this. It was on my very first morning out here. The

evening before I had been reading the _Last Centaur_. The birds woke me

very early, and then I lay for a few hours with closed eyes, and the

whole story passed before me in a continuous train."

"What story?"

"I am now at work sketching it, after my own fashion, against which you

will protest again. There is a cyclus of six or eight pictures--shall I

tell you the story just as I am building it up in outline? It ought

properly to be told in verse, but I am no poet. Enough, the scene opens

with a mountain-cliff somewhere or other, the Hoesselberg, let us say,

or any other mythological fastness in which a goddess could have lived

apart from the world for a few centuries. From out it steps our dear

Venus of Milo in proper person, leading by the hand a half-grown boy,

who is no less a person than the little Amor. They are both but

scantily clad, and gaze around with wondering eyes upon a world that

has greatly changed since last they saw it. A city lies before them,

with battlements and towers of strange shape standing out against the

sky. Horsemen and pedestrians are coming out of the gate, dressed in

bright-colored garments of a peculiar cut, which were nowhere in

fashion in the world when the old gods were worshiped. The sky is

clouded over, and a drizzling rain is gently falling, which forces the

lady and her little boy to seek another place of refuge, since they can

no longer find their way back to their old retreat. Yet they lack the

courage to enter the town, with its swarming mass of human beings. But

in the mountain over across the valley stands a high stone building,

from which a tower, with a beautiful chime of bells, seems to ring out

over the land an invitation for all men to draw near. It is true, this

cannot be expressed in the sketch, but then the cloister over on the

hill must have something homelike about it, so that everybody will

understand why the fugitives, standing below in the rain, under shelter

of a laurel bush, are gazing up at it with longing eyes. And now,

when the sun breaks forth again, they muster up their courage and knock

at the cloister gate. The nuns rush out at the cry their sister

gate-keeper utters when she sees this queenly woman, with the

black-eyed child of the gods, standing on the threshold, both half

naked, and with their blonde hair falling about their shoulders. Then,

too, as is natural, the nun understands no Greek, which would have

enabled her to interpret the stranger's request for hospitality; nor

can the abbess herself make out anything more as to the strangers'

origin and character. But of one thing she is certain--this is not a

strolling beggar of the usual sort. Thus, in the third picture, we see

Madame Venus sitting in the refectory seeking to still her hunger; but

the food is too coarse for her, and she tastes nothing but the cloister

wine. They offer her a coarse, woolen nun's-dress, which, however, she

scorns to wear. The only other dress they have on hand is the thin gown

belonging to a beggar who died in the cloister a short time before.

This she consents to put on; and although, here and there, her

beautiful white skin peeps through a tear in the old rags, she seems to

think this better than to be confined in the black shroud of the

sisters. Her little boy has also been provided with a shirt, and is now

being passed around from hand to hand, and lap to lap; for each of the

nuns is eager to caress him. While they are sitting thus, on the best

of terms, the priest of the place comes to have a talk with the abbess.

He suspects something wrong, and stands on the threshold, dumb with

amazement, and devours this strange beggar-woman with his eyes. But the

little rascal of a boy goes up to him, and succeeds in making his

reverence fall over head and ears in love with the strange lady, and

scatter his older sentiments for the abbess to the four winds. A fourth

sheet shows him as he strolls up and down the little cloister garden

with Madame Venus, passionately declaring his love. At the window

stands the pious mother of the convent, torn with jealousy; and it

requires little imagination to foresee that her ecclesiastical friend

has hardly turned his back before this dangerous guest is, under one

pretext or another, thrust rudely forth into the wide world again, with

her little boy--who is tired, and would have liked to sleep instead of

having to wander about in the stormy night. But a house or hut is

nowhere to be found, while, on the other hand, suspicious-looking

groups pass by them: gypsies, who cast covetous eyes at the beautiful

child; and one of them--a wicked, toothless old hag--actually catches

him by the skirts of his little gown. But, fortunately, he glides out

of her hands like an eel, and flies into the thicket, and his mother

after him: who is so lost in thought that she scarcely heeds the

danger. 'Where can all the others have gone?' is the question over

which she broods ceaselessly.

"I don't know yet, myself, whether I shall show any more of her

adventures by the way. Every day something new occurs to me, with which

I might illustrate, both humorously and seriously, how, homeless and an

outcast, this beauty had to beg her way through this sober world of

ours. But, whenever she appeared at the door of simple and natural

beings, she needed to utter no word, and not even to stretch out her

hand. She touched the hearts of all; and every one--though here and

there with a secret shudder--gave her from his poverty as much

as he could spare. Young people, upon whom she had bestowed but a

single glance, left house, and home, and calling, and wandered after

her--through populous regions as well as through the wilderness--until,

in their dreamy blindness, they fell over steep precipices, or into

raging torrents, or came to an untimely end in one way or another. But

she herself, growing sadder and sadder, wandered along her way, and

thought of the times when the mortals who beheld her grew blissful and

happy and not wretched, and when they gave banquets in her honor, and

laid the most beautiful gifts at her feet; then she was a goddess, with

a train of followers whose numbers were incalculable.

"Brooding in this way, she comes one evening to a celebrated pilgrims'

chapel, lying in a charming little valley, and shaded on all sides by

evergreen trees; and it is so late that no one observes her as she

enters into the empty sanctuary with her boy--who is weary, and whose

feet are sore--still holding fast to the skirts of her beggar's gown.

"Only the eternal lamp is still burning before the altar, but the moon

shines through the arched windows, and it is as bright as day within.

The godlike woman sees a brown, wooden, life-sized figure seated on a

high throne. Two glass eyes glare upon her, and on the head flames a

golden crown; a mantle of red velvet falls about the angular shoulders,

and on her knees lies a wax child in swaddling clothes. She approaches

quite near, and touches the mantle, and plucks at the heavy folds;

whereupon the clasp on the neck of the image becomes unfastened, and

the lean, wooden body appears, looking ghastly enough. A shudder creeps

over the beautiful woman as she sees this image before her in all its

lean, worm-eaten ugliness. 'Ah!' she thinks to herself, 'this

princess's mantle will become me better than it does that old piece of

carving!' and begins to wrap herself in its heavy folds, which give

forth an odor of incense; and then she sets the crown on her head, and

asks her boy whether she pleases him. But he only blinks at her a

little, for he is tired to death. Then she takes pity on the poor

child, lifts the image from its gilded throne, and the wax infant rolls

to the ground and is dashed to pieces. She does not heed this, however,

but mounts the steps and seats herself in the chair under the canopy,

and the little Amor nestles warm in her lap, and, half covered by the

velvet mantle, falls asleep on her heavenly bosom. All around her it is

still; no sound is heard but the whirr of the bats as they fly hither

and thither under the high dome, not daring to light on the crown of

the stranger as they were accustomed to do upon the wooden image, being

frightened away by the brightness of her eyes; until at last the eyes

close, and the mother and son sleep quietly on their throne above the

altar.

"In the early morning, even before the pilgrims who are encamped all

about the chapel have awakened, a young man comes along the road,

and, thinking no evil, enters the open portal, through which the gray

light of morning has just begun to steal. He has often seen the

wonder-working image that was worshiped here, but has never found that

it exerted any particular power upon himself. And now he merely goes in

and kneels down in a corner to let his heart commune with its God. But

as his eyes roam absently about the chapel they encounter the divine

apparition on the altar, sending a shock full of bliss and longing,

adoration and rapture, to the very depths of his heart. Just at this

moment the divine woman opens her eyes, makes a movement--which also

wakes the boy--and has to think a little before she can remember where

she is and how she came there. Her look falls upon the youth, who

stands there gazing up at her, looking so handsome and earnest, and as

if he were turned into a statue. She smiles graciously upon him, and

moves her hand in token of greeting. Then a holy dread overcomes him,

so that he flies from the chapel, and it is only when he is alone in

the solitary wood that he recalls what he has seen, and realizes what a

miracle has been revealed to him. And immediately the yearning comes

back to him. Like a drunken man he staggers back to the chapel, where

he finds the pilgrims already at their first mass. But the marvelously

beautiful lady with the boy has vanished; the wooden Madonna is again

enthroned under the baldachuin, and even a wax child lies upon her lap,

for the priests have supplied the place of the broken one by another.

Everything is in its old place, only the crown sits a little aslant on

the brown, wooden head, for the sacristan has not succeeded in

repairing the mysterious destruction any better. But the youth turns

his steps homeward, and bears about with him, through his whole life,

the after-glow of this wonderful apparition; striving always to

represent, to his fellowmen who had not beheld it with their own eyes,

how she had looked upon him--at first earnestly and dreamily, and then

with a winning smile--and how the boy, with his wondering gaze, had

illuminated everything about him, as if with balls of fire. And in his

efforts to do this--for he was an artist--he has attained to greater

and greater power and influence over his fellow-men, and each time has

succeeded better in catching the face; and that is the secret which can

be found in no history of art--the reason why this young Raphael has

become the greatest of all painters, and his picture of the Madonna

surpasses all others in beauty and in power."

CHAPTER II.

"By all the good spirits, but you are a poet!" cried Rossel, and he

sprang up with so unusual an alacrity that his red fez slipped off his

head.

"A poet!" responded his modest friend, with a sad smile. "There, you

see how low we have sunken nowadays. If it ever occurs to one of us to

let any idea enter his head that goes beyond a whistling shoemaker's

apprentice, or some celebrated historical event, or a bathing nymph, he

must immediately hear himself scouted as a poet. Those old fellows like

Duerer, Holbein, Mantegna, and the rest, were left unmolested to spin

into fables whatever struck them as beautiful or odd. But, nowadays,

the doctrine of the division of labor is the panacea for all things;

and if a poor fool of a painter or draughtsman works out for himself

anything which a poet could by any possibility put into verse, people

immediately come running up with Lessing's 'Laokoon'--which, by the

way, no one thinks of reading nowadays--and prove that in this case all

bounds have been overstepped. If a poor devil of an artist has a fancy

for poetry, why doesn't he go to work and illustrate? After all, it is

a trade that supports its man, and one who follows it can be a

thorough-going realist, and can easily guard himself against all danger

of infection from poetry. But an arrogant wight of an idealist, whom

the world refuses to keep warm, and who, therefore, must take care not

to let the sacred fire go out on the hearth of his art--"

"You are getting warm without cause, my dear Kohle!" interposed the

other. "Good heavens! it is indeed a breadless art, that of the poet,

but a deadly sin it certainly is not; and I, for my part, could almost

envy you for having such ideas as those you have just been telling me.

I'll tell you what--finish your plans, and then we will both of us

paint this beautiful story of Dame Venus inside there on the wall of

our dining-room. The devil must be in it, if we don't succeed in

producing something that will throw the Casa Bartoldi deep into the

shade."

He knew when he said this what a great proposal he had let fall upon

the listening soul of his friend.

Kohle, like all art apostles of his stamp, despised easel and oil

painting, as it is usually practised. On the other hand, the great aim

of his longing and ambition was to be able, just for once, to wield his

fresco brush to his heart's content on a wall a hundred feet long; and

his friends were fond of plaguing him about a wish that had once

escaped him--"My life for a bare wall!" Heretofore no one had been

willing to entrust him with a square yard of his house, or even of his

garden, for this purpose. And now, suddenly, he had only to put forth

his hand, and see his greatest desire for monumental art-creation

fulfilled.

At first he could not believe in such overwhelming good-fortune. But

when the look of glad surprise and trembling doubt which he cast upon

his host encountered a perfectly serious face, he could no longer hold

himself in his chair. He sprang to his feet, threw his shabby black hat

high into the air, and, with outstretched arms and glowing face,

prepared to throw himself upon his friend, who was slowly strolling

back and forth. "Brother!" he cried, in a half-stifled voice, "this--

this--" But Rossel suddenly stood still and made a motion with his

hand, which checked the enthusiast in the very height of his wild

excitement.

The remembrance of a similar moment, when his heart had overflowed

toward his friend, and he had been upon the verge of formally offering

him "good-comradeship," came back to him with a rude shock. Then the

word had not yet passed his lips, when Rossel, at the very same moment,

though apparently without intention, had begun to speak of his aversion

to the display of tenderness among men, and had frightened away this

outburst of brotherly affection. And could it be that even now the ice

was not to be broken between them, and that this fulfillment of the

dearest wish of his life was nothing but the favor of a gracious

patron, a whim on the part of the rich host toward the poor devil who

sat at his hospitable table? His proud, sensitive soul was just on the

point of revolting against this, when from afar off a sound struck upon

his ear, which, as he instantly perceived, had been heard by Edward

sooner than by him, and which had been the cause of his gesture of

repulse. The soft notes of a flute came wafted to them over the lake,

nearer and nearer to the spot on the bank where Rossel's villa stood.

"It is he!" said Rossel. "Even the peace of night is not so sacred as

to guard defenseless beings from the attacks of this romantic amateur.

Look here, Kohle, see how the boat is just floating out of the shadow

into the silvery path of the moon--Rosebud stands erect in the centre,

like Lohengrin; and that tall figure at the tiller is undoubtedly

Elfinger's high-mightiness--they are making straight for our

balcony--well, let the will of the gods be done!"

The notes of the flute died away in a melting trill, and immediately

afterward Rosenbusch sprang ashore. "_Salem aleikum!_" he cried, waving

his hat. "We make our attack from the side of the lake, obeying

necessity and not our own desire, for a mouse-hole where two travelers

might lay their heads for the night couldn't be had in Starnberg for

all the gold of California. Saturday and this beautiful weather have

lured half Munich out there. I immediately thought of you, old boy, and

told Elfinger, who thought it would be presumptuous for us to force

ourselves on you without a special invitation, that, in addition to all

sorts of oriental qualities which are hateful to me, you also possessed

three most estimable ones--namely, a number of superfluous divans,

excellent coffee, and a spirit of hospitality worthy of a Bedouin.

Consequently, that, unless your shady roof chanced to be sheltering a

few odalisques who had already taken possession of all the couches, you

would not turn us away from your threshold. At the worst, it won't be

any great misfortune to two jolly juveniles like ourselves to pass a

night, just for once, on the floor of a fishing-boat.

'Upon the laughing wave below,

The stars are mirrored bright;

The mighty heights that frown around

Drink in the mists of night,'"

he sang, to an air of his own composing, his eyes turned upon the

mountains that lay hazy in the distance.

"You are welcome to my poor roof," responded Rossel, with gravity,

cordially shaking hands with the actor, whom he greatly esteemed, and

whose modesty caused him to hang back a little. "All the divans I

possess stand at your service; and of blankets, too, there is no lack.

I only hope, for your sake, that you have already satisfied the grosser

wants of the body. Our daily supply of provisions is exhausted, and

there is no attendant spirit at hand whom I could send to the neighbors

in quest of aid. I have only old Katie out here, and she--"

"Does she still live, that venerable virgin with the silver locks, who

thinks how she might have had children, and grandchildren, and shakes

her head?" cried the battle-painter. "Come, Elfinger, it behooves us to

go and offer our homage to the lady and mistress of the house."

"You will have to curb your impatience until morning, my dear Rosebud;

the old woman has taken it into her head to relieve the loneliness of

the long winter out here on the lake by making _Enzian schnapps_, and

diligently devotes herself the whole summer long to the consumption of

her own manufacture, so that she is good for nothing after eight

o'clock. The most tender flute-serenade would not wake her from her

deathlike Enzian sleep. Were it not that she is reasonably sober during

the day, is a good cook, and is as faithful as an old dog, I would have

sent her to the hospital long ago."

In the mean time, Rosenbusch had paid off and sent away the boatman,

whom he never spoke of except as the "Fergen," and now rushed up the

steps to the balcony, where, with a merry jodel he threw himself into a

chair, and drank the health of the others from Kohle's half-filled

glass.

"'Well for the rich and happy house,

That counts such gift but small!'"

he cried. "Long life to you, dear _Westoestlicher_. Truly, Rossel, there

are moments when I acknowledge and honor the old proverb, 'Wisdom is

good, especially with an inheritance.' If I could call a spot of earth

like this mine, I myself would try to be as wise as you, and no longer

assist at the decline of modern art. But no; after all, I couldn't

stand doing nothing but feeding my white-mice and giving myself up to

intellectual laziness. However, enough of this. Out here is truce and

neutral territory, and I know what I owe to hospitality."

"Since you began it yourself," said Rossel, with a smile, "I have a

single favor to ask of you. I have a number of song-birds in my garden,

and I am afraid you will drive them from me if you give a loose rein to

your baleful passion for music. They will acknowledge your superior

genius, and shrink from competition. If you positively must play, row

out upon the lake. There is a southwest wind which will waft the

strains across to the castle over opposite, where they will do no

harm."

"So be it," responded the battle-painter, with great seriousness;

"though, in any case, we shan't burden you with our presence very long.

For, to-morrow--" He broke off, for Elfinger gave him a warning look.

In the meanwhile, Kohle had hastened down into the cellar, and now

returned with a few slim bottles and the wine-cooler, which he had

filled afresh with ice.

He had not yet spoken a word; but his whole face beamed with an inner

content such as he seldom exhibited. The thought of the bare walls

inspired him as the happiness of a secret love does others. Meantime,

Elfinger had descended again to the bank, from which a little path led

to a bathing-house. Soon his friends who had remained behind saw him

swim out into the lake, his black, curly bead rising out of the silver

path of the moonlight, "like the head of the Baptist on Herodias's

charger," said Koble. "Except that he feels himself much better off

than that poor devil," remarked Rosenbusch, who was comfortably

drinking and smoking. "You must know that we wouldn't have had the

absurd idea of making a pilgrimage out here on Saturday evening, in

company with the whole population of Munich, had not our sweethearts

shown us the way. Papa Glovemaker has permitted them to visit a Frau

godmother, who is staying in Starnberg for the summer. We had no sooner

gotten wind of this, through a trusty go-between, than we very

naturally made up our minds that we could find no better place to spend

to-morrow than here. Of course, we have taken care to make arrangements

for meeting to-morrow. We are going to take you with us as guard of

honor, Philip Emanuel. It is to be hoped you have no objections to the

plan?"

"Not the slightest," responded Koble, good-naturedly. "Of course, the

Frau godmother will fall to my share."

"And how about Elfinger's sweetheart? Is that little bride of heaven

also in the conspiracy?" asked Fat Rossel, who was sitting in his

rocking-chair again.

"Nothing certain is known about that; but, at all events, our friend

builds great hopes upon this favor of fortune, which will permit him,

for the first time, to pass several hours in the company of his

darling. Only think; we also succeeded, a short time since, in finding

out what it really is that has disgusted the good child with the world,

and that is driving her into the convent by main force."

He cast a look upon the lake, as though he were measuring the distance

between the balcony where they sat and the swimmer in the water.

"If you will keep close about it, I will tell you the secret," he

continued, in a low voice. "After all, it only does honor to the poor

girl that she wants to take the sins of others on her own shoulders,

and do penance for them all her life long. Papa Glove-maker, you must

know, appears to have been by no means such a very long-faced character

in his youth, but, on the contrary, to have led a pretty wild life, and

to have been mixed up in scrapes that were not always of a particularly

edifying nature. However, he married young, and soon after this event

there came a mission of Jesuits to the city, or to some place in the

neighborhood--on this subject the records are silent--and the young

sinner, who had already had ample opportunity for repentance in his

marriage relations, allowed his conscience to be shaken to such an

extent by the priests that he suddenly took a fancy to retire almost

entirely from the world, neglected his business so that he almost

reduced himself to beggary, and practically separated himself from his

young wife. He had long lost her love, for which he did not seem to

care; but this was not the worst. Devoted to his vigils and penances,

he is said to have known of and condoned an intimacy which she soon

after formed with a young landscape-painter, who lived for a long time

in the house. The birth of a little girl, who was named Fanny, ended

this relation; but, even then, the friendship shown for the artist did

not at once cease. He stood as the child's godfather; and every year

afterward he continued, although he had removed from Munich, to make a

visit to the house on little Fanny's birthday. It was soon obvious,

however, that Herr Glove-maker's views had changed; that he viewed him

with less and less favor each time that he appeared; and that a crisis

was approaching. And so, on one of these birthdays, when the girl had

already begun to think for herself a little, there must have been a

scene between her three elders, which was overheard by the unfortunate

young creature. A sudden revelation came upon her, that terribly

darkened and shattered her innocent spirit, so that she grew

introspective and melancholy--and perhaps she had some spiritual

adviser who was always giving her new fancies, and painting the terrors

of the hereafter in stronger colors. Nanny, our informant says, knows

nothing of the whole horrible business; and Fanny used to be just such

another merry creature. If this melancholy idea did not so weigh upon

her--that she must do penance for the sins of her parents--she would be

as healthy, bright, and warm-blooded as her younger sister. Since

Elfinger has learned this family secret, he has gained new hopes of

turning this little bride of heaven back from the cloister. But it will

hardly succeed; and if he doesn't use heroic remedies--"

He didn't finish his sentence; for just then his friend, refreshed by

his bath, came running up the steps; and now, with an obvious sense of

comfort, but with the rather quiet manners habitual to him, gave

himself up to the enjoyment of the wine. Kohle, too, spoke only in

monosyllables, so that Rosenbusch and Rossel had to bear the burden of

the conversation. Moreover, as the day had been hot, and as they all

really needed rest, the bottles were soon emptied, and the airy spot on

the bank of the lake deserted.

Upon entering the house, Kohle's first care was to light the candles.

Then he dragged out two woolen blankets from a wardrobe, where all

sorts of things were stored. While occupied with this work he allowed

his eyes to wander stealthily and tenderly over the long wall of the

little room, as if he were measuring off and taking possession of the

site of his future deeds. Two low, well-stuffed divans stood against

these walls, an old table occupied the centre, and over it hung a

chandelier with polished brass branches. The broad glass door of the

hall opened upon the lake, and no sound penetrated into this airy room

but the gentle murmur of the splashing waves, and a soft snoring from

the chamber near the kitchen where old Katie had her bed. After all the

doors had been shut and locked, even this nocturnal music was heard no

longer.

The two new guests had just stretched themselves out on their couches,

by way of experiment, and had wished their host good-night with a great

deal of laughter and joking, when they were roused again by a distant

ring at the park gate. Kohle hastily seized a light and ran out. Five

minutes after they heard him return; he was talking with some one whose

voice they none of them seemed to recognize. But, the moment they

entered, the three shouted as with one voice:

"Our baron! And so late at night!"

They had recognized Felix more from his figure and bearing than from

his features, though the light of the candle fell full upon his face;

for it looked wan and transformed as if by some severe illness. His

eyes, roaming restlessly about the room, had a piercing, feverish

glitter, so that his friends stormed him with questions as to whether

he was sick or had seen a ghost on his way through the wood.

He gave a forced laugh, passed his hand across his cold forehead, on

which great beads of perspiration were standing, and declared that he

had never felt better in his life, and that he was as proof against

ghosts as the babe unborn. In spite of all this, there was something

constrained in all his movements, and his voice sounded hoarse and

unnatural, as it often does when a person is laboring under great

excitement.

He told how he too had been unable to find quarters in Starnberg, and

had left the horse on which he had ridden out at the tavern, in order

to make the remaining half-hour's journey to Rossel's country-seat on

foot; and that, in trying to follow the rather confused directions

which had been given him, he had gone a good deal out of his way. It

was this that had reduced him to his present demoralized condition. But

he would not disturb them on any account, and only asked for a drop of

water and a corner where he could stretch himself out, for he was as

tired as a dog, and would be content even with a dog's kennel.

He drained off a large glass of wine at a single swallow, then, with

averted face, shook hands with his friends and made a few forced

jokes--something he never thought of doing when he was quite himself.

He flatly refused to accept of Kohle's offer to give up his bed to him,

but gladly consented to be led into the studio, where, by the aid of a

few blankets, a deer-skin, and a shawl, they succeeded in transforming

an old garden-bench into a very respectable bed. Then, without even

waiting for the others who had escorted him up-stairs to leave the

room, he threw himself down upon the couch--"already half in the other

world," he tried to say, jestingly, as he nodded good-night to the

others.

Shaking their heads, his friends left him. It was evident that this

late visit could be explained by no such innocent circumstances as had

occasioned that of the two who had preceded him. But, while they were

still standing outside the door exchanging remarks about Felix's

singular condition, they learned from the deep breathing within that

the object of their anxiety had fallen fast asleep.

CHAPTER III.

The clear song of the birds awoke him while it was still in the gray of

the morning, and not a sound could be heard in the house below.

The tops of the pine-trees, seen through the broad studio-window,

recalled to his mind where he was, and how and why he had strayed

thither.

In the afternoon he had met the lieutenant, whom he had not seen before

for a week, although he had zealously frequented all the places where

Schnetz was generally to be found. He knew that Irene had left the city

with her uncle. In his dull consternation upon learning this in reply

to an indirect inquiry at the hotel, he had not even inquired in which

direction they had gone. She had fled from him, that he knew; his mere

silent presence sufficed to frighten her away, to make the town in

which he lived distasteful to her. Whither had she fled? To Italy, as

she had at first planned?--to the east or to the west? What did it

matter to him, since he dared not follow her? Nor did he really care to

make any inquiries of Schnetz, who undoubtedly knew all about it. And

yet he was eager to see the only human being who might possibly give

him news of her. And when at last he encountered him in the street,

after a day of depression and brooding, on which he had not even seen

Jansen and had neglected his work, his heart beat so fast and his face

flushed so deeply that it seemed as if his unsuspecting friend could

not help reading all his secret thoughts in his eyes. And it really did

so happen that the very first words which Schnetz ejaculated, in reply

to Felix's inquiry as to how he was, had reference to the fugitives.

Things went wretchedly with him. He had hoped to be rid of his serfdom

and slavery to woman, now that his whimsical little princess had gone

off with her servile valet of an uncle! Vain idea! The chain which held

him now reached as far as Starnberg, and only an hour ago he had felt

himself jerked by it in anything but a gentle way. A note from the

uncle summoned him to come out in all haste on the following day.

Visits had been announced for Sunday from all manner of youthful _haute

voles_, noble cousins and their followers; but the old lion-hunter had

previously accepted an invitation to a shooting-match at Seefeld, which

it would be quite impossible for him to escape, and his niece, poor

child, who, for some reason or other, was daily growing paler and more

nervous in the country air, felt herself quite incapable of doing the

honors of the little villa without the assistance of a zealous and

active cavalier. Consequently, Schnetz was her last hope, and he could

assure him of Irene's kindest welcome, and of his own eternal gratitude

if he would come and be her knight! "You will readily understand, my

dear baron," concluded the grumbling cavalier, slapping his high boots

with his riding-whip, "that there are moral impossibilities which

prevent the slave from breaking his chain. But to the hundred times I

have already cursed this Algerian camp-friendship, I have added to-day

the one hundred and first. It is true, I certainly have a certain

curiosity to see how this 'kindest welcome' of her proud little

highness will seem. You know I have a secret weakness for this gracious

little tyrant of mine. But it is asking a great deal of me to expect

that I should bear with her whims and humors for a whole day. Pity me,

happy man! you who are free from all service, and receive no other

orders than those which come from the genius of art."

His speech had been long enough for Felix to think of some appropriate

and sufficiently cheerful answer.

"You are terribly mistaken, my dear friend," he said, "if you think I

wear no chain. Art, do you say? She is a gracious mistress to him alone

who has gotten so far as to be able to rule her while he serves her.

But, as for a wretched beginner and blunderer to whom she has not yet

given her little finger to kiss, no raftsman or woodsman in the

mountains groans under such a load. A thousand times I ask myself

whether it was not, after all, a piece of folly for me, at my time of

life, to join the scholars who are learning her first A B C; and

whether I shall not discover to my horror, after the lapse of many

weary years, that all this precious time has been thrown out of the

window of Jansen's studio. It is certainly large enough for such a

purpose."

"Hm!" growled the tall lieutenant. "You are singing a bad song to an

old tune. Nowhere do you come across existences that are failures, more

frequently than in a city of art like this. It's so damned seductive to

go singing--

'Free, ah, free, is the life we lead,

A life filled full of pleasure--'

and yet, what you say is quite right--he who cannot rule art, him she

oppresses; and that to a worse degree than does any duty of life. You,

as I know you, don't seem to me quite in your proper place. Both of us

ought to have come into the world a few centuries earlier; and then I,

as a leader of bandits, after the manner of Castruccio Castracani, and

you, as a politician of the old energetic and unscrupulous stamp,

might not have cut a bad figure. But now, all we can do is to help

ourselves as best we can. Now let me tell you something. You have been

over-excited, and have lost your spirits. Come out to the lake with me

to-morrow. I will introduce you to her young highness. Perhaps you will

fall in love with her and find favor in her eyes, and then our little

princess and both of us would be made happy at one stroke."

Felix shook his head with increasing embarrassment. "He was not the man

for such company," he said, in a stammering voice; "Schnetz would get

little honor by introducing him. He couldn't swear that he wouldn't go

out to the lake. He certainly did stand in great need of a change of

air. But, unfortunately, he could be of no use to him in entertaining

his countesses, baronesses, and young nobles."

With these words they had shaken hands and parted.

But no sooner did Felix find himself alone than his passionate grief

and his old yearning came upon him with such force that he threw all

his resolutions to the winds, and thought only how he could be near her

once more. The evening train did not leave for some hours. It would be

impossible to wait for it, or to pass the intervening time in any

civilized fashion. He hired a horse and mounted, dressed just as he

was, and left the town at a sharp trot, without giving notice at his

own house of his intended absence, or even taking leave of Jansen.

His horse was none of the best, and was somewhat tired from having been

in use before that day. Consequently he was soon obliged to moderate

his speed, and had only accomplished half his journey, when the train

whirled by him. But he was not at all sorry to have to take the last

part of the way at a walk. The nearer he approached his goal, the more

conflicting became his feelings. What object had he in coming here at

all? He knew that she avoided him, and that she would unquestionably

leave this retreat too, if she should form but the slightest suspicion

that he was following her, and seeking an opportunity to meet her

again. And in what a light must he himself, his pride, his sense of

delicacy, appear to her, unless he carefully avoided even the

appearance of trying to intrude himself upon the peace that she had won

with such difficulty? If she could do without him, ought he to show how

painful it still was for him to do without her?

He reined up his horse so sharply that the animal stood still,

trembling. All around him were solitary woods, and the road that ran by

the side of the railway was utterly deserted. He sprang off, threw the

reins over the horse's neck, and threw himself on his back at the side

of road, on the thick, dry moss, which sent out a cloud of fragrant

dust into the heated air.

Here he lay; and if his manliness had not forbidden him, he would have

liked nothing better than to relieve himself by a flood of burning

tears, like a helpless, unhappy child, to whom some one has shown its

favorite plaything and then taken it away again. Instead of yielding to

such girlish weakness, he strengthened and stilled his rebellious heart

with that defiant spirit which is the man's form of this youthful

feebleness. He gnashed his teeth, cast threatening glances up at the

tree-tops and the blue dome of the sky, and behaved himself generally

in a way so boyish, and so unworthy of the great statesman that Schnetz

believed he had detected in him, that even his horse, hearing his wild,

disconnected words, and the strange gnashing and raving by which they

were accompanied, looked up in amazement from his grazing, and turned

his head toward his rider with an expression of silent pity. "Is it any

fault of mine," he raved to himself, "that a ridiculous accident has

brought her to the very spot where I was on the point of beginning a

new life? Must I fly before her, like a fool, the moment this absurd

fate brings her near me again? The world is surely large enough for us

both; and yet now, though she knows why I have pitched my tent in this

particular place, she persists in haunting the immediate neighborhood,

so that I can't take a step outside the gates without running the risk

of meeting her. What am I saying? Why, I do not dare even to go out to

the lake! I am to be cut off from light and air, and left to smother in

the Munich dust! In other words, I am to condemn myself to perpetual

imprisonment for a crime of which I do not even repent. No! I owe

something to myself as well. Why shouldn't I show that I have put the

whole affair behind me once for all, and go on living as though certain

eyes were no longer in the world? Cannot one person ignore another?

Shall it last forever, this fear of ghosts? As if one couldn't go

around a street corner without meeting a dead and buried love!"--he

sprang up suddenly, smoothed his hair, and brushed the dust from his

coat--"and though her eyes should look down upon me from every window

in Starnberg," he cried, "I will ride through the town and laugh at all

these apparitions!"

So he swung himself into the saddle again, and rode over the few

remaining miles of his journey at a sharp trot. When at last a blue

strip of the lake sparkled through the tree-tops, and the houses of the

town came into view, a gray, starlit twilight had already settled down;

so that, after all, he could ride through the streets between the rows

of lighted windows, without any fear of being recognized.

Nevertheless, it was almost a relief to him when, upon inquiry at all

of the three inns, he was told that no room could be had for the night.

He thought at once of Rossel's little country house, of which he had

often heard his friends speak. As the way was described to him, he

could still arrive there in good time, and before his friends had gone

to bed. So he contented himself with a hasty drink after his sultry

ride through the woods, handed over his animal to a hostler, who

promised to take good care of it, and got under way again.

He had not had the heart to inquire for Irene's villa, though he had

thought for a moment of doing so--only that he might avoid it all the

more surely. But he did not allow her name to pass his lips. Clinching

his teeth, he went his way, past the garden fences and walls. The warm

night had enticed every living thing out into the open air. Under the

vines and in the summer-houses, on garden-benches and on balconies, old

and young sat, walked, and stood; and here and there one could hear the

clear but subdued sound of girlish laughter, as it suddenly burst forth

from whispered conversations or deep silence, like a rocket that starts

instantly from a humble fire-work into the dark heaven of night. Some

one was playing a cither, to which a man's voice sang a low

accompaniment; from another house a full soprano voice sang Schubert's

Erl King, to the loud music of a piano; and from yet another was heard

a violin concerto, with a clarionet _obbligato_. All harmonized as well

as the different voices of the birds in the woods, for the sounds were

softened and melted into one another by the sultry night air.

Involuntarily Felix stood still and listened.

As chance would have it, his eyes rested on a little house from which

came no sound of song or music, and which was overhung with exquisite

roses, while tall hollyhocks nodded over the garden-fence. In the upper

story was a room with a balcony, lit by a hanging-lamp. The door stood

wide open, but the brightly-lighted apartment beyond seemed to be quite

empty. Of a sudden, just as the clarionet was playing a solo, a shadow

entered the bright frame made by the balcony door. A slender, womanly

figure stood on the threshold for a moment, then stepped out in full

view and leaned over the balustrade. Her features could not be clearly

distinguished from the street, and the watcher below still hesitated to

believe his beating heart. But now the shadow moved, and turned its

face toward the bright door, as if some one in the room had called to

it. For a minute or two the outline of a clear-cut profile could be

seen sharply defined against the background of light. It was she!--his

beating heart had known her sooner than his open eyes; and now it beat

all the more wildly as the apparition disappeared into the room again

as quickly as it had come. So this was the place! Now he knew it--now

he could mark the house well, so that he might always carefully avoid

it by a wide _detour_. He trembled all over, and his feet would not at

first obey him, when he tried to tear himself away and continue his

wandering. In his excitement he missed the road that runs along by the

lake, and followed the side-road leading to the Seven Springs. It was

only when he reached that spot, and found himself in the midst of a

swampy thicket, that he became aware of his mistake. Then, with the

stars for his guides, he began to search his way back again. But once

more he lost the right track; the sweat rolled down his forehead. With

laboring breast he forced his way through the thick underbrush; and,

panting like a wounded stag, succeeded in reaching a glade from which

he could see the railway, and over beyond it, through the tree-tops,

the broad surface of the lake, glittering in the moonlight. A signalman

whom he met put him upon his way again. He saw that he had already gone

far beyond his goal, and his anxiety lest he should disturb his friend

by coming to him at so late an hour, quickened his steps. Thus it was

that he reached Edward's in the state in which we have already seen

him.

But the strength of his youth pulled him through all his troubles

overnight. He awoke in the morning with all his senses refreshed from

those bright dreams with which the soul, healing silently as her wont

is, had striven to restore her shaken balance. Nor did this bright

cheerfulness of the morning desert him when he was fully awake, and was

forced to admit that matters stood no better with him to-day than on

the day before. A feeling of courage made the blood course warmly

through his veins: a secret delight in life, and a quiet confidence

which he could not altogether destroy, and which was very different

from the boastful courage of the previous day. He opened the window and

stood for a long time breathings in the fresh fragrance of the firs.

Then he stepped before the easel, on which stood Kohle's cartoon

representing the first scene of his legend of Venus, a plan of which,

sketched in hasty outlines on a long roll of paper, lay near by. Felix

was enough of an artist to appreciate this singular conception, even

without an explanation; and, in his present romantic and excited state,

it attracted him wonderfully. He seated himself on the wooden stool

before the easel, and became absorbed in the contemplation of this

first sheet, which was now almost completed. The beautiful goddess,

leading her boy by the hand, had stepped half out of the shadow of a

wild and overgrown gorge, and was gazing wonderingly toward a city

which could be seen perched on a distant height, with Gothic

battlements and towers. A river, which wound around the base of the

hill, was spanned by a quaint old bridge, over which moved a long train

of merchants with heavily-laden wagons, accompanied by a few travelers.

A little further in the background was a shepherd-boy, stretched out on

the grass by the side of his flock, playing a reed pipe and gazing

dreamily up at the fleecy summer clouds. The figures were sharply and

almost harshly outlined, but there was a certain dignity in the whole,

that aided in heightening the fantastic charm of the conception, and

in holding the thoughts of the observer aloof from the realities of

every-day life.

Felix was still lost--as if in a second morning dream--in the

contemplation of this fairy world, when he heard a cautious step creep

up the narrow stairway, and stop at his door. He cried "come in," and

could not help laughing when he caught sight of Kohle's honest face

peering in with an expression as if he feared to find a man in the last

stages of illness. Upon his informing his amazed friend that he was in

excellent health, and that the picture of the goddess had probably

worked this miracle, the artist's features lighted up, and he began,

bright morning as it was, to speak of his work in the same spirit of

high-strung enthusiasm in which he had fallen asleep the night before,

and to give his explanation of the sketches, which, when unrolled,

extended across the whole breadth of the studio. Then the fact that

Rossel had given him leave to make use of the walls of the dining-room,

and had even offered to assist in the painting, had to be communicated

to Felix. Then, at last, he told him about the others; how they had

risen long ago, and, without waiting for breakfast, had started off for

Starnberg--Rosenbusch on matters connected with their love affairs,

and in order to make arrangements for effecting a meeting in the

afternoon; while Elfinger, who was passionately fond of fishing, had

gone to a trout-brook near the Seven Springs, with whose owner he was

acquainted--for he insisted upon contributing his share to the day's

dinner. The master of the house himself never made his appearance

before nine or ten o'clock. He was in the habit of taking his

breakfast, and of smoking and reading, in bed; declaring that even then

the day was much too long for him not to shorten it by any legitimate

stratagem.

But Kohle had not yet finished what he was saying when the stairs once

more began to creak, this time under a slower and more ponderous tread.

Contrary to his usual habit, Fat Rossel had turned out early, in order

to make inquiries concerning Felix's condition. He had not even taken

time to complete his toilet, but came in his dressing-gown, his bare

feet thrust into his slippers. He was perceptibly relieved when Felix,

looking fresh and bright again, advanced to meet him and shook his

hand, really touched that his anxious friend should have sacrificed his

comfort for his sake.

"There are good fellows still left in this wretched world," he cried;

"and I should be a villain indeed to make their lives uncomfortable. It

is true, my friends, all within and about me is not just as it should

be. But whoever shall see me drawing down the corners of my mouth and

making a long face to-day, let him call me a Nazarene and break his

maulstick over my back."

Rossel nodded his head thoughtfully at these words, for this sudden

change in the young man's mood did not appear quite natural to him;

however, he did not say a word, but seated himself on the stool before

the easel--having first laid a pillow on it--in order to study Kohle's

designs.

"Hm--hm! So--so! Fine--fine!" were the only critical remarks which he

uttered for the space of a quarter of an hour. Then, however, he began

to go into details, and, as he did so, all the strange traits of his

nature came into view.

For, just as his own fancy was inexhaustible in raising buds that never

bore fruit, so too, in regard to the works of others, he had gradually

lost the faculty of patiently following the slow maturing of a thought

in accordance with the inherent laws and quiet workings of Nature. For

young people especially he was dangerous, for he first excited them

powerfully, and led them in a perfect reel through a world of artistic

problems; and then, the moment they went to work in earnest upon a

particular task, his keenness and superior knowledge disgusted them

with the subject they had taken up, by demonstrating to them a variety

of other ways and methods in which the theme might be treated even more

happily. Then, if they decided to destroy what they had begun, and

begin anew according to one of the ways suggested, they found

themselves no better off than before, since the one decisive and final

solution always receded farther and farther into unattainable distance.

In this way they lost all disposition to strike out boldly and

energetically; became hair-splitters and theorists after the style of

their master; or, if they did not possess enough mind or money for

this, they gave themselves up in their desperation to mere mechanical

work, which they pursued in secret, taking good care never to knock

again at the door of their former oracle with a question about art.

"There is no one who sees into a picture, or out of it again, as

quickly as Rossel," Jansen had once said, and Felix now had an

unusually good opportunity of observing the force of this remark, in

the manner in which Rossel examined Kohle's designs. For since, in this

case, the critic was himself to lend a helping hand, his fancy was even

more active than usual in rearranging what had been done, in order that

it might, as far as possible, appropriate the picture to itself. How

the light effect was to be arranged for every picture, what problems of

color would enter into the question, how Giorgione would probably have

composed the background, and what effect it would have if, for

instance, the whole first scene should be transposed from broad day

into evening twilight--all these questions were weighed in the most

serious fashion; while all the while the position of the figures, the

way in which the space was divided, and the landscape, were so

mercilessly changed about, that finally the new conception of the work

had scarcely anything in common with the original plan, except the mere

subject.

Nor was even this last point to be regarded as definitely settled, but

was merely to be looked upon as a basis for further consideration. But,

while Kohle's face kept growing longer and more anxious, that of his

fellow-laborer beamed with growing satisfaction. Every muscle in it

quivered with intellectual life, and his black eyes flashed with

genuine enthusiasm from beneath his white forehead. When finally he

rose, he extended his arms above his head and cried:

"There is nothing finer than a good work which has been taken hold of

at the right end. You shall see, Kohle--the thing will go. I take such

pleasure in it that I would begin to-day--at once, if it didn't happen

to be Sunday and I had not, before all things, to play the attentive

host. However, you will have quite enough to do in making the changes

in the cartoon. In the meanwhile I will assist my household dragon in

composing a bill of fare--a thing which will take more thought, let me

tell you, than even our dame Venus."

As soon as he had gone the two looked at one another, and Felix could

not help bursting into a loud laugh, in which poor Kohle joined--at

least with a pathetic smile.

"Now you see what comes of being too wise about anything," said he,

regarding his sketch with a sigh. "When, in my stupidity, I went

straight on following my _certa idea_, or even my nose, something

came of it at all events. But after these criticisms, which were,

by-the-way, all excellent and capital and appropriate, I am afraid the

whole thing will go to the deuce again! If it were not for the

beautiful wall down stairs I would tell him candidly that so ill-mated

a span--as ill-matched as an ox and horse--would never drag the plough

very far. Better to let the lean horse do the work alone, even though

the furrows should not be quite so smooth. Alas, alas, alas! My poor

dame Venus!"

CHAPTER IV.

Nevertheless, the creative instinct was too powerful in him to let his

depression at the interference of this eternal waverer affect him long,

or sap his strength. In the very midst of his upbraiding, after he had

angrily thrown the first sheet into a corner, he took a second frame of

card-board, and began to sketch the scene where the homeless beauty,

with her naked boy, is standing at the gate of the convent, surrounded

by the staring nuns, whose looks and attitudes express doubt and

suspicion. Felix threw himself on his couch again, and lay smoking,

rarely throwing in a word, as he watched every movement of the other's

hand. The proximity of this man, who was self-reliant, so humble, and

yet so constantly striving at some lofty aim, exercised a singularly

soothing influence upon Felix's restless soul. He confessed this, when

Kohle began to express surprise that any one should leave the town,

head over heels in this way, and rush into the country, in order, when

he arrived there, to shut himself up in a sunless garret room, and look

on while a man painfully trundled his barrow over a hard road, toward a

goal of art which is generally supposed to have long since been left

behind.

"My dear Kohle," he said, "only let me stay here. I should like very

much to learn something from you which would be of more benefit to me

than a walk or a bath in the lake--namely, your art of knowing just

what you want, and of wanting nothing which you cannot have. Was this

art born in you, or have you gradually acquired it, and paid your

instruction-fee for it, as for other arts?'

"The best part of it is inborn," answered Kohle, quietly going on with

his sketching. "You must know that I came into this world as poor as a

church-mouse, and endowed with so small a proportion of all the goods

and gifts that fall to the share of so-called fortunate mortals, the

first-born and favorite children of Mother Nature, that, in my boyhood,

I had little pleasure in life, and would have parted with it very

cheaply. But then I discovered that I possessed something which

out-weighed all the glittering treasures in the world--such as beauty,

wealth, wit, or great intellect. I mean the ability to dream with my

eyes wide open, and to interpret my dreams for myself. The actual

world, with its joys and splendors, was as good as closed against a

poor devil like myself. How could such a wretched creature as this

Philip Emanuel Kohle, this lean, yellow ragamuffin in poor clothes, who

stumbled awkwardly through the world, and who could neither fascinate

women nor impress men, have the impudence to take his place at the

bounteous table at which the children of fortune felt at home? So I

held myself aloof, and earnestly and zealously set to work to evolve a

second world from my dreams--one which belonged to me, and from which

no one could bid me depart--a world which was far more beautiful,

sublime, and perfect, than the actual world about me. And as I

wasted no time or strength on anything else--neither in wretched

money-getting, nor in foolish ambition, nor even in hopeless love

affairs--my nature grew up straight and true, and in the greatest

development of which it was capable, which is by no means the case with

every one; and I could not help laughing in my sleeve, when I noticed

that I passed among my friends for a simpleton and a narrow-minded

fool. The truth is, my simpleness was the very thing that contributed

most to my secret contentment, when I saw how seldom the manifold

desires and restless striving of others led to happiness. '_Chi troppo

abbraccia, nulla stringe_,' say the wise Italians. I embrace nothing

but my art; but I embrace it the more passionately because it exists

for me alone. There you have the whole secret. There is a juster

apportionment of good and evil in this world than we are willing to

admit in our hours of depression."

Felix was silent. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he envied

him. Yet he felt at once how thoroughly right this quiet man was in his

last assertion. He felt that he would not, for all the peace in the

world, have given up his own miserable condition; for, at the same time

that it gave him the keenest anguish, it brought with it the certainty

that so charming a creature as his lost love was still in the world,

and had been brought so painfully near to him again.

When noon came, they were called down into the garden by the

white-haired old woman, who, in her sober moments, was a most excellent

and active servant. The table was laid in a shady arbor near the house.

Rosenbusch and the actor had returned from their different expeditions;

the latter with a basket full of excellent trout, and the other

with a face which showed plainly enough that he too had not come

back unsuccessfully but had gained all he had promised himself from

his morning walk. He was in full gala-dress, consisting of his

violet-colored velvet coat, a white waistcoat, and a gigantic Panama

hat, beneath which his hair and his red beard, which had been shorn to

so little purpose, had already begun to sprout again. His honest,

merry, handsome face was radiant with good-humor; and as Elfinger did

his best to be entertaining, and Felix to make up for the alarm he had

occasioned on the previous day, the meal was enlivened by all sorts of

jollity and good stories.

Nor was there, for that matter, any lack of more substantial dainties;

and Kohle, who had voluntarily taken upon himself the office of butler,

ran out every few minutes to fetch up another dusty bottle; for Rossel,

who was a light drinker himself, had a sort of passion for collecting

the rarest brands of wine in his cellar, if only a small supply of

each. It was not long before the programme which had been prepared for

the afternoon leaked out. They proposed to row over to Starnberg in

Rossel's pretty little boat, to land there, and then, while strolling

along the shore, to encounter, as if by pure accident, the two sisters,

who were to go out with their aunt, under the pretext of taking a walk.

Then, upon a polite invitation, they were all to get into the boat

again together, and be rowed out upon the lake, in whichever direction

circumstances and the mood of the moment might suggest.

Rossel pronounced this plan to be very wisely conceived, but flatly

refused to take part in it. He had an aversion, founded on principle,

to all pic-nics, especially where there were ladies whom one was

obliged to treat with politeness and consideration, relinquishing to

them the most comfortable places and the daintiest morsels. For lovers

this was no sacrifice, since they could indemnify themselves in other

ways. But such a restraint could not be imposed upon free and

independent natures without great injustice. He would, therefore,

remain at home until the day grew cooler, and study Regis's translation

of Rabelais, which he had long had in mind to illustrate. Toward

evening he would stroll into the wood in order to take a look at his

mushroom-bed; for he had made it his especial task to forward the

culture of the mushroom in the woods about Starnberg, as well as the

general improvement and introduction of all edible fungi. Then, when

they came home late at night, intoxicated with sour beer and sweet

words, a supper should await them that would be "worth the toil of

princes."

Felix, too, would gladly have remained behind. But there was no way for

him to do this without betraying his secret. And, besides, what else

could he do to quiet his secret yearning--since it was impossible for

him to approach her by daylight? He secretly consoled himself by the

thought that, when they returned, late in the evening, he would creep

to the garden-fence again, and watch the bright room leading off the

balcony.

Philip Emanuel Kohle's feeble attempt to excuse himself, because of his

bashfulness in ladies' society, was clamorously voted down. As he was,

moreover, the only one of the party who carried a chart of the lake in

his head, he could not find it in his heart to desert his friends.

There was a thunder-storm in the air, but it looked as though it had

come to a halt in the west, and would pass off harmlessly. The sky was

dark and lowering, and the lake was as smooth as a mirror, when the

light but roomy boat shot out of the little bay. Rossel stood on the

shore, waving his handkerchief and fez. Kohle sat at the tiller,

Elfinger rowed, and Rosenbusch, as they glided along past the green

banks, took advantage of the permit Rossel had given him, to play upon

his flute some of his most pastoral melodies--doubly melting this time,

for he was on his way to his sweetheart's side, and to Heaven knows

what romantic adventures.

CHAPTER V.

They had scarcely landed at the end of the lake when they saw in the

distance the three figures they were looking for, strolling slowly

along the road that circled the shore. When within hailing distance,

the prearranged farce of a chance meeting and recognition was played

with the utmost seriousness, and it was impossible to detect, from the

godmother's manner, whether she had accepted a _role_ in the comedy, or

whether she innocently believed that the two gentlemen who lived

opposite the sisters in the city had merely seized this opportunity to

exchange a word or two with their lovely neighbors for the first time.

The girls bore themselves in accordance with their respective

characters--the elder quiet and sparing of words, the younger gay and

coquettish even to audacity. They were dressed charmingly, and indeed

almost elegantly; but Fanny wore dark ribbons, while Nanny's little hat

was adorned with a red rose and trimmings of the same color. The

battle-painter had warned the good Kohle at the dinner-table against

the godmother, as a pious creature, enthusiastic about art and

notorious for enticing into her net innocent young painters of a

serious turn of mind. But she was, in fact, a pleasant little soul

enough, far on in the thirties. She had lost her husband, a well-to-do

confectioner, shortly after their marriage, and was fond of protesting,

with many sighs, that she never, never could forget him. A Gothic

temple, made of sugar and adorned with numerous figures of saints,

which he had made for their marriage, as a sort of triumph of his art,

still stood in a state of good preservation under a glass case upon her

sideboard. Nevertheless rumor said of her that she had not always

harshly repulsed the numerous offers she had received as a widow,

though she had been too wise to give the slightest cause for public

gossip. Certain ecclesiastical gentlemen, who were in the habit of

going in and out of her house, gave her the best certificate of

character; and though she did not close her door to young artists, she

took care to see that they were proper, respectable people, who painted

church pictures with long robes, and did not wear their shirt-collars

after the fashion of too erratic genius; and that they held aloof from

all pagan theories of art. To this godly way of life she owed it that

her own godmother, the glove-maker's wife, had trusted her with "the

children" for a day, although some malicious people pretended to think

that to go gadding into the country was not exactly the thing for

well-preserved widows.

She was quite modestly dressed, but yet in such a way that her figure,

already somewhat inclined to _embonpoint_, was shown to the best

advantage. In her manner she kept a wise mean between the severe

dignity which a God-fearing woman of an uncertain age usually maintains

toward youthful giddiness, and a too free approval of the pranks that

danced through her godchild's head. At the same time she did not try to

keep the silent Felix from knowing that his slim, manly form had made

an impression on her; though she was wise enough to do it so slyly as

to give a motherly sort of aspect to her interest in him. It was only

when the ungrateful man, whose poor soul was quite unconscious of its

conquest, continued to walk at her side in complacent abstraction,

casting furtive glances all around to see whether he was running

directly in the way of her whom he must especially avoid--then only did

she withdraw her favor from him and bestow it upon the insignificant

Kohle, whom Rosenbusch had introduced to her as a painter of the

severest style, a disciple of the great Cornelius, and one whom she

needed only to make a better Christian in order to win in him a new

pillar of ecclesiastical art. Kohle submitted to it all with a most

patient smile, and really began to pay pronounced attention to this

stately creature as well as he knew how, merely that he might not seem

to stand in the way of the others' sport.

They had been strolling up and down the shore for about a quarter of an

hour in this way, when, as if without the slightest premeditation, the

proposal was made that they should take an excursion on the water; a

proposal which was accepted after a good deal of well-acted hesitation

on the part of the godmother, and much entreating and flattering and

coaxing on the part of the blonde Nanny.

Soon afterward the boat, with its merry freight, shot out upon the

sunny lake, rowed now by Felix, who had had occasion to exercise this

noble art on many waters of the Old World and the New. Kohle sat at the

tiller and thought only of his dame Venus, notwithstanding the nearness

of the beautiful art-enthusiast who was opposite him. The two pairs of

lovers occupied the middle seats, Elfinger gazing devotedly on the

lovely face of his neighbor, who let her little white hand trail

through the green water, and seemed to-day to enjoy the beauty of this

world with all her heart. She held a large sunshade over her head in

such a way that her companion might also profit by its shade; the first

favor she had ever bestowed upon him, and one which made its modest

recipient very happy. Her vivacious sister, on the other hand,

maintained that Rosenbusch's great hat was really a family straw-hat,

and could afford protection against sunstroke to a whole ship's crew.

She freely exposed her laughing face to the sun, bound a white

handkerchief to her sunshade, which she planted like a flagstaff

between herself and her adorer, and declared that she was looking

forward with great pleasure to the storm which was undoubtedly about to

burst forth and bury them all in the depths of the lake, with the

exception of those who could swim--swimming being a great passion of

her own. She also offered to save one of the others, only it must not

be Rosenbusch, whose velvet coat was too heavy, and would certainly

drag down its owner.

Aunt Babette--for this was the godmother's name--attempted now and then

to give her a reproving glance. But, as no one took the slightest

notice of this, she made up her mind to become young and worldly again

herself, particularly as the heat made all restraint doubly burdensome.

She unwound the lace shawl from her round shoulders, drew off her

gloves and untied her ribbons, so that she looked in her _neglige_

almost as young and certainly as full of life as the serious Fanny. She

laughed even louder than the two girls at the jests and tricks which

Rosenbusch displayed for their amusement. He was celebrated for his

power of mimicking the whirring of a quail, the cackling of a hen, and

the noise of a saw. He told long and ridiculous stories in different

dialects, and delivered a sermon, with the most solemn pulpit

utterance, in a senseless jargon which he gave out to be English. But

his great masterpiece was a pantomimic scene representing nuns praying

at their nightly devotions. To do this he bound a handkerchief round

his head, and wrapped himself up in a lady's cloak so that only his

eyes, the tip of his nose, and his hands-folded over his breast--were

left visible, and then began with hypocritical zeal and constant change

of expression to roll his eyes and nod his head and murmur over his

rosary, now as an antiquated, dozing nun, who kept dropping off to

sleep between her prayers; now as a deeply contrite and extravagantly

penitent sinner, and again as a well-to-do sister, grown gray in the

convent, who had long since learned to regard the matter from its

practical side, and refrained from unnecessary exertion, but strove

from time to time to keep up her spirits by taking a stolen pinch of

snuff.

This amateur exhibition had worked so irresistibly that even the worthy

godmother nearly lost her balance from laughter, and had to be

supported by Kohle; and it was only when the show had come to an end

that it seemed to strike the conscience of its mischievous author that

he might possibly have offended Elfinger's devout _fiancee_ by this

absurd parody. Whereupon, assuming an air of mock contrition, he begged

a thousand pardons of Fraeulein Fanny, while in secret he reckoned it as

a good work to have given her a foretaste of the joys that awaited her.

Then, as if in penance for his offense, he suddenly began to play the

"_O Sanctissima_" upon his flute, with such beauty and pathos that even

the wild Nanny grew serious, and began to sing a gentle accompaniment,

in which her sister joined.

It rang out sweetly over the lonely, brooding stillness of the lake, so

that they did not end with this first song, but followed each other

with their favorite airs.

Elfinger sang an excellent tenor, and took great pains to make his song

strike home to the heart of his lovely neighbor. The two rowers alone

were dumb, though they had drawn in their oars upon getting well out

upon the water. Kohle had no more voice than a crow, and Felix felt as

if his breast were encircled by the seven girdles of the legend.

As they floated along thus peacefully and quietly, a west wind sprung

up, and carried them unnoticed toward the opposite shore, where a

much-frequented garden-restaurant smiled on them from out the verdure

of a gently-sloping bank. Elfinger proposed that they should land here

and drink some coffee--a suggestion to which no one had an objection to

offer. And while they drifted slowly toward the shore he closed the

entertainment with a song which Rosenbusch had once written for one of

their feasts in "Paradise." It went to the tune of a popular melody,

and the author accompanied it skillfully on his flute.

CHAPTER VI.

While the few stanzas of the song were sung, they had approached so

close to the bank that the people in the garden, where a mixed Sunday

company was collected, could hear the flute, and could even catch the

words. Some of the guests had left their places in order to take a

nearer look at the musicians; and as Rosenbusch had a large circle of

acquaintances, he was enthusiastically greeted on all sides. With an

air of complacent self-importance, he conducted his lady, who was

suddenly overcome with fear lest she too might be recognized and

reported to her father, to the only table which was still unoccupied.

The others followed; Felix alone remained behind for a few minutes at

the boat to repair some trifling damage to the rudder.

Then, as he started after his friends, seeking them in the crowd from

table to table, until he finally caught sight of Nanny's coquettish

little hat with the red rose by the side of the white "family straw" of

her cavalier--what was it that made him suddenly stand still in the

scorching sun, with his eyes fixed upon a little summerhouse, in which

six persons were sitting about a round table?

It was the shadiest spot in the garden, and the party within had caused

it to be distinctly understood that they had no intention of admitting

any others, by occupying all the chairs that were still vacant with

their hats, umbrellas, and canes. Nearest the entrance, like a sentry,

sat the tall, lank figure of the lieutenant, in his well-known

riding-coat; and at his side a slender young lady with downcast eyes,

as if, in the midst of all this confused buzz and hum of conversation,

she were occupied only with her own thoughts.

Just then Schnetz addressed some remark to her, and she looked up and

let her glance wander over the garden. Thus it happened that her gaze

met that of the young man who was standing so conspicuously in the sun.

It is true, he instantly lowered his eyes; but he had already been

recognized, and could no longer think of retreating unnoticed. Besides,

at that very moment he felt himself touched on the arm by Kohle, who

had been up to the restaurant in the mean while to order coffee.

"What are you standing here for?" cried his busy friend. "Come and help

me entertain the Frau godmother, who is boring me to death with her

talk about the black Madonna in Altoetting, just from pure spite because

you play St. Anthony to her."

Felix stammered out a few unintelligible words and allowed himself to

be dragged away. The chair which they had reserved next to Aunt Babette

stood, fortunately, with its back toward the summer-house. But scarcely

had he seated himself in it when Rosenbusch began: "Have you seen our

lieutenant, baron? This respected amphibion is taking his dry day

to-day among the nobler fowl, and appears, to judge from his

disconsolate air, to be gazing with longing at our moist element. What

a joke it would be if I should go up and beg him to introduce me to the

old countess and the young baroness! The latter would probably remember

having met me at that _soiree_ at the Russian lady's, where you left me

to make love to her alone."

Whereupon he gave the girls and their godmother a detailed account of

the musical entertainment, and of his conversation with Irene. Little

Nanny, who had possibly been infected by some of papa's prejudices in

regard to art, should be made to understand how highly a battle-painter

is regarded in the highest social circles, and what an enviable

position would be accorded to her as his wife. But the lively girl did

not appear to form a very exalted idea of his success.

"Are you quite sure, Herr Rosenbusch," she said, "that they recognized

you again? The beautiful Fraeulein scarcely moved her head when you took

off your hat to her, as though she meant to say, 'You are undoubtedly

mistaken in the person, sir.'"

"It was merely her surprise, and a passing feeling of displeasure at

seeing me approach in such charming company. She may have attributed

too much meaning to the pretty speeches I made to her that night. These

high-born Fraeuleins are devilish sensitive, and for that reason I now

refrain from speaking to her. But why don't you go over and introduce

yourself to the ladies, my dear baron--you who have blue blood as well

as they?"

Just at this moment Schnetz, in all his lankness, stepped up to their

table and greeted the ladies with formal politeness, at the same time

shaking hands with his friends. The fact that he should meet Felix here

did not seem to strike him as strange.

"You happy mortals!" he growled out, biting his cigar, and pulling his

hat down lower over his forehead, while he withdrew a little distance

from the rest with Felix and Elfinger. "You all get on so capitally

together, and it does one good to hear you laugh so heartily; while we

are keeping up the usual sort of conventional twaddle, which consists,

upon my soul, in each one's saying nothing which the others could not

have said as well. They have just been wondering, behind my back, that

I should have anything whatever to do with you people, whom they look

upon as _mauvais genre_. A few artists and two pretty girls, at whose

papa's Madame the Countess buys her gloves--_quelle horreur!_ But the

ladies are not so bad; even the young countess, with the fixed dimples

in her highly-colored cheeks--by Heaven! little Fanny over there looks

ten times as much like a countess--even she is a good child, _au fond_,

and the right sort of a husband might still make something of her. But

as for that cousin of hers, to whom she is as good as engaged, and the

other young nobleman, with the imperial and the heavy manner--between

ourselves, he is dead in love with my little princess, who scarcely

honors him with a look--_tonnerre de Dieu!_ what nice specimens they

are of our high-born youth! And to think of my being condemned to go

about among them without treading on their toes! Thus are the sins of

the fathers visited upon the children! The first Schnetz who, whether

as marshal or hostler, helped an Agilolfinger into the saddle, has it

on his conscience that I, the unworthiest of his descendants, still

belong with the rest of them, hard as I try to make myself disagreeable

and even unbearable."

They agreed to meet again in the evening at Rossel's villa, and then

returned to their respective parties. But our friends soon grew

impatient of quietly sitting at table over their coffee. The

neighboring wood invited the lovers where they could be free from

chaperonage, and Aunt Babette was paying too close attention to an

exposition of art by the "interesting young man," as she called Kohle,

to take any heed of the fact that Rosebud and Nanny occasionally

disappeared from view entirely, while Fanny anxiously insisted upon not

getting out of sight of the others.

Felix soon lost himself in a lonely side-path. His heart was hot within

him, and wild plans chased one another through his brain. He realized

only too well that matters could not go on in this way; that this state

of indecision _after_ the decision would soon drive him to despair. If

the old world really was not large enough for him to avoid one woman

in, the ocean must separate them again, and this time forever. What he

was to do over there; how he could justify his resolution to Jansen, or

reconcile it with his choice of art as a profession, or with his own

pride, were questions which were still enveloped in darkness. But as

for tamely submitting, and allowing himself to be made a fool of by

capricious fortune, which seemed as if it had deliberately set itself

to work to bring the two lovers together on every possible occasion--to

this he would never consent!

Whether he himself had not played into the hands of chance a little,

yesterday, was a question he did not ask.

A distant peal of thunder, rolling toward him from the west, suddenly

roused him from these confused and bitter thoughts. The sky above the

tree-tops was still blue, but was overcast by that light, lead-colored

haze which precedes an approaching storm. There was no time to waste if

they wanted to get across the lake before the storm should break. For

already the air held its breath so utterly that not a leaf rustled on

the trees, and not even the note of a bird was heard. The lake, along

the banks of which Felix was hastening, was still unruffled by a breath

of wind; but its mid-waters were black with the reflection of the

heavy, low-hanging cloud that spread over the heaven like a gigantic

slab hewn from a single block of slate. Behind it, the bright sunlight

still glowed on the horizon, and the distant mountain chain shone out

in the delicate green of spring, as if bathed in eternal peace.

The approach of the storm had been observed by the people in the

garden, and most of the guests had been prudent enough to embark on the

steamboat which had just left, and was now half-way over to Starnberg.

But by the time Felix had joined his friends again it was too late for

them to choose this shorter way. Besides, Rossel's villa was a good

deal nearer than the Starnberg station, and Rosenbusch, who always had

his head full of adventures, was already dreaming of the improvised

quarters for the night, which should be prepared for the ladies in the

dining-room. He took very good care, however, not to give utterance to

these romantic projects, but merely urged a hasty departure, in order

that they might escape the rain.

When they reached the landing-place, they found Schnetz and his party

engaged in an annoying scene.

The young boatman who had rowed them over flatly refused to start on

the return trip, in view of the storm that threatened to break upon

them at any moment. The boat was too heavily loaded to get over the

water quickly, and his master had given him a bad pair of oars, the

good ones having been sent off with another boat early in the morning.

The gentlemen might offer him what they liked, but he would not make

the trip; he knew what he was saying, and what it meant "when the lake

and the sky came so near together."

One of the young gentlemen was addressing the lad--who was a

neatly-dressed young fellow, and wished, perhaps, to spare his Sunday

clothes--in rough and imperious tones, commanding him to obey without

further parley, and to leave the responsibility to them. The lake was

as smooth as a mirror, and there was so little wind that the storm

might very likely be an hour in reaching them. But when, upon the

boatman's remaining obstinate, he tried to wrench the oar from the

defiant fellow's hand, saying that, if a lout like him had no pluck, he

might at least get out of the way and take himself to the devil--all

the man's pent-up fury and insulted _amour propre_ burst out; with an

angry answer in the most forcible epithets of his country dialect, he

threw the oar at the young count's feet, took his jacket out of the

boat, and, with a malicious grin, wishing the company a pleasant

journey, started off toward the highway which winds along by the

lake-shore.

"The thunder-storm comes just right for him," said the waiter-girl, who

had been attracted to the spot by the quarrel, and who now stood gazing

after the angry fellow as he hurried away. "The ladies and gentlemen

mustn't think that Hiesl had started to run back to his father's on

foot; he knew well enough there was going to be a wedding celebrated in

Ambach, and had been impatient to get there for some time; for the

red-haired waiter-girl in the tavern there had completely turned his

head, and all because she wouldn't have anything to do with him--though

he would marry her on the spot if she would take him, and he was not

one to be sneezed at either, and was earning a good living too. So he

had caught at the pretext that the storm would be upon them before the

party could get back to Starnberg again, and was on his way as fast as

his legs would carry him, so as to get to Ambach, which was nearly an

hour from here, with a dry skin. Oh! these men!"

She seemed to think it very foolish for him to run so far, when he

could find all he wanted close at hand. But in reply to their question,

whether there really was so much danger of the storm, she gave the most

comforting assurances; it might not reach them for several hours yet,

and, very likely, if a wind should spring up it would pass over

altogether.

The young count, who now regarded it as a matter of honor to undertake

the trip and to outshine the obstinate boor by his superior skill as a

boatman, allayed all the old countess's doubts and fears; and the young

people did not shrink from a trifling lake-storm, particularly as

Schnetz, who was filled with horror at the bare thought of staying here

overnight, declared that there was not the slightest reason for

anxiety. He himself would take charge of the tiller as he had done when

they came out, and in half an hour they would undoubtedly be landed

safe and sound at the opposite bank.

The whole scene had taken place so near the spot where the artists and

their companions stood, that not a word had escaped them. They were,

however, in even less of a humor to let themselves be frightened by the

distant growling of the heavens, and had already rowed out quite a

little distance into the lake before the more aristocratic boat shoved

off from shore. Felix bent to his oar with redoubled energy in order to

put as much water as possible between himself and his beloved enemy,

and it looked as though they would reach the opposite shore in half the

time usually needed for the passage.

Nevertheless, it was strange that on this return voyage such a deep

silence should have succeeded to the high spirits with which they had

first rowed over. Even Rosenbusch said nothing, but contented himself

with casting the most eloquent glances at his sweetheart, who now sat

silent and pensive, with her head resting on her sister's shoulder.

Elfinger and his beloved looked away from one another down into the

dark water; and only Aunt Babette gave a little scream from time to

time when a vivid flash of lightning tore zigzag through the blue-black

clouds, and illuminated the woods on the bank in a green, ghastly

glare.

The young nobleman in the other boat pulled a good oar. He was a

handsome, chivalrous young fellow, who certainly did not deserve the

contempt with which Schnetz had spoken of him. In order that the ladies

who had intrusted themselves to his care might be landed in safety as

soon as possible, he sought to overtake the other boat, in spite of its

lead. But his powerful exertions came to an end in a very unexpected

way. One of the oars, rotten with age, suddenly broke short off in the

middle; and at the same instant the first gust of wind swept with a

melancholy howl across the surface of the lake, which, as if

transformed by the touch of a magician's wand, began suddenly to surge

like a miniature raging ocean.

Schnetz rose from his seat at the tiller.

"I entreat the ladies not to prove false to the coolness they have thus

far shown, because of this little accident," he said. "We could

undoubtedly get across even without a second oar. But to have one will

be better. I will inquire of my artist friends over yonder if they

haven't one to spare."

He wore a little metal whistle, suspended by a green cord from a button

on his waistcoat. With this he piped a sort of boatswain's signal.

Elfinger started. "That is Roland's call!" he said, seriously. "What

can he want of us?"

Felix raised his oar from the water; the two boats approached one

another.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Schnetz, "allow me, first of all, to make

you acquainted with one another, as well as such a thing can be done on

such a rocking floor, and without the customary bows. I have the honor,

ladies, to introduce you to my friend Baron Felix von Weiblingen, who

has just deserted a diplomatic career for the liberal arts, and, as you

perceive, knows how to handle the oar as skillfully as the chisel and

modeling-tool. Herr Graf ----, Herr Baron ----, Messieurs Rosenbusch

and Elfinger--the ladies, I understand, are already known to one

another. Look here, baron, can't you help us out with an oar? One of

ours has come to grief. We have suffered a slight shipwreck."

Felix stood up. Although the waves rocked the little boat violently,

his slender, powerful figure stood out strong and erect against the

black, stormy sky. At the approach of danger he had recovered all his

coolness and confidence, qualities which he had often enough had a

chance to test in his adventurous journeyings through the solitudes of

the New World. Even the face opposite him in the other boat, the pale

oval framed by the hood of a gray cloak from beneath which straggled a

brown lock--even the glance of those eyes, which preferred to gaze down

into the dark, tempestuous depths rather than to meet his--nothing

could shake his coolness now when the time had come for him to show

himself master of the moment.

"We carry a few extra oars with us, it is true," he shouted back,

raising his voice, for the storm began to howl louder and louder. "But

I should prefer to help you with them in our own boat--Elfinger is an

excellent oarsman--and to fasten your craft to ours. Then we will take

you in tow, and the passage will be much safer and quicker; for your

boat is a flat-bottomed, badly-built affair, without keel or cut-water,

and all you gentlemen are in it for the first time."

"Agreed!" roared Schnetz in return. "Let us connect ourselves with our

_remorqueur_ with all possible speed, and then _vogue la galere!_"

Rossel's well-equipped craft had, fortunately, a good supply of ropes

at hand, so that Kohle, from his seat at the stern, soon drew the

drifting boat up to his own and made it fast with a firm knot. Then

Felix and Elfinger bent to their oars, and their four strong arms

seemed to drive the two boats as if in sport over the raging surface of

the water.

Not a word was spoken in either vessel. To the countess's whispered

question to Irene: whether this young baron belonged to the well-known

Weiblingens in D----, there came no answer. The young countess had

grown as pale as her high-colored complexion would permit. Her cousin

sought to conceal his ill-humor at the accident, by trying to light a

cigar; but the wind was too much for him. In the first boat, too, a

breathless silence reigned. Rosenbusch alone bent over from time to

time, and whispered a few words to his blonde sweetheart, but they were

lost forever in the storm. The gale raged above their heads with

increasing fury, lightning and thunder burst almost continuously from

the black clouds, and the blast, as it whirled the tumult through the

sky, seemed so violent that the clouds had no time to dissolve in rain.

All around the shore lay wrapped in darkness, and in the south, where

gusts of rain mingled the sky and lake together, every trace of the

mountain line had disappeared.

Suddenly Felix's voice made itself heard at the extreme end of the

little flotilla: "I think it advisable, Schnetz, for us to change our

course. Otherwise we shall tire ourselves out pulling against this

head-wind without making any progress westward. In spite of all our

exertions, we haven't reached the middle of the lake yet, and, as we

may expect a deluge at any moment, I would propose, in the interest of

the ladies, that we turn about and try to reach the land quickly at any

price. What do you say?"

"That we have no voice whatever in the matter!" Schnetz shouted back.

"In a storm the captain commands upon his own responsibility! and with

that, enough said!"

A strong shove of the tiller showed that Kohle had decided in favor of

silent obedience. The good effects of the change were felt immediately;

for now the two boats, sailing with the current and the wind, skimmed

as though with wings over the high waves.

But they already had been driven too far toward the south to reach

their old harbor again. When they had approached near enough to the

bank to distinguish trees and houses, they saw a scene which they did

not recognize--an inn close upon the lake, from whose windows streamed

a bright light and the merry sound of dance-music.

"We have arrived just in time for the wedding," growled Schnetz. "If we

don't go to the devil first, we can while away the time by dancing--the

best way to get rid of all the bad effects of our fright. May I have

the honor, countess, of engaging you for a cotillion?"

The old lady, who had been suffering the keenest alarm, and had

secretly made all sorts of vows to her patron saints, drew a long

breath of relief, and said, laughing nervously: "If anything had

happened to us, _mon cher_ Schnetz, your godlessness would have been to

blame for sending so many good people to the bottom. Well, _Dieu soit

loue, nous voila sains et saufs._ Melanie, your hair is atrociously

disordered. How have you borne it, my dear Irene?"

"I was not afraid. Still I shall be glad to get on shore."

And, indeed, just at this moment, the rain-drops began to fall one by

one on the broad surface of the lake.

Another quarter of an hour of vigorous work at the oars and the

foremost boat passed through the surf of the flat shore and ran up on

the beach. Felix sprang on shore and helped out the sisters and the

godmother. When it came to the turn of the party in the other boat, he

left to his friends the duty of setting the ladies ashore dry-shod,

while he busied himself in fastening the two boats to posts upon the

bank.

The old countess came up to him, overflowing with earnest assurances of

her gratitude, which he politely put aside. Upon her presently

repeating her inquiry about his family, he dryly replied:

"I come from beyond the sea, countess, and have left my family tree in

the backwoods. But you will get wet if you stay out here any longer. My

friend, Herr Koble, will have the honor of conducting you into the

house. It is well known that a captain must not leave his ship until it

lies safe at anchor."

The good lady wondered to herself that a young man, who seemed to be so

_comme il faut_, should relinquish the honor of becoming her knight to

a _bourgeois_. But as she was rather confused and helpless, and did not

exactly know where to look for her son and son-in-law, she accepted the

painter's arm with condescending amiability, and, turning around every

instant to see that her daughter was following, she hastened toward the

house, in which the music had not ceased for a moment.

Schnetz had taken possession of the two sisters, and the young count

approached Irene to conduct her into the house. But she declined his

proffered arm with a gesture of thanks, wrapped herself closer in her

cloak, and hastened after the others.

She had not looked around at Felix, but at the threshold she hesitated.

Perhaps her beating heart was secretly whispering to her to turn, rush

into the storm and rain, and call to the lonely man upon the shore.

Just at this moment her cousin turned to her with some casual question,

laid a hand upon her arm, and drew her across the hall into the guests'

room. She threw back her head with such a hasty movement, that her hood

fell off. Her young face, which she had learned only too well how to

keep under control, became cold and stern, and the moment which might

have broken the ice passed away unused.

CHAPTER VII.

Nor had Felix looked around at Irene. And yet he knew exactly when she

entered the door, and vanished into the house.

His work on the shore had long been completed. The two boats were

fastened securely to their chains, and the heavy surf bumped their

wooden sides against one another with a dull, monotonous sound. It was

by no means pleasant here in the rain. The drops fell thicker and

faster; leaves and twigs were torn from the trees near the boathouse,

and sent whirling far and wide. And yet this lonely man here in the

storm could not even now make up his mind to seek refuge in the house,

which stood before him with its bright windows looking so hospitable

and cozy, and protecting a crowd of happy beings from the furies of the

gale.

He was just considering whether he should not retreat, into one of the

boats which, lying under the roof of the boat-house, would at least

offer him a dry place of refuge, when a vivid flash of lightning lit

up the darkness around, and in the next instant, even before the

thunder-clap had time to follow, he heard a scoffing laugh, not far

away. He saw now that he was not quite alone. On the bridge of the

steamboat-landing, which was built on piles and ran out for some

distance into the lake, stood the young boatman who, an hour before,

had foretold the storm, and had refused to make the return journey. As

if he felt at home amid this whirlwind, he stood there in his

shirtsleeves, his jacket thrown over his shoulder, bareheaded, smoking

a short pipe, and leaning upon the railing of the bridge. His eyes were

fixed with an evil, piercing fire upon Felix, whom he had probably

mistaken for the young count because he had been busied with the boats.

As soon as the noise of the thunder had died away, he burst out anew in

a loud, scoffing laugh. "So Hiesl is a stupid boor, and doesn't know

anything--not even his own business? He ought to learn it from the city

gentlemen? Ha, ha, ha! I only wish you had had all the flesh washed off

your bones. Ha, ha, ha! Well, look sharp now, and carry the thing

through. It's just jolly inside there, and perhaps next time Heaven

will have sense enough to--"

The howling of the storm drowned the rest of his speech. Felix had a

sharp reply on the tip of his tongue, with which to rebuke the fellow,

and at the same time to show him that he had made a mistake in the

person. But now the tempest broke in such a terrible deluge of rain

that he was absolutely deprived of sight and hearing, and had to grope

his way to reach the house with a tolerably dry skin.

The heavy house-door was torn from its chain by the storm, and closed

behind him with a deafening crash. In the lower entry a number of

people sat at little tables hung on hinges along the wall, and just

large enough to hold the plates and beer-mugs. A country waiting-maid,

who was coming out of the kitchen, told Felix that his party were

up-stairs dancing, and asked whether he wanted anything. He silently

shook his head, and slowly ascended the stairs; not with the intention

of joining his friends, but merely to find where she was, and which

room of the house it would be necessary for him to avoid.

Not a soul was to be seen in the dimly-lighted hall above; but all the

doors stood open on account of the heat, and poured forth a mixture of

lamp-light, smoke, and noise, while the floor creaked under the regular

tread of the dancers, and the air trembled with the surly grumbling of

a gigantic bass-viol. The dancing-hall lay at the extreme end of the

corridor. Felix walked along it without looking into any of the other

rooms until he reached the end door, where he found that, by standing

behind the spectators, he could comfortably overlook all that was going

on within. The bridegroom seemed to be a young forester, and his bride

a burgher's daughter from the city. Consequently, the whole affair had

a certain something about it which distinguished it favorably from

ordinary country weddings, and the couples spun around through the

spacious hall in quite an orderly fashion, and without the customary

shouting, screaming, and romping, to the music of several stringed

instruments, a solitary clarionet, and the occasional sound of a

woodman's horn.

The first couple that Felix made out through the blue mist of

tobacco-smoke was Rosenbusch with his Nanny. And, to his surprise, he

saw Elfinger and his sweetheart waltzing gracefully close behind them;

and the future bride of heaven seemed to abandon herself without much

resistance to this worldly pleasure.

And now even the young countess herself appeared amid this mixed

company, whirled by the young baron, her betrothed, far more rapidly

than would have been good _ton_ at a court ball. Her brother, the

count, stood in a retired corner, apparently paying his court to Aunt

Babette, who would not let herself be seduced into dancing again for

any price in the world. In the adjoining room, which he could only half

overlook, he perceived his friend Kohle, absorbed in an earnest

conversation with the countess.

No trace of Irene anywhere! Could she have hidden from him? It was

hardly possible that she could be in the other rooms, where the more

elderly relatives of the bridal couple sat, eating and talking. And yet

he must know whither she had gone, in order to spare her another

painful meeting.

A waiting-maid entering through one of the open doors just at this

moment, he determined to ask her about the Fraeulein. But when he called

to the tidy-looking girl, and she turned her head toward him, a

half-joyful, half-embarrassed cry of surprise escaped them both. A

little more and the girl would have let the mugs fall from her hands.

Trembling and blushing she put down her load on a chair, and covered

her face with her hands.

"What a queer place to meet _you_ in, Zenz!" said Felix, going up to

her kindly and holding out his hand. "How long have you been here? But

you don't know me any longer!--or won't you give me your hand because

you are angry with me?"

The girl stood motionless, leaning against the wall and deeply flushed,

her hands outstretched, with the fingers wide-spread as if in

supplication. She was dressed much more daintily than the waiter-girls

down-stairs; her thick red hair, hanging in two heavy braids down her

back, was wound around with a little string of corals, and her arms

were bare to the elbow. Her charming figure showed to advantage in its

short dress and tight-fitting bodice, and a little rose in her bosom

set off the whiteness of her neckerchief and of her little coquettish

waitress's apron. It was no wonder she found suitors enough out here in

the country, and could play the prude toward the young boatman.

"Well, Zenz," Felix began again, for she still remained silent, "is it

all over with our old friendship? You ran away from me once so

treacherously, you naughty child--I searched every corner for you--but

I bear you no malice on that score. Look here, perhaps you can tell

me what has become of the young Fraeulein?--the tall one with the

water-proof? She is not with the others."

"I know the one you mean well enough," the girl answered, suddenly

growing quite unembarrassed, for he behaved so coolly and seemed to

have forgotten all the past. "You mean the handsome one who has

something distinguished about her, more than all the rest. She couldn't

stand it long in the hot rooms, but had a chamber given her up-stairs,

so as to be all alone, for she had such a terrible headache, she said.

Do you know her? But of course you do; you came with the party. Why, I

shouldn't wonder if she were your--"

She broke off and peered in his face, with a sly look. Something of her

old frivolity flickered up in it; but then she scornfully curled her

lips.

"For all I care!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "What difference

does it make to me who your sweetheart is? Go up the stairs there and

knock at No. 17. You will find what you are looking for."

"Zenz," he answered, with a troubled look, "you are very much mistaken

if you think--But tell me, first of all, how you have been, and whether

you like the life out here better than in the city, and whether I can

help you in any way?"

He felt the necessity of showing his friendliness in some way or other

to this good creature, whose devotion he had so coldly repulsed, that

he might efface the painful remembrance from her mind. She seemed to

feel this, and to be grateful for it. A soft blush--no longer of

embarrassment, but of joy--mounted to her cheeks.

"How do I like it here?" she said, laughing. "Oh, pretty well so far.

The people of the house treat me very well, and if I do my duty, what

do I care for any one else? Only it's just a little dull and lonely

here."

"I imagine there is no lack of people, Zenz, who would be glad to help

you while away the time if you would only let them."

She did not answer at once, but listened in the direction of the

stairs, where some one had just crept up and had stopped half-way as if

to listen. There was a pause in the music, and any one standing on the

dark stairway could not have helped hearing every word that was spoken

on the landing above. The girl's face assumed a slighting, contemptuous

expression. She seemed to know who was standing there on the watch, and

purposely raised her voice so as to give the listener the full benefit

of what she said.

"Have you, too, heard that gossip?" she said. "Well, if any one ever

says to you again that Zenz has got a lover here, give him my best

regards and tell him he is a mean liar. I know very well that the

waiter-girl in Leoni says all sorts of bad things about me because

Hiesl, the fisherman, who used to keep company with her, tries to pay

court to me. But, though I am only a poor girl, I am a hundred times

too good for such a wild fellow as he is, going about on every holiday

picking quarrels, and spending all his money on drinking and bowling.

Just think of it, that little Spanish knife I took from your table that

time by mistake--or rather not by mistake--I really believe, may God

forgive me, I would have liked best to kill myself, I felt so wild and

unhappy that night!--well, I have carried it about with me ever since;

I used to wear it stuck in my bodice instead of the spoon which, as a

waiter-girl, I ought to have carried, and it's not a week ago that I

told Hiesl my opinion of him once for all, and he grew so furious that

he snatched the knife away from me, and cried out 'to remember him if

anything happened,' or something of that kind. But I laughed, and said

unless he gave it back to me something _would_ happen, for I would

complain of him to the police. _He_ my lover! Well, I _should_ be a

fool! Besides, I don't want any lover at all; it always ends in the

girl's being deceived; and the one she can get she doesn't like, and

the one she likes she can't get. And now let me go, Herr Baron, the

ladies and gentlemen inside are waiting, and you must go and pay your

court to the Fraeulein. Why should you waste your time out here with a

waitress?"

She made a movement as if to take up her mugs again, but without

hurrying herself particularly.

Just at this moment the music struck up again, playing a cheerful but

not very lively waltz, apparently with the purpose of inviting the more

elderly guests to join the dance.

"Zenz," said Felix, looking her straight in the face, "I don't care

anything about the Fraeuleins inside there; and, besides, I don't feel

in a mood for love-making. As soon as the storm is over, I am going off

without taking leave. If any one asks after me, you need only say that

I wanted to be in Starnberg in time to catch the last train. But first

I want to know whether I can't do you a favor of any kind, or get

something for you in the city, or whether you have any wish that a good

friend could fulfill for you? Speak out, Zenz! I am so unhappy myself

that I would like, at least, to give a little bit of happiness to some

one else."

She looked searchingly in his face, as if to see whether he was in

earnest. She could not understand why he should not be happy.

"Do you know," said she, at last, "if what you said was not meant as a

joke, I have a wish, and there is nothing so very terrible about it

either--I would like to dance with you, just once."

"To dance with me?"

"Of course I know well enough what is proper, and that a waiter-girl

shouldn't mix among the wedding-guests unless it happens to be a

peasant's wedding. But to be always hearing this beautiful music, that

makes you tingle down to the tips of your toes, and yet never to be

allowed to swing round with the rest, is very hard. I only mean that it

is almost the same out here in the entry as in the hall--you can hear

every note and the floor is smooth and clean. Will you?"

He still hesitated. He certainly felt in no mood for dancing. But when

she suddenly put out her hand with a quick movement to seize her mugs,

as if she interpreted his hesitation to mean that, after all, he felt

himself too good to be her partner, he could not find it in his heart

to let her go away from him a second time feeling mortified and

insulted.

"You are right, child," he said. "Let us dance. A man needn't be

particularly merry to have dancing feet. Come! But you must show me how

they do it here in the country."

He put his arm round her slight and yielding figure, and she clung to

it with evident pleasure. "It goes splendidly," she whispered, after

the first round. "I feel as if I were being lifted up into heaven. Do

you remember how you put me on your horse, that time? Good Heavens! how

long ago that seems, and yet it's only a few weeks!"

He did not answer, but went on dancing, rather gravely and seriously;

for it was no easy task to move easily up and down through the long,

narrow entry. And all the while he felt that his partner clung to him

more and more tenderly, while he himself remained perfectly cool; and

it was only when it seemed to him that they had had enough, and he had

released the girl from his arms again, in front of the chair on which

her beer-mugs stood, that he stroked her round face caressingly and

said: "Was that right, little one?"

She trembled slightly, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of

the stairs which led to the upper story. Suddenly she pushed him from

her, whispered "Thank you," and, quickly seizing her mugs, ran past him

and down the stairs.

He looked after her in surprise. What was it that had transformed this

girl so suddenly? A sudden suspicion arose within him. He rushed toward

the stairs, and peered up into the darkness. There was no longer

anything to be seen. But he heard a light footstep up above creeping

softly across the entry, and immediately afterward the latch of a door

was heard to fall, and a key was turned in the lock.

A cold shiver passed over him, as the thought suddenly flashed across

him that this must have been she. She had started to go and join the

company, and had turned back when half-way down the stairs, in order

not to disturb his dance with a waiting-maid--!

The discovery was so crushing that he remained standing motionless in

the middle of the corridor, and heard and saw nothing of what was going

on around him. He was finally roused from his stupor by one of the

wedding-guests, who, in stumbling past, struck against him with no

little force. He slowly felt his way down-stairs, passed across the

lower hall, and stepped out into the open air in a truly pitiable state

of mind.

The storm had passed, but the air still trembled from the shock, and

now and then a drop fell from the roof, or the distant reflection of

the fading lightning flashed across the clear sky. The mountains stood

out on the horizon like light, sharply-defined clouds, and the

reflection of the stars danced up and down upon the waves, which seemed

to keep up the turmoil longer than anything else, and still surged

darkly on the shore.

Felix went down to the bank, and walked to the extreme end of the

landing-pier. In the commotion of his thoughts, he found it impossible

to decide as to the course he should pursue. Should he at once seek an

interview with her, and explain how it had all come about--this

inconceivable, unheard-of, unpardonable scene? That after such a

painful meeting he had not scorned to flirt with a waiter-girl; that he

intended anything rather than to play a defiant and indifferent _role_;

that only a series of most unfortunate circumstances--but how could he

explain to her what it was that had induced him to behave so tenderly

toward the poor creature? And would she listen to him at all, for that

matter? After all, it seemed as if it would be better for him to write.

But even that would only help him out of the last phase of this

serio-comic dilemma. What was to guard him from a repetition of similar

scenes, if he continued to remain anywhere near her?

He stood for a long time leaning over the railing of the bridge,

staring down into the restless, surging waves, lost in wild thoughts,

while through the open window the clarionet squeaked and the bass-viol

growled, as though there were none but happy people in all the world.

At last, making a violent effort, he roused himself. He was determined

to avoid meeting a human face at any price, and to make his way to

Starnberg on foot.

But, as he turned round, he saw behind him, planted in the middle of

the narrow way, a dark figure, which he immediately recognized as that

of Hiesl, the boatman. In his face, which he could plainly distinguish

in spite of the darkness, he could read the bitterest enmity. Besides,

the fellow had spread his legs, and thrust out his elbows, as if to

obstruct the way, and now stood grinning impudently in his face.

"Fine weather, Herr Graf," he cried, hoarsely and thickly. "Quite fine

again for taking a walk, alone or with a single companion. I suppose

you won't be left alone long--ha, ha, ha! She'll probably get away from

the wedding soon, so as to dance a little while with the Herr Graf, all

alone by yourselves--ha, ha, ha!"

"Get out of the way, fellow!" cried Felix, stepping close up to him.

"If you are seeking a quarrel, you will find you have hit on the wrong

man."

"The wrong man?" blurted out the peasant, who coolly remained standing

where he was, and merely folded his arms across his breast. "That would

be a joke; if I couldn't see who the right man is, two feet off. You

are a count, and I am only a stupid country lout--isn't that the way?

And Zenz dances with you, and hangs on your neck, and turns her back on

me. So now, you see, I know all about it; I'm sober, too, and

understand my business as well as the next man. If the Herr Count would

perhaps like to row out upon the lake with the girl, Hiesl would

consider it an honor to provide a boat for his high-mightiness's

pleasure; and if the stupid country lout has to hold the light for the

Herr Count--"

"Out of my way, you fool!" cried Felix, now angry in his turn at the

jealous fellow's crazy attack. "If you touch me with a finger, I'll

break every bone in your body. I don't understand a word of what you

have been raving about. The waiter-girl isn't my sweetheart, and if it

will give you any satisfaction, you can wait and see whether she will

steal out here to meet me. If you had your five senses about you, and

hadn't left your eyes behind in your beer-mug, you would see that I am

not your Herr Count. So get on! I'm in no humor to stand any more

nonsense!"

The peasant made no answer, nor did he laugh any more; but stared

straight in Felix's face, and stood like a post. And now when Felix

stepped forward to pass by, he suddenly felt himself seized around the

waist and violently pushed back. The blood rushed madly to his

forehead. "You blackguard!" he cried, "if you will have it, you shall."

He struck his adversary in the chest with such force that for a moment

the sturdy fellow's arms relaxed their hold. But the next instant he

felt himself grasped again and forced back to the edge of the wharf,

where the posts projected out of the water as high as a man's head, and

the water itself was deep enough to give plenty of room for the

steamer's keel.

"You or I," gasped the furious peasant. "You or I! If she won't have

me, she sha'n't have you either, you damned city puppy!" He struggled

with renewed fury to push his enemy over the railing. But Felix was on

his guard. By a quick push he gained the shore side again, and forced

his opponent back almost to the last plank. For a moment the battle

paused. The next instant Felix felt a violent stab; a sharp-pointed

instrument had been thrust into him under the armpit between his breast

and shoulder, so that his left arm dropped paralyzed by his side.

He felt at once that he was seriously wounded, and a terrible fury

seized upon him. "Murderer!" he cried; "you cowardly ruffian, you shall

pay for this!"

Exerting all his strength, he threw the fellow to the ground, seized

his throat so firmly with his right hand that he could do nothing but

gasp, and would have strangled him had not the man, who had suddenly

become sober, and who was lying on the very edge of the wharf, been

crafty enough to draw the supple Spanish blade, with all his force,

across the hand that was choking him. The moment the bloody hand

released his throat, he slid over the edge of the wharf and immediately

vanished in the lake below.

The dull, splashing noise of the fall suddenly brought the victor to

his senses. But he felt absolutely indifferent about the fellow's

rising again and gaining the shore. He had no other feeling than one of

disgust at this wild struggle in such a wretched cause. And now, when

he found himself alone on the high wharf, a cold shudder passed over

him, as if he had just shaken off a mad dog and hurled him into the

water. He peered down into the lake and then tried to laugh; but

shuddered anew at his own voice, that sounded so strange to him. Then,

too, the squeaking, idiotic clarionet and the comfortably grunting

bass-viol kept sounding in his ears;--what a world, in which all this

could be huddled so close together! Then, leaning on the railing, over

which the blood from his hand was trickling, he raised himself up, and

was conscious now, for the first time, of a piercing pain in his

shoulder. But his legs still bore him. Away, only away! was all he

thought. The resolution he had previously formed, before the murderous

fellow came in his way, rose clearly before his mind again, to hasten

to Starnberg, from there back to the city, from the city to the ends of

the earth. Only away! without looking back--no matter what was left

behind him!

He took a few steps away from the wharf, in the direction of the road.

But he had not gone far when he lost consciousness, his knees gave way

beneath him, and he fell senseless on the rain-soaked earth.

A moment after the house-door was opened, and Schnetz stepped out into

the open air, followed by Kohle, bearing a large umbrella. The old

countess had begged them to go out and see whether the return trip

might now be taken without danger. They themselves were anxious to

escape as soon as possible from the stifling, sultry tumult of the

wedding festival; while the others, who had caught the dancing fever,

did not appear to notice how the hours had slipped away.

Schnetz cast but a single glance at the heavens, and then said, with

the confidence of an old soldier who has reconnoitred a hostile region:

"It's all right. We may give the signal for breaking camp. But first we

must take a look at the boats. What's become of the baron? Did you

notice, Kohle, that during the whole trip he has been in a mood like

that of a cat in a thunder-storm, for all he pretended to be so quiet?

_Nom d'un nom!_ I wish--"

The word died on his lips. For just at that moment he caught sight of

him of whom he spoke, lying lifeless on the damp ground. He bent over

him in horror, and called him by his name. When no sound came in

answer, and only the pool of blood in which he lay gave sign of what

had happened, he quickly recovered his presence of mind and coolly

weighed the situation.

"There's no medical assistance to be had in this hole," he said; "we

must row him over to Fat Rossel's villa, and send at once for the

Starnberg doctor, who fortunately is said to be a skillful man. What

are you sniveling in that wretched fashion for, Kohle? He isn't going

to die on the spot. In Africa I've seen a man pull through far worse

cases than this. Pluck up your spirits, man, and before all things

don't make a noise. Not a soul must know of this until we are safely in

our boat. We must take Rossel's boat for us three alone, so that he can

lie at full length; how the others will get home is their own lookout.

The young gentlemen will undoubtedly know how to help themselves out of

the scrape."

He tore a leaf from his note-book, and wrote a few words upon it. "So,

give that to Red Zenz, the waiter-girl. She appears to me to be a

plucky sort of person who doesn't lose her head easily. She is not to

give the note to the young baroness, who is the only person here to

whom I owe an explanation, until we have embarked. Make haste, Kohle,

make haste. Meantime I'll be making a bed in the boat."

In five minutes Philip Emanuel came running back again, with Zenz

following close at his heels. She did not speak a word, for Kohle had

enjoined the strictest silence upon her, but her face was as white as

chalk; and when she saw the wounded man she fell on her knees beside

him and groaned aloud.

"Be quiet," commanded the lieutenant; "this is no time for whimpering.

Have you got a piece of linen, girl? We must make a bandage."

Still remaining on her knees, she tore off her white apron and the

kerchief round her neck. It was only when Schnetz had hastily bound up

the shoulder and the wound in the hand, and, with Kohle's aid, had

carefully borne the unconscious form into the boat, that she raised

herself from the ground and followed the men to the shore.

"I am going with you," she said softly, but very decidedly. "I must go

with you. I gave the note to the other waiter-girl; she will see that

it is delivered. For Christ's sake, let me go with you! Who else is

there to take care of him?"

"Nonsense!" growled Schnetz; "he won't need any care on the way over,

and on the other side there is help enough. What are you thinking of,

girl? You can't run away from service in this free-and-easy way."

"Who is to hinder me?" she said, laughing defiantly in the midst of all

her anxiety and wretchedness. "I belong to no one. I tell you I will go

with you, if it were only to hold his head on my lap on the way, so

that he would lie softer. If you won't take me with you--there's an old

dug-out over there--I'll row after you as true as my name is Zenz. I

must hear what the doctor says, and whether he will live."

"Then come along, in the devil's name, you witch; but no shrieking and

bawling. Get into the boat, Kohle; so, lift him carefully now--and you,

girl, take a seat in the middle. It's true, it won't do any harm if he

has something softer under his head than this bundle of sticks."

A few minutes more and the slender boat pushed off from the shore.

Schnetz rowed and Kohle sat at the tiller again; but, instead of the

merry company that had occupied these same seats but a few hours

before, amusing themselves with singing and flute-playing, there now

lay on the bottom of the boat a white, silent passenger, with closed

eyes; and at his head crouched a pale girl, who, from time to time,

silently dried with her long red locks the heavy drops of blood which

oozed out from under the bandages. Her head was sunk upon her breast.

The others must not see how the big tear-drops coursed steadily down

her cheeks.

CHAPTER VIII.

Up-stairs, in a bare, meanly-furnished room of the tavern, lay Irene.

The dim beams of the setting sun shone in through the little

window-panes, which were still dripping from the rain, but did not

penetrate to the sofa where the poor girl cowered in an agony of grief,

covering her face with her hands and vainly trying to close her ears so

tightly with the folds of her hood that she should not hear the music

of the waltz below. The walls and floors of the lightly-built upper

story groaned under the regular step of the dance. Never in all her

life, she thought, had she been more wretched and miserable, not even

in those gloomy days before she resolved to write Felix a letter of

farewell. Then there was still a certain greatness, dignity, and

harmony left both within and about her; now her condition was painful

and revolting to a degree that seemed almost pitiably ridiculous.

She, lying up here in torture; and he down below in the best of

spirits, whirling about with a waiter-girl in his arms, to the music of

a peasant's orchestra--not among the other wedding-guests even, but

apart, secretly, in the way one only dances when one is very much in

the mood for it, or very much in love! She did not even have the

consolation of thinking he had done this merely out of defiance to her,

out of secret lovesickness and grief. He could not possibly have had a

suspicion that she would come down and surprise him at his dance; that

she would see how tightly the girl clung to him, and how reluctantly

she finally released herself from his arms.

She had flown up-stairs as if pursued by a ghost, had pushed the bolt

to behind her with trembling hands, and had thrown herself on the hard

little sofa, and shut her eyes and bowed her head as if now the death

blow might fall at any moment. And down below, the jovial bassviol

hummed and buzzed, and the clarionet abandoned itself to the most

extravagant passages.

For the moment she hated this man, whom heretofore, through all their

separation, she had mourned over as one does over a dead friend, who,

though lost, is still dear forever. When she thought that the hand

which had once caressed her had stroked the chin of this coarse

red-haired girl, a pang of bitter aversion shot through her heart, as

if she felt herself humiliated and dishonored by the mere association.

She shed no tears, but only because her pride rose up in all its

strength against such a proceeding. And yet she had to bite into the

silk lining of her hood with her little teeth in order to suppress her

sobbing and restrain her weeping.

She felt that she must take some step to put an end to this unbearable

state of things; that she must start the very next morning on the

Italian journey which had been so unfortunately postponed. But to-day,

now, when before all else she must avoid meeting him again, she must

escape from this mad-house where she stood in positive danger of going

crazy herself.

Just then a knock was heard at the door. She sprang to her feet in

alarm. If it should be he? if he had come, perhaps, to justify himself

to her; to excuse his outrageous behavior?

She was incapable of uttering a sound; and, even after the knock had

been repeated a second time, she was unable to ask who was there. It

was only when she heard the voice of the waiter-girl, who called

through the door that she had a message to deliver to the Fraeulein,

that she found strength to drag herself with trembling knees to the

door, and open it. She took a note from the girl's hand, shook her head

quickly in reply to the question whether she wanted a light, and bolted

the door in the face of the hastily-dismissed messenger, who would have

been glad of a chance to talk a little.

There was light enough at the window for her to decipher the martial

handwriting of the lieutenant.

"My friend has suddenly been taken very ill. I must transport him to

Rossel's villa without delay. Please to excuse my desertion to the

other ladies. Commending myself to the indulgence of my noble young

mistress, I remain, in the most devoted haste,

"SCHNETZ."

"My friend"--she knew that no other could be meant than Felix; and yet

this news, which, at any other time, would have given her a deadly

shock, came to her now like a release from the bitterest torture. Would

she not bear anything rather than know that he was happy after the

wrong he had done her? Might not the outrageous scene she had just

witnessed be explained as coming from a freak of fever--from a last

flaring-up of his spirits before the final breaking-down? Then, in

spite of all, he was still worthy of her secret thoughts--ay, she even

owed him some apology, and could grieve for him, and show him that

sympathy which we owe to all who are in suffering.

A heavy weight fell from her heart. She read the note a second time.

"Rossel's villa?"--that lay only half an hour's walk from theirs. She

might get news before the evening was over. Schnetz would very likely

come himself and tell her.

But, while she was absorbed in such thoughts, she let her eyes sweep

across the lake, and saw the boat, rowed by Schnetz and Kohle, just

pushing off from the shore. The twilight was still bright enough to

enable her to distinctly recognize the girl in the waitress's dress,

who sat on the low seat and held the youth's head in her lap. If there

had still been any doubt in the watcher's mind, it would have been put

at rest by the sight of the red braids, with which the little Samaritan

appeared to be caressing the insensible man.

With quick strokes of the oars the boat shot out on the broad surface

of the lake. A few minutes, and the figures in it had faded into

shadows. Soon, only a faint line on the lake's polished mirror

indicated the course the silent craft had taken.

A quarter of an hour after, Irene entered the room next to the

dancing-hall, where the old countess was impatiently awaiting the

return of her cavalier, who had only left her to make preparations for

the homeward voyage. She was frightened by the Fraeulein's colorless

face, and overwhelmed her with anxious inquiries. Irene handed her the

lieutenant's note, in lieu of any other answer. The lively excitement

into which this very unfortunate incident threw the good lady diverted

her thoughts completely from Irene's condition. The young people, too,

who were hastily called away from their dancing, were far too much

occupied with one another, and with the question what was to be done,

to find anything odd in Irene's mute and stony manner. Besides, she had

already complained of a headache. The countess scolded at Schnetz for

having taken no thought of her. To whom could they intrust the guidance

of the vessel now? She flatly refused Elfinger's and Rosenbusch's

willingly-offered aid, nor would she listen to such a thing as their

looking about for a boatman in the house, but declared that now no

price would induce her to trust herself upon the water again. Instances

had been known where the wind had suddenly sprung up and driven back a

thunder-storm that had once passed over!

In the mean while, the young count had been in consultation with the

landlord, and now came to report that a carriage could be ready

immediately, which would easily carry them to Starnberg inside of an

hour. The other party might then make use of their boat, unless they

should prefer to wait until the vehicle came back. But as the sky was

clear, and the night warm and lovely, both the sisters and Aunt Babette

thought it would be more advisable to make the voyage across than to

wait several hours more in the close house.

So they took leave of the wedding-guests with more or less ceremony,

and made preparations for starting. The old countess, who, for several

hours past, had shown herself extremely gracious as long as Schnetz was

present to act as go-between, and the unknown young baron had lent a

certain respectability to his burgher friends, now suddenly seemed to

become conscious again of the gulf between her and the savers of her

life--particularly in the case of the girls, whom she did not honor

with another word. She gave Rosenbusch to understand, in pretty plain

language, that she was very angry with Schnetz, who had quite forgotten

all "_egards_" toward her, and had gone off without even coming to take

leave in person. The battle-painter, who found himself placed in a

rather embarrassing situation, was just on the point of making some

excuse for his absent friend, when suddenly the words stuck in his

throat. They had left the house in order to wait outside until the

carriage should be ready. There, on the white gravel close to the bank,

Rosenbusch saw a dark spot, from which a broad trail of drops ran down

as far as the landing-place. "Good God!" he cried. "What is this?

Blood? Freshly-shed blood? Countess, if this blood should really have

come from our baron, our friend Schnetz would undoubtedly be justified,

even by the severest court of honor, for having failed in the laws

of courtesy. I beseech you, don't let the others learn anything of

this--young ladies are so devilish timid and frightened at the sight of

blood--"

Unfortunately the warning came too late. Irene had just stepped up to

the place where they were standing. When she caught sight of the

ghastly trace, she uttered a low cry, staggered back, and leaned for a

moment upon Rosenbusch, who officiously sprang to her assistance. This

scene caused the others to hasten up; and after the first shock was

over, they exhausted themselves in speculations upon this mysterious

occurrence. Who could possibly believe in hemorrhage in a young

man of such conspicuous strength and powerful figure? And as for a

fight--where were they to look for an adversary?

The friends were still standing around the ghastly spot, shocked and

not knowing what to do, when one of the hostlers, belonging to the

hotel, came running up and told them he had also discovered traces of

blood on the landing-bridge, and this knife lying near them, on the

bank. It was not an ordinary peasant's knife with the blade fastened

firmly in the handle, but a slim dagger of Damascus steel, and the

handle bore a distinct impression of a bloody hand; no one except Irene

knew to whom it had belonged.

In the mean while the carriage had driven up, and they lifted Irene in.

Though still suffering terribly, she struggled hard to maintain her

composure. The mother and daughter and the two young men crowded into

the other places as well as they could. Another short leave-taking,

whose brevity was perfectly explained by the gloomy mood they were all

in, and the aristocratic part of the company rolled away.

A few minutes later the boat pushed off from the shore, rowed by

Rosenbusch and Elfinger. The night was still and clear, and the cool

wind blew, soft and damp, upon the girls' hot cheeks. But they sat

nestled close to one another, and gazed in silence at the sparkling

water; nor did either of the friends utter a word. Aunt Babette alone

made a slight attempt at conversation, by saying how amiable these

aristocratic persons were upon nearer acquaintance, and what a pity it

was they could not have returned home together; for she had been

telling the young count so much about Rosenbusch's flute-playing.

As no one made any answer to all this, she, too, grew silent, folded

her hands in her lap, and appeared sunk in pious meditation.

CHAPTER IX.

It was close upon midnight when Irene's uncle returned, in his open

wagon, from a trip to the Ammersee. The old lion-hunter was in glorious

spirits; he had made several bull's-eyes at the shooting-match; had

made love to the ladies; and had found a willing ear for his most

fabulous African hunting-tales even among the men. Even his famous

story of how he had aimed a double-barreled English rifle at a lioness,

and had fired two shots so rapidly one after the other, that the ball

from the right barrel shot out the animal's right eye, and that from

the other the left--even this narrative, about whose truthfulness some

doubts had occasionally been expressed, was apparently swallowed in all

faith. The champagne had done all the rest; so that the happy man

started out of the sweetest dreams when his carriage drew up before the

wicket-gate of the Starnberg villa.

He was surprised to see that the balcony-room was still lighted up. It

was not in the least like Irene to allow an affectionate anxiety for

her night-owl of an uncle to keep her awake, and all signs of light

were extinguished in the neighboring houses. Then it occurred to him

that perhaps Schnetz had decided to stay out overnight, and to sit up

until his return. He was glad of this, for it would afford him an

opportunity to give an account of his triumphs to a connoisseur in such

matters; and he was therefore disagreeably disappointed when, upon his

entering the little _salon_ up-stairs where the light was burning, his

young niece alone advanced to meet him.

Her face looked so strangely agitated, her manner was so excited, that

his champagne spirits departed on the instant, and he asked, in great

alarm, what had happened, and what had become of friend Schnetz? and

why Irene, who was evidently unwell, had not gone to bed?

Speaking rapidly and with difficulty, she gave him an account of what

had passed. Not until she had finished the story did the name of him

who had played the chief _role_ in this bloody catastrophe pass her

lips.

But the effect produced by her account was very different from what she

had expected.

Instead of expressing horror and sympathy the lively gentleman ran

around the room uttering a cry of joy, rubbing his hands and behaving

himself generally in such a delighted way, that Irene regarded him with

amazement, and finally asked him whether he had been listening to her,

or whether his thoughts were still with the merry hunting-party he had

just quitted.

"No, no! my dearest child," he cried, suddenly halting before her. "You

suspect me wrongly. Unfortunately I am accustomed to being

misunderstood by you, and to being accused of a frivolity which

sometimes overtakes me even in those moments when my proud little niece

assumes her most tragic tone. But, believe me, Irene dear, I see no

reason in this whole catastrophe that you have told me of to change my

way of thinking. That our Felix has lost a few drops of blood will not

do the scapegrace any particular harm, perhaps, and will take the

wildness out of him a little. At the worst, there will be no immediate

bad consequence--for that I can trust my good old Schnetz; and

Providence will not be so foolish as to send such a fine young fellow

over the bourn by such a miserable knife-scratch as this. And if we

escape with a simple fright, the whole situation will be left in the

best condition imaginable to repair some foolish errors that we have

made. Come, my child! Look me in the face, and confess that in secret

you are of my opinion."

She looked him directly in the eyes, but with a sad expression.

"We misunderstand one another again, uncle."

"Say, rather, you don't think it becoming to wish to understand my

honest and candid opinion. But, since you are ten times brighter and

more diplomatic than an old hunter and soldier like myself--"

"I entreat you, uncle--"

"You can't fail to understand, without any further explanations on my

part, that it amuses me enormously to see our youngster Felix, whom I

imagined to be wandering about God knows where, a sighing and rejected

suitor, suddenly turn up next door to us. Do you mean to tell me that

chance has arranged all this so skillfully? Pooh, pooh!--you can't

cheat me. I tell you he has been traveling after us, and has secretly

followed his old flame, whom he still worships, into the primeval

forests of Starnberg and across the tempestuous lake of Wuerm; and,

since there was no other way of making up to you again with any

self-respect, he has adopted the very wisest course, and one that never

fails in its effect upon you soft-hearted souls, namely, that of

creeping into your sympathy by means of a few ounces of spilt blood, of

which article, by-the-way, he still possesses a very fair abundance.

And now--"

"Unless you want me to leave the room, uncle, spare me these perfectly

groundless insinuations. Have I not told you that he had no suspicion

of our plan to make a stay in Munich, and that Schnetz told me how he

entered a studio with his old friend Jansen, with the intention of

becoming a sculptor? But even if it were all just as you have arranged

it in your own mind--what difference would it make in my resolution?

Hasn't this unfortunate meeting proved the truth of all that I said to

myself when I gave him back his promise?--has it not confirmed my

belief that we could never be happy together? And yet, you imagine I

would think differently of him because he now lies dangerously ill, and

perhaps dying, of wounds which were undoubtedly given him by his rival,

that peasant fellow--in a fight--about a tavern-waiter--"

Her voice failed her; she turned away to repress her tears; but her

passionate pain overcame her, and, bursting into uncontrollable

sobbing, she sank back on a chair near the open door leading on to the

balcony.

Even the jovial mood of her good-hearted foster-father was not proof

against this passionate outburst of long-suppressed feeling. He had

always regarded the girl's self-possessed bearing with amazement, and

had secretly attributed to her a certain coldness of heart, for she had

never given him an insight into the struggles and storms of her young

life. And now she sat before him like a child that has given way to its

grief, deaf, apparently, to all comforting words and caresses.

"You will bring things to such a pass," he cried, in ludicrous

desperation, "that I shall be forced to take up my old trade, and go

out lion-hunting again in my old age. Upon my word it's less wearing

work than having anything to do with a pair of estranged lovers, who

will neither come together nor yet separate entirely. The thing worked

passably as long as you were able to face it out. After all, although I

always looked upon it as a piece of foolishness for you to give such a

lover his dismissal, just because he didn't want to kiss the slipper

before his marriage: still, I supposed you must know what you were

about, and it was impossible for me to supply a mother's place toward

you, and explain how we men ought to be managed. At all events, things

ran smoothly, and we went on living peacefully together. But now, when

the ice suddenly breaks and you lose all control over yourself--tell

me, what in the world am I to do? My experience with wild animals has

made me something of a savage; but I instantly become the most cowardly

and chicken-hearted of domestic animals if a woman--and particularly

one I care so much for--begins to cry in my presence."

She suddenly drew herself up, shook back her curls and passed her hand

across her eyes.

"You shall not have to complain of it again, uncle," she said, in a

determined tone; "most assuredly, never again. You are right; it is

foolish to cry about something that was all over long ago. You will

never, never see me do it again."

"My brave girl!" he said, embracing her and kissing her wet cheek, a

liberty he very seldom ventured to take. "I am glad you still care a

little for your old uncle. But now, go to bed, for it has grown so

late--"

"To bed!--in this terrible state of anxiety? What are you thinking of,

uncle? Will it be possible for you to sleep?"

"Why not, you little goose? Ay, the sleep of the righteous, for I have

done my duty to-day, and have shown how our race can shoot--"

"And you can deep before you know how he is?--and what the doctor has

said? I should have sent over to inquire before this, but the people of

the house are all asleep, and my maid Louisa is a stranger here and

would not be able to find the place."

"And you think I myself--well, I must confess!--at one o'clock at

night, tired to death by all my laurels--"

"Uncle, unless you want to see me die of anxiety--"

She threw herself into his arms, and clung to him in such helpless

entreaty that he could not resist. Sighing, and bitterly cursing in his

heart the feminine caprice which could first cast off a fine young

fellow and then make her life hang on his, he left the house once more.

She called down to him from the balcony, gave him the directions for

finding the nearest way to the physician's house, and then stood there

motionless, in the cool night air, waiting for his return.

He came back in a quarter of an hour, but brought no comforting

intelligence. The physician had not yet returned from Rossel's villa,

and would, in all probability, spend the night there. He had made the

physician's wife, whom he had routed up out of her sleep, promise

faithfully to send news the first thing in the morning.

So there was no help for it, the night had to be passed in the most

agonizing state of uncertainty.

But before the sun had long been shining across the lake, the physician

came in proper person; led, not only by the message that had been left

for him the night before, but also by a note that Schnetz had

commissioned him to deliver to his old comrade and brother-in-arms. In

this missive, in his own odd style, he supplemented the physician's

bulletin by all sorts of details. The wound in the hand, he said, in

conclusion, was, it was to be hoped, of no great account; a sinew had

been grazed, but not cut through, so that the determination of this

noble youth to augment the number of breadless stone-hewers would, in

all probability, not be defeated by the brutal intervention of a

Bavarian fist. The physician, on the other hand, reported that the

wound in the left shoulder was not altogether without danger, as the

stab had reached the extremity of one of the lungs, and a long rest and

course of nursing would be necessary before the arm could be used

again. For the rest, the patient would receive the best of care in Herr

Rossel's villa; his blood and circulation were in a thoroughly healthy

condition, and serious danger was quite out of the question.

The doctor, who had never before seen the baron and the beautiful,

silent Fraeulein, and who found nothing strange in her sympathy, as she

had formed one of the party on the day before, soon took his leave,

with a promise to keep them regularly informed about the case. Scarcely

had he gone, when Irene declared she would not go away from the place

until all danger was over; but that then she would not breathe the air

on this side of the Alps a moment longer--it weighed upon her spirits.

Her uncle had to give her his word of honor that he would consent to

this arrangement, and also that he would not let Schnetz observe how

deeply they were both interested in the wounded man, but would explain

their sympathy as arising from pure philanthrophy. And it really was

nothing more than that, she said.

Even though every inner bond was severed between them, still, she would

never be able to answer for it to her conscience if she should start

off before the question whether he might not possibly need her had been

definitely set at rest.

CHAPTER X.

Was it nothing but abstract philanthropy that suffered Irene to find no

rest in any place or any occupation all that day, in spite of the

comforting assurances of the doctor?--that drove her from the piano to

the writing-desk, from the writing-desk out on to the balcony, and from

the garden down to the shore? Not a step sounded on the floor, not a

carriage rolled past in the street, but what she trembled. She had

herself sufficiently under control, however, not to betray her

nervousness by a single word. But her feverish restlessness did not

escape her uncle, who, the night before, had gained for the first time

a clear insight into a nature usually so proud. He was secretly

rejoiced at this, much as he pitied the poor child in her restless

grief. For the first time in years he felt that he was the wiser of the

two; that he was being justified by the course things were taking, and

that his good advice, which had once been scorned, was now redounding

to his credit. But as he really loved her, he behaved with the most

labored delicacy and consideration toward the young sufferer; never

touched her hidden wound by a single word, and only grumbled now and

then at the faithless Schnetz, who, considering the slight distance

that separated them, might certainly have come over and given him a

report of the patient by word of mouth.

He knew that this thought was never out of Irene's mind for a moment,

and that all her listening and waiting turned upon it. But when the

afternoon came, and no new message made its appearance, he threw his

rifle over his shoulder, kissed the hand of his pale little niece, and

left the house to scour the woods for a while. If Schnetz should show

himself in the mean while, they were to hold him prisoner for the

evening.

Scarcely did Irene find herself alone, when she fancied she could not

breathe the air in the close little rooms any longer. She hastily

caught up her sketch-book, put on her hat, and called her maid to

accompany her for a walk. She had recently discovered a picturesque

spot, with old trees and high ferns, farther back in the woods, which

she wanted to sketch. She trusted that she should be able to find it

again.

Once outside in the streets, she took such quick steps that the girl

could hardly keep up with her. But Louisa was too well-trained to take

the liberty of asking any inquisitive questions. That her mistress was

not just as usual; that she kept her head turned away as much as

possible, and did not address a single word to her faithful attendant,

she could not, indeed, help noticing. But then these high ladies have

their moods. At first, the Fraeulein seemed to be looking around, right

and left, in search of the goal of her artistic efforts. Then, after

they had walked along the forest-road for about a quarter of an hour,

and one villa after another, lying amid park and garden shrubbery,

began to appear on the bank of the lake to the left, the most lovely

old tree-trunks and foreground effects could not win a look from her.

Several times she stood still before one of the gates, and appeared to

be speculating as to who might live in the house beyond. The day

before, Schnetz had given her, in his favorite manner, a humorous

description of "Fat Rossel's" villa, and had cut a silhouette of its

occupant out of a piece of blotting-paper. These were but weak clews.

So she went on farther and farther, and her cheeks grew more and more

flushed from the rapid exercise, and her companion, who was rather

inclined to corpulence, found it harder than ever to keep up with her.

At last she ventured to ask a laborer whom they met, carrying a

pick-axe and shovel, where Herr Rossel's villa was. The man pointed to

a park-fence made of rough, pine stakes, and was very much amazed when

the young lady rewarded this trivial service with a bright half-gulden.

"Louisa," the Fraeulein said, standing still for a moment to recover her

breath and push back her hair, "you will wait for me outside here. I

have to make some inquiries about something in the garden, and will be

back directly. The spot where I meant to sketch lies off to the right,

in the middle of the wood, and I see now that the afternoon light will

not be as favorable as I thought. It doesn't matter. I shall still be

able to draw a few lines. In the mean while hold my sketch-book--or no,

I will take it with me--you would be sure to get the leaves out of

order. Sit down there on that stump. I sha'n't be gone more than five

minutes."

The girl obeyed without a word. She had never before heard the name of

the gentleman about whom Irene inquired. She tried to make out some

connection in the whole mysterious affair. But as she did not succeed,

she soon gave up thinking about it, and rejoiced at this comfortable

rest in the cool quiet of the woods after her quick walk.

In the mean time her young mistress had hurried over the rest of the

way. The park in the rear of Rossel's little house appeared to be quite

empty and deserted, nor was any one to be seen at the windows. For a

moment she stood hesitating at the little wicket-gate before she could

muster up courage to lift the latch. Then she opened the gate quickly

and entered the little shady inclosure, through which wound a number of

well-swept gravel paths.

But now, as she stepped out from among the pines, and saw before her

the flower-garden and the lawn, whose green turf extended to the

threshold of the house, she stopped in alarm, and would have given a

great deal could she have retired into the shadow again unobserved. For

right in front of her, in the midst of a clump of tall rosebushes from

which she was cutting the finest flowers for a bouquet, stood Zenz, who

recognized her at the first glance, and did not appear at all surprised

to meet the Fraeulein here again, after the events of the day before.

She gave Irene a good-natured and confidential nod, and said, without

waiting to be addressed:

"You have come most likely to inquire after the Herr Baron--haven't

you, now? Well, I am much obliged for your kind inquiry; and he is

getting on just as well as ever as he can, the doctor says. Only he

must be kept very quiet and can't receive any visits from strangers.

That's the reason we carried him right off last evening into the studio

up there in the turret, where he can't hear a sound from the kitchen

and the rooms below; so that even when old Katie has one of her

tantrums, and storms and raves about, it won't disturb his peace at

all. But not a soul can go in to see him except Herr von Schnetz, Herr

Kohle, Herr Rossel--and I, of course, because I am his nurse. I have

just run down into the garden to cut him a few roses. It's a good thing

to have something pretty by a sick person's bed, so that it will please

him when he wakes up. Meantime Herr Kohle is sitting by him and looking

after the ice bandages."

While she was prattling on in this _naive_ strain, Irene had the

greatest difficulty in restraining her secret aversion toward the girl,

who innocently went on with her work; appearing quite a reputable

person, too, now that she was without her waitress's apron, and had her

red braids simply coiled around her head.

"I wish to speak to Lieutenant von Schnetz a moment," replied Irene, in

the coldest possible tone, "since, as you say, he is not busy just now

in the sick chamber--"

"The lieutenant? He is asleep. See, Fraeulein, over there where the

curtains are let down. He has been lying there for the last two hours,

trying to make up a little bit for what he lost last night. Good

Heavens! What a fright we did have! and every one had more than his

hands full before we could get a decent bandage made, especially as old

Katie couldn't have been waked out of her sleep if the world had been

coming to an end. So I staid here, too, so that there might be some one

to wait on the gentlemen. There are so many things about which men

folks, even the very wisest of them, are as foolish as little children.

Isn't it so, Fraeulein? And then--I couldn't bear to be anywhere else,

until I know that he is sure to get sound and well again. When people

have known each other as well as we two--and only to think that such a

thing as this could happen, and that a splendid handsome gentleman like

him should be almost stabbed to death just because of a poor girl like

me, and he quite innocent, too--"

Irene had made a movement as though to leave the place as quickly as

possible. These last words made her think better of it.

"Innocent?" she said, carelessly, without looking at Zenz. "Do you

know, then, how it all came about?"

"To be sure I do," cried the girl, eagerly; "I was the cause of it all!

I wouldn't have anything to say to him, to Hiesl, I mean, and why

shouldn't I confess that I like the baron! There can't be a handsomer

or better man in the world, and when he smiles upon you, in his kind

way, you seem to feel it away down in your heart. And yet he isn't

proud at all, nor impudent and bad to a poor girl, like other young

gentlemen; it isn't any disgrace for me to like him better than a rough

fellow like Hiesl. Oh! Fraeulein, I don't know how you feel about love,

or whether you have a sweetheart, but I--before I saw the Herr Baron

one man was just the same to me as another, and now it seems as if

there were only this one man under God's heaven; and whatever he says

and wants, that I must do, as if it were the Lord himself who ordered

me. But he--and you may believe this on my honor and as I hope to be

saved--he never thinks of such a thing. He knows well enough how I feel

toward him, but he never gives me a thought, and though I'm not pretty

I can't be so very ugly either. At all events if I wanted to I could

twist Herr Rossel round my little finger. But many thanks! I would

rather love one who doesn't care a bit about me, than be loved by one

that I don't like!"

Meantime she had gone on tying up her bouquet, and now she held it up

with a bright laugh which showed all her white teeth. "Isn't it

beautiful?" she said. "But you won't even look at it, Fraeulein. Don't

you like flowers?"

Irene started out of a deep reverie. Her cheeks burned, and she

struggled vainly to maintain her reserve toward this girl, whose frank

and perfectly unselfish nature she could not help liking, do what she

would.

"And you think it perfectly proper?" she managed at last to say. "It

never occurred to you that you are doing anything out of the way in

openly following into a strange house, where there are other men, some

one who does not care anything about you? Though, to be sure, what does

it matter to me what you do or don't do?"

The girl let fall the hand that held the flowers, and gazed straight

into the eyes of this young preacher of morality, with an expression

that betrayed much more surprise than anger.

"Run after him?" she repeated. "No, Fraeulein, I should never think of

such a thing; that _would_ be stupid. For Black Theresa, where I used

to live, has often told me that men only like a poor girl so long as

they have to run after _her_. And because I didn't feel sure of myself,

and knew that if I lived in the same city with him I could not live

without seeing him and watching for him at the places where he usually

went--so that I should grow hateful to him at last, while now he is at

least kind to me--I came out here into the country and hired myself out

as a waiter-girl in the inn over yonder. But you see for yourself I was

not to get away from him; and now, when he lies at the point of death,

all along of a silly thing like me, and needs my help--no, Fraeulein, I

didn't blame myself at all for having run after him, and I should

consider myself a very bad and heartless girl indeed, if I thought

anything about myself and what people might say. I would follow him

through a forest of wild beasts just to nurse him, and why not into a

house full of good friends of his, none of whom would bite me, just

because all have seen that I don't do it for love of them, but only for

the sake of him who doesn't care the least bit about me. There, now,

don't be angry with me for having told you this right out. I must go

back into the house and see whether Herr Kohle needs any fresh ice from

the cellar. Shall I give him any message from you; tell him that you

called, and hoped he would soon get well?"

Irene had turned away. She felt herself so put to shame by the nature

of this girl, whom she had thought so far beneath her; her own behavior

looked so mean, narrow, and selfish reflected in the mirror of this

absolute, humble, joyful self-sacrifice, and the thought that she must

relinquish to another the place at his sick-bed so cut her to the heart

that she could not restrain her tears, and did not even think of trying

to hide her overflowing eyes from the astonished girl.

"Go back to him and give him a message from me!--and nurse him--and--I

will come again--to-morrow, at this time--no one need know about it

besides yourself. What is your name?"

"Crescenz. But they only call me Red Zenz."

"Good-by, Crescenz--I did you wrong! You are a good girl--far, far

better than many others. Adieu!"

She held out her hand to the bewildered girl, who was at a loss how to

reconcile the Fraeulein's sudden kindness with her former coldness. Then

she turned hastily, and disappeared among the cedar-trees in the park.

Shaking her head, Zenz stood gazing after her.

"She is in love with him, too, that is certain!" she said to herself;

and then it occurred to her that Felix had immediately asked her about

this Fraeulein, yesterday at the inn. In her thoughts she placed the two

side by side, and was forced to admit, with a quiet sigh, that they

looked as if they were made for one another. She did not trouble

herself particularly as to how far matters had gone between them. For

that matter she never had any thoughts for anything except what was

near at hand; and, as she looked at her bouquet and said to herself

that she should be praised for bringing it, her round face broke into a

smile again and she tripped gayly into the house.

In the studio up-stairs, by the side of a low couch on which Felix was

lying in a feverish sleep, sat Fat Rossel, who seemed to have

completely shaken oft his indolence, now that he had to do with so

serious an affair. He had, it is true, had his American rocking-chair

brought upstairs, but otherwise he vied with his friends in performing

the duties of the sick-room. It is possible, too, that the proximity of

the girl, whose sudden appearance under his roof had made him very

thoughtful, had been instrumental in working this miracle. Not only the

sarcastic Schnetz, but even the innocent and artless Kohle, had been

struck, from the very first, by the respectful and almost chivalrous

manner with which he, usually so hard to move, bore himself toward the

girl, little grateful or susceptible as she showed herself for his

homage. She sought to be nothing in the house but an extra servant, and

conducted herself quietly and modestly toward old Katie; and it was

only when a question arose about the care of the wounded patient that

she expressed her opinion unasked. It was soon evident that, with all

her narrowness and her extremely limited education, she had a natural

preference for everything tasteful, convenient, and pleasant, so that

the little household ran like clockwork, and old Katie found no time to

grumble at the increase in the number of the family, but could give

herself up, just as before, to her quiet vice.

Kohle stood at his easel. In spite of the excitement of an almost

sleepless night, his tireless fancy still kept on working, and he was

engaged at this moment in transferring the little sketch of the second

picture to a sheet of the size of the first completed cartoon.

"You are, and always will be, a confirmed idealist," said Rossel, in a

low tone, without raising his eyes from Felix's sleeping figure.

"Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity and making some

splendid studies from real life here, you quietly work away at your

fables and turn your back on this fine specimen of Nature."

"I merely want to sketch in the outlines of the figures," the artist

responded. "It flashed across me, early this morning, to try whether

they will do on a large scale as well as in the sketch. I think, after

all, I shall have to shift this central group a little more to the

left, so as to give the whole more symmetry."

"Any stranger hearing you talk in this way, Kohle, my boy, would

suppose you were such an unsympathetic art-machine that even in the

midst of murder and violence you could think of nothing but your Venus.

But I know that with you it is merely an unconscious way of keeping up

your heart, just as Schnetz drank a glass of schnapps and I smoked a

chibouque after the first pull was over. Every one has a specific by

which he swears, and yours, moreover, is one of the sort that never

runs dry. But now, just come here and take a look at this model. After

all, these aristocratic families now and then produce some fine

specimens, turned out after the true _noblesse oblige_ principle. What

a neck and shoulders this youngster has! And just see, Kohle, how the

biceps stands out through his tight-fitting shirt-sleeves. A young

Achilles, _corpo di Bacco!_ Upon my word I should just like, now, in

this soft evening light, if I only had colors and canvas--"

"I can help you out with those," interrupted Kohle, also speaking in a

carefully suppressed voice. "I provided myself with a palette only

yesterday--old Katie wants to have her portrait painted for her

grandchild--I think the canvas--"

"Don't bother yourself about it, my good fellow. Perhaps, after all, it

is more sensible of me to study him with my eyes. But look, he tosses

about so often! And now again, it's fine the way the forehead is

rounded out, and then the splendid form of the brows. No wonder he has

good luck with the women; and that even that witch Zenz, who, as a

general thing, is as unapproachable as you please, runs after this fine

fellow like Kaetchen von Heilbronn. I only wish--"

At this moment the door opened, and she of whom he was speaking stole

in on tiptoe with her bouquet. But, light as her step was, it seemed to

have awakened the sleeper. He groaned slightly, threw his right arm

above his head and then slowly opened his eyes.

"Beautiful flowers!" he murmured. "Good-morning! How goes it!--how is

art getting on?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, and as if he were recalling to his

mind a face that had appeared to him in his dreams, he said:

"I only wish I knew--whether it were really she. Has any one--asked

after me?"

Zenz approached softly and held the bouquet before him, so that his

pale face blushed from the reflection of the dark roses, and said, in a

whisper:

"I have a message for you from the beautiful Fraeulein; she was down in

the garden to inquire after you, and she hopes you will soon be well

again. Oh, you know who I mean! The one over yonder, who didn't want to

dance with the rest."

His eyes still rested on the bouquet; the words that he heard overcame

him with such happiness and bliss that he believed he was still

dreaming. By a powerful effort he raised his head a little, so as to

hide his burning face in the flowers. "Zenz," he said, "is that--really

true?"

"As true as I live; and she even began to cry at last, so that I felt

sorry for her myself, although--"

A smile passed over the sick man's lips. He tried to speak, but his

emotion had been too violent. A dizziness overcame him, and, with a

gentle sigh, which did not sound like a sigh of pain, he closed his

eyes and immediately sunk back into a quiet slumber.

_BOOK V_.

CHAPTER I.

On a pleasant afternoon, a few days later, Jansen, Julie, and Angelica

started from the city for the Starnberg villa.

The drive was silent and sad, for Jansen had been deeply moved by what

had happened, and Julie's heart was full of sympathy for his anxiety.

To the disappointment of all, when they reached Rossel's house, that

worthy met them with a grave face and reported that the doctor had

ordered absolute quiet, and had forbidden all exciting visits. He led

the ladies into the little _salon_ and had some refreshments brought by

Zenz, who opened her eyes wide at Julie in unconcealed admiration. But

they were none of them in a mood to taste anything. They waited with

beating hearts to hear what news Jansen would bring back, for nothing

could dissuade him from going up to the sick man's room.

Felix lay as before in a half-sleeping state, so that Schnetz, whose

watch it happened to be, thought it would do no harm to admit his

friend. But they merely greeted one another with a silent nod. Then the

sculptor stepped up to the sick-bed of his Icarus, and, turning his

head away from the others, stood there motionless for full ten minutes.

Schnetz, who had seated himself again on the stool before the easel and

was cutting out a silhouette, noticed that a trembling, like that of

suppressed sobs, shook Jansen's massive frame. He was surprised at

this, for he did not know in what intimate relations the two had stood

to one another.

"There is no danger," he said, in a low voice; "a few weeks and he will

be able to mount his horse again. How he will get on with his modeling

is not so certain. That cut over the right hand was very heavy. But I

imagine that will be your least sorrow."

The sculptor did not answer.

But the wounded man seemed to have caught a word or two of what Schnetz

had whispered. He slowly opened his heavy, feverish eyes, and, with a

dreamy smile that gave a sweet, arch look to his pale face, he

muttered:

"Sorrow!--why should any one be sorry? The world is so beautiful--even

pain does one good. No, no, we will laugh--laugh--and drink to the

health--"

He made a movement, and the piercing pain it caused him roused him

thoroughly. He recognized the silent figure at his bedside.

"Hans, my old Daedalus!" he cried, making a motion of his hand toward

his friend, "is it you? Good!--this is capital! This gives me more

pleasure--than I can tell you! Have you left your Paradise to come out

here? Oh, if you knew--you see I must not talk much--I could not, even

if I would--else--Heavens! what things--I should have to tell you! And

you me, wouldn't you, old boy? Between ourselves, it wasn't just as it

should have been--we knew almost nothing at all about one another--you

had your head full, and I too. But now, as soon as I am able to talk

again--you know that no human being is what you are to me--except

one--except one--and even she--"

Schnetz rose with considerable noise, stepped up to the bed, and said:

"Fresh ice is of more account just now than warm old friendship. So

stop a bit!"

He made a sign to Jansen to go out without waiting to take leave, and

then busied himself about his nurse's duties, while Felix's looks and

words soon grew confused again.

It was some time before Jansen returned to the ladies, who had been

carrying on a rather monosyllabic conversation with the master of the

house. Julie saw at once from her lover's face how much this meeting

with his sick friend had moved him. She offered to remain out here with

Angelica, in the house, or at least in the neighborhood, so as to

lighten the duties of the men as much as possible. "Let us stay, my

dear Herr Rossel," she entreated; "we shall have no difficulty in

finding a room somewhere in the neighborhood. Angelica will make flower

studies, and I will rip cloth for bandages, and pick lint. A woman

without talents, like myself, is invaluable at such a time."

Rossel declined all these proposals, nor would he hear of such a thing

as Jansen's staying to assist them. They three sufficed to do anything

that men could do. And the female department was also in the best of

hands. Then he began to expatiate with much warmth upon the tireless

energy and willingness of Red Zenz, who had not returned to the

_salon_, saying he thought he owed it to the good child not to hurt her

feelings by accepting any other help than hers and that of his old

house-keeper. In spite of their wish the friends had to yield; but they

made him promise, at parting, that he would send for them at once in

case the duties became more onerous, or he should find they had not

force enough.

In addition to this, Kohle promised to send them news daily.

One other subject came up for discussion during this visit. Even in the

first excitement, Schnetz had urged that they should report the affair,

and have Hiesl, the murderous boatman, handed over to the courts. The

latter had the audacity to go about in Starnberg, and to work at his

calling, as if nothing had happened; indeed, he was reported to have

boasted of the whole affair, and to have said: "I hope I have spoiled

the honorable gentleman's sport for a few weeks, at least." This

cold-blooded, triumphant defiance enraged the lieutenant, and he would

have liked to give the fellow a good lesson. Rossel, however, opposed

this--chiefly in order to spare Zenz, who would undoubtedly be summoned

as a witness, and have to go before a jury. Jansen sided with him,

because he was convinced that it would go against his friend's nature

to see any man--however loath he might be to regard him as a worthy

antagonist--with whom he had fought man to man, accused as a criminal,

and made to suffer punishment through any act of his. As Kohle,

likewise, inclined to this view of the case, it was decided not only to

do nothing about the matter for the present, but also to avoid, if

possible, any independent interference on the part of justice.

The friends soon after took their leave, all deeply impressed by the

gravity of the patient's case and by their visit.

CHAPTER II.

But there was one of their traveling-companions who remained behind at

the villa. It is needless to say that Homo accompanied them on their

visit to his sick friend, not traveling, of course, as others of his

race do, in the low compartment reserved for dogs--but in a _coupe_

with his master and the ladies; for everybody knew him, and esteemed

him highly for his superior traits of character. At the last station he

found it too close for him in the narrow compartment. He escaped into

the open air, and bounded along by the side of the train for the rest

of the way. But as he had gotten out of the habit of taking such

youthful runs, and as the way was hot, he made the remaining part

of the journey--from Starnberg to Rossel's villa--at a snail's

pace, and with hanging head and thirsty tongue. Upon reaching the

sick-chamber--after having greeted the wounded Felix with a low,

half-angry, half-mournful howl--he stretched himself out at the foot of

the bed, and nothing could induce him to forsake his resting-place when

Jansen took his leave. He pretended to be asleep, and the friends were

too much accustomed to respect him as an independent, intelligent being

to disturb his rest.

Then, too, he conducted himself; after he had recovered his strength,

with exceeding tact and modesty; demanded no particular care or

attention from anybody, for he evidently saw that they had little time

to spare for him, and accepted with a good grace whatever fell to his

share. He would have been much better provided for down-stairs in the

kitchen, but he evidently thought it would be selfish for him to leave

his place at the sick-bed for the sake of a better meal, and he passed

the greater part of the day at the patient's side; for Felix loved to

pass his heavy hand, half in a dream, over his back, and when he was

awake to address all sorts of caressing speeches to him.

At other times the sick man let his dim, feverish eyes rove about the

studio; examined Kohle's cartoon, which was slowly making progress,

nodded gratefully and contentedly to his silent watchers--to whichever

one happened to be on post at the moment--and then sunk back again into

a refreshing slumber, often with a name on his lips which none of his

attendants understood.

The possessor of this name had not appeared in the garden again since

that first visit. Her uncle, on the other hand, rode by daily, drew up

at the gate whenever there happened to be any one within hail, or else

dismounted and, after tying his horse, went into the house, to inquire

about the invalid. This did not excite remark, for he was an old

acquaintance of the lieutenant, and his niece had made one at the fatal

water-party. Zenz, alone, although as a rule little given to pondering,

had her own thoughts in regard to the interest which uncle and niece

took in an utter stranger, and they only tended to confirm her former

surmises.

The reports from the sick-chamber were not the most favorable that

could have been wished. The healing of the wound in the shoulder went

on, it is true, without interruption--but slowly, on account of the

restlessness and feverishness of the patient. On the following Sunday,

when Jansen came out again with Rosenbusch and the actor, the fever

had, indeed, disappeared; but even now the visits to the sick man were

not allowed to last more than ten minutes, for the physician had

strictly forbidden all conversation until the wound in the lung should

have completely healed. Rosenbusch's offer to relieve Schnetz was

declined--greatly to his sorrow, which was only partially relieved by

Felix begging him to play his flute for a little while in the garden

under the window. Of Elfinger's proposal to read aloud to him, he

promised to take advantage later. He showed constantly how happy the

devoted care of his friends made him, and held the hand of his

"Daedalus" tightly clasped in his own during the whole of the visit,

with a tenderness such as he rarely exhibited before others.

Homo was to have returned with the three visitors, but even now he

could not be induced to do so.

On the day after this second visit Kohle was standing down-stair in the

dining-room at a time which, according to the orders of the day, he

should have devoted to sleep to strengthen himself for his night-watch.

But he could find no rest until he finally put his hand to the work

that burned within his soul. Although the walls had not yet been

prepared for frescoing, but still wore their old stone-gray tint, he

had, by way of experiment, set to work to draw with charcoal an

architectural frame for his cycle of pictures--a row of round-arched

arcades with sturdy Romanesque pillars, resting upon bases connected by

a plain foundation. There were just the same number of arches as the

Venus legend contained separate scenes, and the panels in the spandrils

over the pillars were to contain the portraits of the friends who had

assembled under this roof. This portrait-gallery was begun with the

beautiful head of Jansen's betrothed, who was certainly well fitted to

contest the first rank with Dame Venus (as the latter had been depicted

by Kohle's fancy, at least), while at the end of the row, the round,

good-natured face of Angelica, with its merry, flowing curls, peered

forth in all its plainness. Zenz and old Katie were to be immortalized

among the people in the convents.

Kohle had traced the outlines of the decoration with a bold hand, and

had even allowed himself to be so carried away by his delight as to

begin to fill in the first panel with its whole sketch; for he was

anxious to convince the ever skeptical and critical Rossel how

excellently it would fit into the space allotted to it. But he was

suddenly interrupted by an unexpected visit.

In looking back to that first evening in Paradise, the indulgent reader

may perhaps find some difficulty in recalling a modest figure that took

small part in the bacchanalian excitement of the younger members, and

made no noise himself. But, even if the old man with the calm face and

snow-white hair should be still unforgotten, the figure that now came

tottering into the little hall with unsteady walk, agitated face, and

an old straw hat stuck on the side of his head like a drunken man's,

would find no recognition.

"For God's sake, Herr Schoepf, what's happened to you?" cried the

painter, as he threw aside his crayon. "You look terribly! Do tell

me--"

The old man threw himself on the nearest divan, and gasped as though

compelled to draw his breath from some deep well.

"Is it you, Herr Kohle?" he finally stammered out with much difficulty;

"I sincerely beg your forgiveness for bursting in on you in this way,

without being announced--but don't let me disturb you. Once more I beg

you to excuse me; but there are times when all one's good manners--no,

no, I won't drink anything," he cried, interrupting himself, for he saw

that Kohle had reached out his hand for the bottle of sherry that had

been left from breakfast and still stood on the table--"not a drop,

Herr Kohle--Oh, God! who would have imagined it!"

He sank back on the sofa again after an unsuccessful attempt to rise,

and muttered unintelligibly to himself, as old people so often do.

The painter was greatly shocked. He had always honored this old

gentleman as a very model of cheerful equanimity and clear-headedness;

and in many of his professional or personal troubles he had often felt

disposed to go and ask his advice, which he always gave with great

wisdom and gentleness. And now Kohle saw him sitting there helpless and

unmanned, like a night-bird that has lost its way in the daylight, and

closes its eyes and tries to shrink into itself.

But, at last, the old man appeared to rouse himself by a powerful

effort; he opened his eyes wide and attempted to smooth his withered,

faded face, fringed with a gray stubble, into the old kindly lines,

only succeeding, however, in producing a kind of grin, something

between laughing and weeping.

"My dear Herr Kohle," he said, "I must seem to you like a madman; but,

if you knew all, you would easily understand why my old brain has been

thrown a little off its balance. And you shall know all about it some

day; but now--don't be offended with me--you are so much younger, it

would be very hard for me to tell you everything. Oblige me by calling

the lieutenant--he has had more experience--or no, you are at your

work, tell me where I can find Herr von Schnetz. I don't wish to

disturb you--"

At this moment he of whom they had been speaking came into the room,

and was, in his turn, not a little amazed when he saw the state his old

friend was in. Kohle left the two alone. In spite of his fever for

work, he could not find it in his heart to lead the exhausted old man

into another apartment.

The latter did not appear to notice his absence. He had not yet let go

of the hand Schnetz had offered him, as if, in his agitation, he found

it necessary to cling to some support. Notwithstanding his benevolent

feelings toward those younger than himself, he was, as a general thing,

a man of rather reserved manners, and not particularly lavish of signs

of confidence and familiarity.

"My good friend," he said, "be lenient toward me, and listen patiently

without interrupting me. For in order to help me you must know my whole

sad history, and I can only tell it when I can almost forget that there

is any one listening. Sit down here by my side. And now, listen while I

tell you something that has not passed my lips for twenty years.

"I was once a very different man from what I now appear to you; not

simply that I was younger and better contented, and had not known what

true misfortune was; but I bore another name, which may possibly have

reached your ears. For although I cannot say that I exactly raised it

to any particular fame, still, as a born Municher, you have probably

heard it mentioned among those who assisted at the art-works of the

early part of old Louis's reign, though; to be sure, only as a young

apprentice. Even in those days I was not possessed by the demon of

ambition, and on the pictures that I painted, as well as on the

frescoes that I helped to execute, you will not find even my monogram.

From the very first, I had too great a respect for true genius to form

an exalted idea of my own humble qualifications for an artist. By the

side of my master, Cornelius, I felt like the sparrow that soared up to

the sun under the eagle's wing, and was permitted to enjoy himself

royally up there so long as he did not forget that he was, after all,

only an insignificant sparrow. However, I was always bent upon letting

well enough alone, and consoled myself with the thought that, even if I

did possess but a mediocre talent for creative art, I could vie with

the greatest masters in the art of living.

"I had a pretty, gentle, sensible wife, two children, who were growing

up finely, as much money as I wanted, and more honor than I deserved.

For in those days all of us here in Munich were like members of one

family, or like soldiers in a _corps elite_--whatever fame was won by

the leaders redounded to the benefit of us privates.

"It was a life which seemed to leave nothing wanting to its happiness,

and I began to take credit to myself for the many blessings Heaven had

poured into my lap. I deluded myself with the idea that although I was

not phenomenal as a man or as an artist, I was, on the other hand,

something no less rare--a perfectly normal citizen of the world, a

truly model specimen of honesty and excellence, especially selected by

fate to be a source of joy and imitation for less favored mortals. My

good wife, too, who did not at first chime in with my lofty tone, was

gradually converted to this state of self-exaltation, until she came to

believe that not a single flaw could be found in her husband, her

children, her friends, her home life, or even in her pets.

"I will not recount to you the ridiculous details of our pride and

self-complacency. Enough! This audacious structure of conceit and

Phariseeism received a blow one day that sent it tumbling in hopeless

ruin about our heads. One evening, quite late, while I was sitting on

my scaffolding in the palace, painting, my wife tottered up the steps

looking like a picture of despair. She had not even stopped to reflect

whether there were others about us who might overhear our conversation;

her horror at the terrible discovery had so unbalanced her clear mind

that she could not wait until I came home, but ran into a public

building after me to tell me that our daughter--the only child we had,

besides a fine, sturdy boy--a girl on whom I had lavished all my

fatherly pride--that she, our jewel, so loved and treasured-- But I

must retrace my steps a little, so that you may understand all this.

"About this time my wife having come into possession of a very

considerable fortune, we had begun, contrary to the Munich custom, to

keep open house. As model beings, for such we fancied ourselves to be,

we even regarded it as a sort of duty not to hide our light under

a bushel. And then, besides, it was a pleasant enough thing to

do, and even now I can't condemn our having rebelled against the

narrow-hearted, inhospitable custom of the place, and admitted all

manner of good friends to enjoy our domestic happiness with us. But

even here our pride in our daughter played an important _role_. The

girl was not beautiful, nor even what one would generally call pretty;

she had inherited my flat features, little eyes, and large mouth. But

something sparkled in those eyes that attracted everybody; and when the

large red mouth, with its white teeth, expanded in a laugh that seemed

to come straight from the heart, it was impossible to help feeling

merry too. She had a remarkable talent for communicating her high

spirits to her circle of young people, and this mirthfulness often

reached the wildest extravagance; though, with her, it never went

beyond proper limits, so that I, in my blind adoration, was wont to say

to my wife, when she occasionally shook her head over it: 'Let the

child alone, her nature will protect her better than all our art.'

"I knew that others thought differently; indeed, I was often obliged to

listen to warnings, more or less distinct, from this or that friend, to

draw the reins tighter; a young untamed thing like her would be sure to

bolt some day or other. For hints like these I had always the same

superior smile, and only told my wife of them that I might laugh at the

Philistinism of my colleagues.

"The daughter of such a thoroughly well-balanced person, surely one

could confidently leave her to herself, in cases where there would have

been danger for weaker natures.

"And now came the discovery of our shame! Now came the fearful fall

from that height to which we had soared in our dreams!

"Any other man would have turned his eyes inward, would, before all

else, have taken himself to task and looked upon the sad and terrible

occurrence as a just chastisement of his foolish blindness. But this

model man was superior to all such weaknesses. Oh, my good friend, it

is not true what philosophy teaches, that the real nature of a man

cannot be changed; that it is only his outward conduct that gradually

gains a certain power of habit over the true character of the

individual. I know this by bitter experience; of that fool who drove

his poor child from his home in her shame and misery and forbade her

ever to come in his sight again; of that childish and cruel father

there is not a vestige left in me--so little that I can search my

nature for it as much as I will. With all my other faults and human

weaknesses, it is absolutely incomprehensible to me how I could ever

have torn my poor flesh and blood from me, and cast it forth into the

outside world.

"The child bore herself far better and more nobly than her parents. She

declared decidedly that having, as she found to her sorrow, forfeited

forever the love of father and mother by her weakness, she would no

longer accept anything from their bounty. We thought this was merely a

fine phrase. But we soon learned how seriously she had meant what she

said. The poor girl suddenly disappeared from our house and the

city--and probably from the country--for all our efforts to find her

were without result.

"She had persistently refused to give the name of her betrayer, and we

were either compelled or tempted to suspect every friend who had been

intimate at our house; so that, although appearances were kept up for a

while longer, and a plausible pretext was found for the disappearance

of our daughter, our domestic bliss was ended at a blow, and soon

vanished utterly. She who had given, life and charm to the most

trifling domestic pleasures was wanting.

"But we had not yet reached the end of our sorrows; our son, too, was

to be taken from us. He studied medicine---a quiet, steady, and, to all

appearances, a somewhat phlegmatic man; but he had an exceptionally

keen sense of honor. When his sister did not return, this and that

began to be gossiped about her. The slightest allusion, often a

perfectly innocent speech, would throw him into a state of furious

anger. It was some remark of this sort that had as its sequel a duel

between him and his best friend. They bore the last joy of our life,

bathed in bloody back into our wretched home.

"And now the floodgates were opened. It was all over with our model

household. It came out why our daughter had been driven to misery and

our son to death. Our friends could not help assuming a certain air of

pity toward us, that broke my wife's heart and drove me from the city.

I went to North Germany, and there I buried my wife a year later. Soon

after I gave up painting. I looked upon engraving, with all its

drudgery, as an instrument of chastisement--as a mode of daily forcing

down my pride. My dishonored name had become hateful to me, and I had

laid it aside when I left Bavaria, But I did not neglect to have an

appeal to my outcast child inserted in all the newspapers, begging her

to return to her solitary father, to forgive him, and to help him bear

his remaining years of life.

"No answer ever came, although I continued to have the notice inserted

for many years.

"At last I became thoroughly convinced that she was no longer in this

world; and no sooner did this belief, which it had taken ten years to

beat into my head, become a settled conviction, than a singular

transformation took place in me. I grew calm again, after all my

wretched experiences, and at peace with myself; there were times when I

had difficulty in recognizing in my present self the man whose guilt

and foolishness had worked so much misery. I succeeded so well in

outliving my old nature, in working a complete regeneration of my inner

man, that I actually felt something like curiosity to see the city in

which my predecessor had suffered so much sorrow and shame.

"And so, one day, I came back to Munich, though I scarcely knew it

again, for everything at whose birth I had assisted was now completed,

and besides a new world had sprung up. Nor did the old city recognize

me either. I had grown a white-headed, quiet, solitary man, bore

another name, and lived like a hermit--never going out during the day,

unless, perhaps, to visit the studio of one of the younger artists who

had settled here since my day. It has sometimes happened that I have

found myself in a beer-garden seated next to some boon companion of the

days of my prosperity, who had no idea who the silent old man was who

was eating and drinking at the same table with him.

"And this is the way I have gone on for six or seven years, counting

myself always among the departed spirits, and sometimes startled at the

sight of my own face if I chanced to catch a glimpse of it in the

mirror. It is incredible, my dear friend, how tough the thread of life

is sometimes. For really had it not been for my interest in art, and in

some good young friends who have shown me confidence and respect, the

whole world would have been a blank to me. Besides, when photography

came into such general use, it seemed to me that my graver was a very

superfluous sort of thing, of little further use except to multiply

copies of business cards, labels on wine-bottles, and other things of

that sort.

"So I continued to grow more idle, more contemplative, and, if you

like, wiser; except that I myself felt little respect, and sometimes

even disgust and loathing, for any wisdom that could haunt such a

useless wreck of a man."

The old man spoke these last words in such a mournful voice, and hung

his head so low upon his breast, that Schnetz could not help feeling

the warmest pity for him. At the same time he asked himself with

amazement how it could have been possible for them all to have

associated with this terribly-tried man for so many long years without

having taken the trouble to find out anything about his history.

He now bluntly said as much, inveighing in his bitter way against the

wretched state of society in which they lived.

"A fine Paradise!" he growled out, half to himself. "We have a great

idea of how necessary we are to one another, and yet the few fellow-men

who are worth troubling ourselves about stand in no nearer relation to

us than the wild animals did to our first parents. Though, to be sure,

in your case we ought not to bear the chief blame. Why did you yourself

never feel a desire to break the ice between us? It would have been a

healthier thing for you, if you had long ago formed an intimacy with

one of us."

The old man raised his head again, but still kept his eyes shut tight,

and groped blindly for Schnetz's hand, which he pressed warmly.

"Perhaps it is not yet too late," he stammered, in a trembling voice.

"I hope it may still be in your power to assist me in finding a place

in life again.

"One morning about a fortnight ago a little sealed packet was brought

to me by a street messenger. It bore no address, but when I saw the

seal I felt a terrible shock. I recognized it as one I had once given

to my daughter--a cornelian, in which was cut an Egyptian scarabaeus. I

asked the man who had given it to him. A girl, he said, who had given

him an exact description of my lodging and appearance; and she had also

known my name--my present one--which I have no reason to suppose my

lost daughter had ever even heard of. I was so beside myself with

alarm, joy, and a thousand indescribable sensations that I did not

break the seal at first; only one thing seemed clear to me in my

confusion--before all else I must find the person who had sent the

messenger. Did he know where she was to be found? I asked. But she had

engaged him in the street, had paid in advance, and had then

immediately disappeared round the next corner. And then he described

her! It was my lost one, feature for feature, and yet it could not be

she herself, for this one must have been about as old as my daughter

was when I cast her off. So it must be the _child_ of my lost darling!

And to think that she, too, should flee from me like her poor mother!

"At last I tore the string off the packet, and there fell out a letter

and two small pictures--daguerreotypes, such as they used in those days

to take on silvered plates--one of them a picture of her mother, the

only thing she had taken away with her from her home, the other a young

man whose face I had great difficulty in recalling.

"The letter had been written several years before. Only in case of her

death was it to come into my hands, she wrote in the very first lines.

She had always been a proud child, and guilt and want and her sad life

had not changed her. Yet there was a loving, tender tone in her words,

a spirit of parting that softens even the hardest and most bitter

natures; and as I read her simple confession, in which she accused

herself of having robbed me of my happiness and ruined my life--of

having offended me beyond forgiveness--it seemed as if my heart would

burst. She could never prevail upon herself to return to me; at first

from fear that I would renounce her a second time, and later, because

she did not want to become a fresh burden to me. She knew that I had

taken another name, and was living in the strictest seclusion. If she

should suddenly appear with her child, it might not be convenient for

me. But, when she should be no more--and this must be soon, for her

lungs grew weaker every day--she begged me not to let the child suffer

for the wrong her mother had done me. It was a good child, unspoiled as

yet, but with little sense and very giddy. She needed a father's hand

to guide her through her years of danger. She had appealed in vain to

the child's father in the first years after his desertion of her. But,

when no answer came, she had taken an oath that he should be dead to

her forever. She had found no difficulty in keeping it, for she hated

him now as much as she had once loved him.

"For the child's sake she would now speak his name for the first time

in eighteen years, so that if he should still be alive her father might

call him to account and force him to make provision for his orphaned

daughter.

"And then followed a short word of farewell and the name of my child,

and beside it in brackets that of her betrayer, which was also on the

back of the daguerreotype, where, with his own hand, he had written

some words of presentation to my daughter.

"Give me a glass of water, my dear friend. My tongue cleaves to the

roof of my mouth, as if I had swallowed the dust of a whole graveyard!

So--thank you--and now I shall soon have done.

"For I shall take good care not to tell you how I have spent my time

since the receipt of this legacy. I sometimes realized myself how much

like a madman I must have looked as I rushed about the streets, at all

hours of the day and night, peering under the hats of all the young

girls, and forcing my way into the houses wherever I caught the

faintest glimpse of red hair at the window."

"Holy Moses!" interrupted Schnetz, springing up and pacing the hall

with long strides, all the while furiously twisting at his imperial.

"Why didn't you tell us this before? Why, it must be our Zenz!"

The old man bowed his head with a sigh.

"I first learned it, or rather guessed it, yesterday, when I happened

to meet Herr Rosenbusch, and he told me of all that had happened here.

It came upon me like a flash; this red-haired servant and my

granddaughter, who felt so little desire to know the grandfather who

had cast off her mother, are one and the same person. I could hardly

wait for the morning before coming here and clasping to my heart the

one thing that still belongs to me in this world. But as I entered the

park a short time ago, my knees scarcely able to carry me from

excitement, and saw from a distance, through the branches, the red hair

and the round face with the red lips and the short nose--she stood in

the very centre of the lawn raking together the new-mown hay--I stepped

up to her and cried, 'Don't you know me, Zenz?'

"And then, instead of throwing herself into my outstretched arms, she

gave a cry, as if a wild beast were upon her, and started off down the

garden as fast as she could run, and I after her, pursuing her around

the lawn and shouting out the most heart-rending words and entreaties,

until she saw her chance, pushed open the gate and escaped from me into

the road.

"In spite of my sixty years I am no crippled invalid, my dear friend,

and in the midst of all my wretchedness and grief my anger at this

futile and ridiculous chase, after a foolish thing who refused to

understand how well I meant by her, got the better of me, and I put

forth all my strength to overtake her. But the foolish thing sped away

from me, as blind and deaf as if death itself were at her heels. I

believe she would have thrown herself under the wheels of the

locomotive that was approaching rather than have me catch her.

"Then, all of a sudden, I felt shocked at this unconquerable fear and

loathing in so young a heart, and stood still and called to her to have

no fear--that I gave it up. And then, when I saw her flee into the

thick wood to the right, I faced about and dragged myself back to the

villa. For the first time I realized how my limbs shook, and what a

miserable figure I should cut in your eyes. But you are old enough,

Herr von Schnetz, to no longer feel amazed at any fate, however sad and

strange, that may befall a man. I felt I could tell you all this; and

now I have come to the end of my foolishness and of my wisdom. For,

after what I have just experienced, I can scarcely hope ever again to

approach the legacy left me by my poor daughter. I have become a

scarecrow; the warm nest I would offer to the child seems more terrible

to her than the haystack or fence under which she can crouch for a few

nights, before starting off upon her wanderings again."

CHAPTER III.

Schnetz, who all this time had never ceased to stride up and down the

room, now stepped up to the old man.

"Sit still where you are, Herr Schoepf," he said. "Stay here where it

is cool until you are thoroughly rested. Meantime I will go and find

the girl, and talk to her. She has a liking for me, possibly because I

have never tried to win her favor."

With these words he left the old gentleman. He first searched through

the house and garden after the frightened bird, but finally had to make

up his mind to go into the wood after her.

After much unsuccessful searching and calling, he finally saw her white

face and red hair shimmering from out the green shadows, in a little

cleared spot on the gentle slope of the grove, from which she could

command a view of the entrance of the park.

"What a trouble you are making, Zenz!" he shouted to her. "What are you

running about in the lonely wood for all the forenoon, when there is

enough to be done in the house? Old Katie has worked as hard to find

you as if you had been a needle in a haystack."

The girl had hastily sprung from the mossy seat on which she had been

crouching, and seemed to be holding herself in readiness to dart away.

Her round cheeks had suddenly flushed crimson.

"Is he still there?" she asked.

"Who? Don't be so childish, Zenz. The idea of running away from a good

old man, as if he were Satan himself!"

"I won't go home till he has gone," she said, with a defiant shake of

her head. "I know what he wants. He wants to lock me up in his hateful,

lonely house, where no sun or air gets in. But I have never done him

any wrong, and I won't go--I won't bear it--I'd rather have him kill me

right here."

"You're out of your senses, girl! Do you know him? What do you know

about him?"

She did not answer immediately. He saw how wildly her young breast

heaved, how her eyes were fixed on the ground, and how her teeth bit

the little twig she held in her hand.

"He is the father of my mother!" she finally burst out, her face taking

on a look of intense hatred. "He drove my poor dear mother out of his

house because of me--that is, before I ever came into the world. Oh, he

is so stern! My mother never dared to go back to him as long as she

lived. Then, when she was going to die, she wrote a letter to her

father asking him to take care of me, and she made me promise by all

that was holy to carry this letter to my grandfather as soon as she was

dead; and I promised I would, though I never could get up much love for

him, and no one can blame me for it either. But, when I came to Munich,

I felt terribly forlorn and forsaken at first, for I didn't know a

soul, and I thought to myself I'll just take a look at him and see what

he's like. So I waited in front of his house, with my packet in my

pocket, until he went out in the evening. I tell you truly, Herr

Lieutenant, I was so miserable and unhappy that even if he had only

looked just the least bit kind I would have been very glad to go up and

say to him: 'I am Zenz; people say I am the very image of my poor dear

mother, and my dear mother was your daughter, and now she is dead and

sends you this letter!' But when he came out of his house so stern and

still, and looked neither to the right or left, but only stared at the

ground, just as if he didn't care anything at all for the dear world

all about him--hu! it made my flesh creep! Nothing in the world shall

ever force me to have anything to do with him, thought I to myself; and

I let him go by as if he had been a perfect stranger. Still, I thought

I would leave the letter for him, so I made some inquiries about him of

his landlady; And I heard from her that he hides in his lodgings like

an owl in a hollow tree; no one comes to see him, and he goes to see

nobody; he gets no letters and he writes none. There was a little

looking-glass hanging in the landlady's room, and I happened to see my

face in it, and it looked to me as if I had an ashy-gray skin and faded

hair. I think most likely the glass was colored blue, but for all that

I felt as if it was warning me--'This is the way you'll look before

long, if you shut yourself up with your grandfather in his dark den

where no sunbeam will ever reach you.' So I went away and took good

care not to deliver my packet, for it might have betrayed me. And that

very same evening I got acquainted with Black Pepi, and went to live

with her, and never sent him my poor, dear mother's packet until I went

into the country. But how he found out where I was, or what he wants of

me--for he must have the sense to see that I don't want to have

anything to do with him--I--"

"Zenz," interrupted the lieutenant, "be a sensible girl, and at least

get acquainted with your only relation before you rebel against your

mother's last wish. I can assure you you wouldn't have any fault to

find with him; and if he should treat you like a prisoner or try to

coerce you in any way--are not your old friends at hand? Do you suppose

that Herr Rossel, or the baron, or I myself, would suffer any one to

ill-treat our little Zenz? If you could only hear the old gentleman

talk, and see how sorry he is for all he did and did not do for his

daughter, and how anxious he is to atone for it to his grandchild! No,

Zenz, you are too sensible a girl to be so childishly frightened by the

spectres your own imagination has called up. And, besides, what do you

think is going to become of you when the summer is over and we all go

back into the city again?"

He waited a moment for her answer. But as none came, and she seemed to

be lost in thought, he drew a step nearer, and, taking one of her

hands, said, in his truehearted way:

"I know what you are thinking, my child. You are in love with the

baron, and you are thinking you will remain near him as long as it is

possible, and then perhaps he will love you in return; and you have no

thought for anything else. But you ought also to tell yourself how

miserably it must all end at last. He won't marry you--you must make up

your mind to that--and what will be the upshot of such an unhappy love

you have seen, unfortunately, in the case of your poor mother."

She withdrew her hand from his; but looked at him quietly, and almost

with something of her old light-heartedness.

"You mean well by me, sir," she said. "But I am not so foolish as I may

look. I never imagined for a moment that he would marry me; he wouldn't

even love me, no, not if I had saved his life and should be near him

ever so long. He loves some one else--I know that for certain--and I

don't blame him for it a bit, and if I choose to go on liking him, in

spite of all that, it is my affair, and nothing that anybody says will

make any difference. Until he is well again, and can get up and go

about, I am going to stay out here; and no one knows better than you

that I don't eat my bread in idleness, and that you are not able to get

along without me. Just tell this to my--to the old gentleman; and as to

what may happen afterward, why, that is something none of us can tell

yet. But I won't let myself be caught, and if he should use force--I

would jump into the lake sooner than let myself be made a slave of!"

She turned sharply on her heel and began very calmly to walk up the

hill, no longer as if to flee, but merely because she had spoken her

last word. Schnetz had always had a secret liking for her, though he

had no very high opinion of her understanding or her virtue. But he

could not help feeling a certain respect for her as she had just shown

herself to him.

"She knows what she wants, at all events," he growled, "and won't allow

herself to be deceived, not even by her own poor heart. There is good

blood in the little red fox."

Upon returning to Schoepf he exerted himself to the utmost to convince

the old gentleman that, for the present, it was useless to try and do

anything. But he promised to do his best to reconcile the girl to the

thought that she could no longer be her own mistress, but must consent

to be taken under the protection of a loving grandfather. It touched

him to see how much the old man was encouraged and cheered by the

thought that she would come to him in the end. He even began to make

plans for the external arrangements of their future life together. As

if this were a matter that would not brook the slightest delay, he

could not be prevailed upon to stay even until the heat of the day was

over. He must go back at once and look for larger and more cheerful

lodgings, and must buy some furniture, so that he would be prepared to

receive his grandchild just as soon as she felt like coming to live

with him. Besides, he did not want to be the cause of the poor child's

wandering about in the woods any longer, for it was clear she would not

enter the house again until he had gone.

Schnetz accompanied him through the park. When they were almost at the

gate he asked:

"Don't you propose to take any steps to find out the whereabouts of the

child's father? Or do you know that he has died since all this

happened?"

The old man stood still, and his eyes took on that stern expression

which had scared off Zenz that night in the street.

"The scoundrel!" he cried in a loud voice, passionately striking the

gravel path with the umbrella that he always carried in summer. "The

miserable, perjured villain! Can you seriously suppose that I would let

myself be outdone in pride by my dead daughter, who would have nothing

to do with the author of all her misery, since he appeared to have

forgotten her? Do you think me capable of such a thing as sharing this

living legacy of my daughter, that I have just found again as if by a

miracle, with that robber of women's honor--admitting even that he

would not now choose to deny all share in it? I would rather--"

"My good Herr Schoepf," coolly interrupted Schnetz, "in spite of your

white hairs, you are rather more passionate than is consistent with the

interest of your grandchild. Now what if anything should happen to you,

and the good girl should a second time be left an orphan in the world?

In case the worst should happen, she ought at least to know just where

she stands; to say nothing of the fact that it can never do any harm to

a child to know to whom it is indebted for the doubtful privilege of

belonging to this world."

The old man reflected for a moment. His manner grew more gentle.

"You are right," said he at last. "Scold away at me; it is the old

artist blood in me that will never listen to reason--not even when

all art is passed, and only a little drudgery is left. But that

scoundrel--if you knew how cordially we received him into our home!

Though there again our pride came into play, for he was a baron, and up

to that time we had had no intimates of higher rank than artists,

except a few officers; and besides this he was a stranger, a North

German, and he pleased us immensely; for he was such a lively,

wide-awake, chivalrous young gentleman, a great hunter, and he used to

be always saying he would never rest until he had hunted lions in

Africa--"

"Good God! Hunted lions? And his name--don't tell me, my good friend,

that his name was--"

"Baron F----. I had actually forgotten the name, until I found it in my

poor Lena's testament. Heaven knows what ever became of him, and

whether he was punished for his mad whim, and for all the wrong he

inflicted upon my poor child, by dying a miserable death under the

African sun, torn to pieces by wild beasts. The name seems to strike

you. Can it be that you have ever met the wretch?--or perhaps you even

know where he is?"

Schnetz had recovered himself in a moment. He reflected that at best it

would be quite superfluous, while it might perhaps be extremely

disastrous, if he told the old gentleman in what intimate relations he

stood to the individual in question. Neither did he see that it would

be of any advantage to the girl, if, before she had begun to feel any

love for her grandfather, she should find a father who would be even

more of a stranger to her, and who would be able to count still less

upon her filial affection. And besides, in the interest of his

unsuspecting old tent-comrade, he shrank from making any premature

disclosures.

He answered, accordingly, that it was true the name was not altogether

unknown to him; indeed, so far as he knew, the father of the girl was

still living; it was possible, however, that they would be doing her a

poor service if they should be over hasty in enlightening her on the

subject. The first thing to be done was to induce her to become

reconciled to her grandfather.

As the old man was, at heart, entirely of this opinion, he took his

leave, evidently feeling much comforted and full of glad hopes; though

he still lingered a little, secretly hoping he might catch at least

another distant glimpse of the shy little creature. But the girl took

good care to keep out of sight. So that at last, with a quiet sigh, her

grandfather had to set out upon his homeward way. Schnetz stood at the

gate, looking after him.

"A mad farce, this life of ours!" he growled under his mustache. "The

only thing still wanting is that my old lion-hunter should come riding

past his father-in-law, smoking a cigar and gazing complacently at the

white-haired old boy, who would be powdered still whiter by the dust

kicked up by his nag's hoofs; and that then he should stop here in the

park gate, and make inquiries of Zenz in regard to the health of our

patient, playfully pinching the child's cheek just as he would any

other pretty servant girl's, or giving her a _pourboire_ if she held

his horse for him for ten minutes. And then his niece, our proud little

highness! What big eyes she would make if I should tell her that the

little red-haired waiter-girl was her own, though not exactly her

legitimate, cousin!"

CHAPTER IV.

Week after week had passed away. The autumn was approaching; the

rose-bushes on the little lawn shed their last buds, and at evening a

stealthy white mist crept over the lake, and for a whole week the

opposite shore and the distant mountains beyond disappeared completely

behind a dull, gray rain that spread a curtain over lake and land. When

at last it was drawn away the same landscape was indeed there, but in

different colors; much yellow was scattered among the tall beech woods;

the waves of the lake, usually of a transparent green, were changed to

a dull gray, and on the summits of the Zugspitz and the

Karwendelgebirge could be seen the melancholy white of the first snow.

Even Rossel, who usually regarded the surrounding landscape with great

indifference, and who declared the symbolical relations of Nature to

our moods to be a sentimental prejudice, expressed himself to Kohle

with great displeasure concerning the raw air and the disgusting,

clinging fog, which, as he asserted, had come so early this year out of

pure malevolence, knowing that they were obliged to stay out here on

account of their sick friend. Then, too, the stoves, which had not been

used for many years, refused to draw; and they were soon forced to give

up heating the dining-room.

Nevertheless Kohle, whose inner fire was still unquenched, would not

allow himself to be deterred from working away at his Venus allegory;

though Rossel had now lost all interest in it, and even accompanied the

progress of the work with open sneers at the idea of their attempting

to naturalize the naked beauty under such a foggy sky.

But then when the autumn sun bethought itself of its might once more,

and, at high noon at least, awakened for hours all the charms of a most

glorious Indian summer, Rossel still continued in a bad humor, which he

was only careful to conceal in Felix's presence. Schnetz soon got at

the true cause of his low spirits--the almost contemptuous coldness

with which Zenz treated him. His singular passion, which had sprung

originally from an artistic whim, was only inflamed the more by this.

And now that he had learned the secret of her birth, he grew very

melancholy, actually lost his appetite, and, with the exception of the

hours he spent with Felix, shut himself up from every one, not even

making his appearance at meals. Schnetz came to the conclusion that he

had made a formal offer of marriage to the little red-haired witch, and

had been dismissed without ceremony.

This strange child bore herself with great coolness in the midst of all

these temptations and perplexities. It is true she no longer laughed as

much as she had in the summer. Yet she never made her appearance with

red eyes, or with any other signs of secret grief, and even when she

had to wait on Felix her face was cheerful and unembarrassed. But on

the very first day that the convalescent was allowed to go down into

the garden, leaning on Schnetz's arm, she unexpectedly appeared before

them, her little hat on her head and in her hand a little traveling-bag

containing her few possessions, which she had sent over from the inn

across the lake. She very quietly announced that she was about to

return to the city, as she could be of no further use here. The Herr

Baron was as good as well, and within the last few weeks old Katie had

so far succeeded in breaking herself of her taste for schnapps as to be

perfectly able to look after the household without other assistance.

When Schnetz asked her whether she meant to go to her grandfather she

answered, with a fleeting blush, that "she did not know yet herself;

she had managed to get along without him hitherto, just as he had

without her. She wouldn't swear that she wouldn't go to him; she must

get to know him better first. But she would never let herself be robbed

of her liberty!"

Felix had listened in amazement, for he had not yet been initiated into

old Schoepf's history. He spoke very kindly to the good child, and held

her hand for a moment tenderly in his. She suffered him to retain it

without returning his gentle pressure, and looked quietly past him as

though she would say: "That is all very fine, but it can do me no

good." Then she allowed Schnetz to exact a promise from her that she

would write him her address as soon as she found a lodging-place, and,

with a last "Adieu, and a quick recovery!" she marched out of the gate

with such a quick and resolute step that it would never have entered

any one's head to suppose that this was a parting at which her heart

had bled.

Rossel, of whom she took no leave, sank into still deeper melancholy

when he learned of her departure, and the innocent Kohle, who was

always the last to notice anything that was going on about him,

contrived to pour oil on the fire by exhausting himself in eulogies of

this remarkable girl, who was missed now in every nook and corner. He

was forced to content himself with immortalizing, from memory, her

little nose and golden mane, as he called it, in the scene at the

cloister; in which effort he succeeded but poorly, according to the

judgment of Fat Rossel.

And so, in spite of the cheerful autumn days, the atmosphere in the

villa was none of the brightest. Even in the case of the convalescent

Felix, the more he felt his strength increase, the less did he seem to

rejoice in the new lease of life that had been granted him. Those words

of greeting from his old love, that had made him so happy in his

feverish dreams, had vanished from his memory upon his return to

perfect consciousness. He only knew that her uncle had received daily

bulletins of his condition, and that they would not leave Starnberg

until all danger was over. But they might easily have shown as much

sympathy as that to a stranger, with whom they had chanced to stand in

merely formal relations. For the rest, in what respect had the

situation been changed by his adventure? Altogether to his advantage? A

life and death struggle with a boatman about a waiter-girl! Surely a

dubious test, that, of the correctness of his principles regarding

looseness and freedom of morals; a new proof of how correctly she had

acted when, with a single sharp cut, she severed her life from his. And

now, under what pretext could he give her an explanation of the real

origin of the whole affair? And what further interest could she take in

the doings of one whom she had wholly given up? What did it concern her

whether, in pursuing his own wild courses, he showed himself more or

less unworthy of her?

But the pride which rebelled against making any overtures secretly

gnawed at his heart. More than once, after the wound in his hand

permitted him to scribble a few letters, he had sat down to write to

her uncle. In doing so, he could certainly put in a word in explanation

of the very innocent occasion of his bloody adventure. But in the midst

of his writing it would seem to him as if, according to the old saying,

he were making the evil worse with every excuse. And then, could he

ever hope to explain away that sin--which was in her eyes the

heaviest--his dancing with the girl?

So he tore up the letters he had begun, and, gnashing his teeth,

resigned himself to the fate of suffering unjustly, and being better

than he seemed.

But one day when, by some chance or other, he found himself sitting

alone on a bench in the garden with none of his watchers near--for they

took care to keep him out of the reach of all conversation--he saw,

with a glad throb at heart, her uncle gallop up and gleefully wave his

hand to him over the park-gate. He stood up, and, with a faint blush,

half of weakness, half of confusion, advanced several steps to meet the

well-known face.

The lively old gentleman rushed upon him, and embraced him so cordially

that Felix had to smilingly beg for forbearance, on account of his

scarcely-healed wounds. Whereupon the uncle excused himself in great

alarm, and, carefully supporting the patient, led him back to the

bench, where he asked him, with the most candid curiosity, for all the

particulars of the unfortunate occurrence.

"A blessed land, this Bavaria!" he cried, rubbing his hands. "Upon my

word, there is no need for a man to go beyond the 'Pillars of

Hercules,' or among the red-skins: he can have plenty of slaughter

nearer home, in his own German fatherland! But now, out with the truth

about this girl who was the cause of the whole scrape. The moment I

heard you were wounded I asked: _Ou est la femme?_ When I learned she

had crossed over with you in the boat, and had been nursing you--No,

don't deny it, you young sinner! The little witch--she is said to have

red hair, too, and red hair always was dangerous to you--ha, ha! Do

you still remember that crazy, mysterious adventure--the one with the

red-haired Englishwoman at the sea-shore?--ha, ha! And now, again--But

what's the matter with you, my dear boy? You turn red and white in a

breath--maybe you've been staying out a little too--"

Felix rose to his feet with evident exertion. His brow was clouded; his

eyes glared strangely at his jovial old friend.

"Uncle," he said, "you have been wrongly informed. However, that makes

no difference. The girl, who is no more to me than that mad fool of a

boatman, has left the house again, and with that it is to be hoped this

whole wretched affair will be at an end. But that you should touch upon

that other matter again, when you know how painful the remembrance of

it is to me--"

"I beg a thousand pardons, my dear boy! It slipped from me, as it were.

You know that, in spite of my fifty-one years, I am the same

incorrigible old _etourdi_; but now I swear by all the gods and

goddesses, never again will I make even the slightest allusion--Why, he

has grown quite pale!--this firebrand of a fellow! Look here, my dear

boy, you ought to take much greater care of yourself, and guard

yourself much more carefully against excitement. I had been meaning to

propose to you to come over and stay with us, for, after all, we have

the best right to nurse you; but since you really are weaker than I

thought, and as certain emotions might perhaps--"

Felix stared at him in blank amazement. Then he burst out in a forced

laugh.

"You are joking, uncle. Or perhaps, after all, you are speaking with

more design than you would have me believe. I go and live--with you!

You are very kind; but really, well as I know that all is over, still I

should hardly like to guarantee that certain emotions might not--"

He broke off, and passed his hand over his forehead.

"You are right, my boy," replied the uncle, seriously. "It is still a

little too soon. Still, sooner or later this whole absurd, lagging

affair must be set right, and the sooner, the better, in my opinion.

Just think it over. The country is just the place for arranging such a

matter easily and comfortably. If you would prefer to speak with her

alone first, you have only to give me a wink."

"Is this merely your private opinion, or are you perhaps acting--"

"Under higher orders? Not yet, unfortunately. But you know my

diplomatic talents. If you will only give me full powers--"

"I am sorry, uncle, but I really am too weak to talk any longer in this

jesting way of matters which, after all, have their serious side too.

Excuse me for to-day; I must go back to the house; and, in conclusion,

I must beg of you not to exert yourself at all in my interest. You see

I am quite well, under the circumstances--as well as I could wish all

men were--and after I have passed a few weeks more in the country--"

He tried to speak lightly; but he sank back upon the bench, and could

only motion with his hand for the old baron to leave him, for a sudden

throbbing pain in his wounded breast deprived him of speech. The uncle

stammered out a few frightened words, and then hastened back to his

horse, which he had tied outside the park-gate. He mounted

thoughtfully, and rode off shaking his head. There were some things

about the young people of nowadays that went beyond his comprehension.

CHAPTER V.

A few weeks after this meeting, Felix wrote Jansen the following

letter:

"Villa Rossel, _last of October_.

"The spirit moves me to talk with you, old Daedalus; and as my physician

has seriously impressed me with the duty of sparing my lungs, I may

neither look you up myself nor tempt you to come out here to me. So I

must force you to puzzle out these awkward copy-book letters of mine,

in which you will recognize the handwriting of your pupil as little as

you will his customary style.

"For, between ourselves be it said, things still look rather blue and

gloomy to me. Our friends won't have told you this; before them I have

played the lively, joyous Hotspur, merely in order to make them think

there would be no danger in leaving me out here alone. I can no longer

reconcile it to my conscience to exile my good host from the city, even

though he does put such a good face on the matter; and then there is

Kohle too--hard as it is for him to tear himself away from his bare

walls, he can't go on with his work until he has first made the

necessary designs. What do I lack here except that one thing which is

lost to me forever? You need not fear that I shall become a prey to

misanthropy or schnapps, like old Katie. I should be ashamed to show

myself to Homo, who is looking at me now while I write, with his wise,

sensible, true-hearted eyes. Perhaps he is asking me to send you his

love.

"But to stay out here awhile in solitude will be of equal service to my

slowly-healing breast and to my poor, somewhat discouraged soul. Don't

let yourself be deceived, old Hans, by what our friends try to stuff

into your head: that my anxiety about whether I shall soon be able to

use my hand again in the service of the arts is gnawing at my heart.

More has been injured in this case than a finger-muscle or a joint; my

hopeful confidence has been shattered--that courage and audacity with

which I came to you in the summer. If I had ten sound hands I would

bethink myself ten times before I again sent them to school to you, for

I am as good as convinced that at the very best they would only have

acquired mechanical proficiency; while a true work of art requires much

more, for which they would hardly have the right sort of tools.

"You prophesied this to me in the first hour of our reunion. Then I set

myself up to be wiser than my master. And now can you guess how I found

out that you were right? I know it is mortifying, but I must confess

it. During all the pleasant weeks I passed in your workshop I never

once felt so much myself, never felt myself so 'at the height of my

existence'--as Rossel would call it--as in those moments when I was

bringing an oarless boat safely to shore, and afterward when I was

struggling, hand-to-hand, to defend my life against a furious,

murderous scoundrel.

"That a man maybe a very tolerable bully and desperado, and at the same

time be a great sculptor, your celebrated Florentine predecessor,

Benvenuto, has shown. Though then, to be sure, the days of a nobility

of force were not yet over, and many things were demanded of a complete

man which are now divided among many by our present system of division

of labor. Artistic creation and practical execution are now distinct,

and you were quite right in saying that the clay in which I was called

upon to work was to be found in public life.

"But where shall I find a material that will not melt away under my

hands?

"You would be no worse off in a desert of sand than I am in this

bureaucratic, well-regulated, red-tape civilization of ours, that never

permits a man to dig into the lump and stamp his own individuality upon

this commonplace routine; and, after all, it is that alone which could

give any personal satisfaction to a man constituted as I am--this

feeling, akin to the one you have in art, of having created something

which every other man could not have produced just as well by merely

following a certain formula.

"It may be that my experience in my own narrow little fatherland has

given me a false idea of what a man inclined to action has to hope and

to fear in this Old World of ours. Perhaps if I could find a position

in the North German Confederation!--but even that wouldn't help me; at

least I have known Prussian Landraths with whom I would not have

changed places--men, the highest aim of whose ambition was to succeed

to a chief magistrate's position, with a white head and a soul grown

gray in the dust of official documents.

"No, my dear fellow, Schnetz unquestionably used the right expression.

I have stumbled into the wrong century. I should have done very well in

the middle ages, when the old savage and unruly spirit was everywhere

to be found side by side with a struggling civilization, and when one

could be a good citizen and yet go armed to the teeth. But since this

wretched anachronism cannot now be helped, I will at least do my best

to seek out a place where a bird of my plumage won't be stared at like

a strange fowl in a hen-yard, and crowed over by every well-conditioned

cock.

"I have seen quite enough of the New World to know that I shall be more

in my proper place there than here. Don't imagine for a moment that I

over-estimate that promised land; the positive, human, heart-quickening

possessions and enjoyments that it has to offer are few. But of this

very same unattractive nothing, from which something can be made, there

is blessed superabundance there.

"Consequently, I have made up my mind, as the Yankees say, to cross the

wide water again, and to settle down there permanently. Salutary and

necessary as this step is for me, I know well that parting is not such

an easy matter. And for that very reason I want to make my preparatory

studies for it out here in the deepest solitude. I want to accustom

myself to doing without all sorts of things, and at the same time to

let my body get as hardy again as it is necessary to have it over

there.

"I hope to attain this result in a few months. And then, before I shake

the dust of the Old World off my shoes, I will come to you again, my

oldest, best, and truest friend. All was not as it should have been

between us; but for that no one was to blame but time itself, which did

not leave us just as we were when we parted ten years ago, but has

brought to each of us many strange experiences, such as even the best

of friends can only understand when they have borne them together. And

how much has happened even in the last few months, which each is forced

to keep locked up in his own breast! To you has been accorded a great

happiness; to me have come all sorts of renunciations and bitter

experiences. Such things do not go well together. But, now that you

have almost seen the last of me, allow me, at least a little more than

heretofore, to share in your happiness, and to bask, though but for so

short a time, in our old friendship. Hereafter I shall have plenty of

time to sit in the shade.

"Remember me to Fraeulein Julie. I have only exchanged a few words with

her. But when I say that I think her worthy your love, you will know

how highly I esteem her.

"This is the third day that I have been scribbling at this letter.

After every half-page, my wound begins to give warning again. However,

to hold a sword or to cock a musket is not such exhausting work as to

guide a pen. Old Berlichingen managed to get along, though in a far

worse plight.

"Remember me to our friends; I look forward with the greatest pleasure

to seeing them again, and to celebrating my last German Christmas with

you all. And now good-by, old fellow! _Hic et ubique_,

"Your Felix."

CHAPTER VI.

When Jansen received this letter he was at work in his studio making a

bust of his child. Julie sat at his side looking on; little Frances

crouched in a high chair and asked a great many droll, sage questions;

and in spite of the gray autumn sky it was cozier in the large room

than in the old days, when the summer air came wafted in through the

wide-opened windows. Even now a sparrow flew in, now and then, through

the only open pane, and a great nosegay of autumn flowers stood on the

window-sill. A small fire flickered in the stove, and Julie's beautiful

face and the child's wise eyes gave out a warmth which had once been

sadly wanting here. Yet, notwithstanding this, Jansen's brow still

remained clouded; and he left it to his friend to answer the questions

of the child, while he worked on in silence.

For weeks she had been aware of this shade upon his spirits without

having been able to discover its cause, and to cheer him up she had

begged him for a bust of the child. Heretofore she had never come to

his studio unless accompanied by Angelica. Now she came every day with

the child, who was passionately fond of her, staid the whole forenoon,

and then took little Frances home with her to dinner, which was always

a fresh treat to the little one. Yet delighted as her friend was at

this arrangement and at this confidential intercourse with his beloved,

the shadow that rested on his spirits did not depart. At last she asked

him directly what it was that oppressed him. She earnestly besought him

to tell her, claiming it as her just right; for unless he did so she

would be compelled to think that she herself was the cause of his

sadness. The fresh outburst of passion with which he greeted this

speech, and which she herself was continually obliged to keep within

bounds, ought to have satisfied her on this point. But his strange

depression was still left unexplained. She must have patience with

him--he had entreated of her time and time again. Things would get

better and come out all right in the end. He loved her far too well to

embitter her life with all the wretched troubles he had to deal with.

If she could help him in any way he would not spare her or be ashamed

to call upon her for aid.

And now when he had finished reading Felix's letter, he handed it, in

silence, to his sweetheart, and stepped to the window while she read.

For a time it was perfectly still in the great room; little Frances had

clambered down from her high chair, and was busily engaged in dressing

and undressing a doll that Julie had given her only that morning. No

sound could be heard but the singing of the fire in the iron stove and

the hopping of the birds on the shelf above, where the plaster casts

stood.

Even after Julie had read the letter to the end, she did not at once

break the silence. Not until some time had elapsed did she send the

child up to Aunt Angelica with her love, and the question whether she

might be allowed to stay up there for a quarter of an hour. Then she

stepped up to the window where Jansen stood in silence, laid her hand

on his shoulder, and said:

"Now if I should guess what it is that secretly troubles you, my

dearest friend, would you confess it to me then?"

He turned, and passionately folded her in his arms. "Julie!" he

said--"what good would that do? There are some difficulties that are

insurmountable. I can only feel sure you have not vanished from the

world when I hold you to my heart, press my lips to yours, feel my hand

in yours--"

"Be still!" she said, smiling, and gently disengaging herself from him.

"I didn't send Frances away for you to forget all that you have so

solemnly promised me. Let us be sensible, my dear friend--indeed we

must be. Sit down over there, and try, for once, to listen to me,

instead of looking at me. Do you know, I consider it positively

discourteous of you to pay no attention to my wisest words, merely

because, after such a long acquaintance, your eyes still find something

about me to 'study?'"

"O Julie!" he said, and a sad smile passed over his face. "If words

could only help--if the sense and understanding and all the strength of

soul of a noble woman could but avail against the treachery and

unreasonableness of gods and men! But speak, and I will close my eyes

and listen."

"Do you know, you and your young friend are sick of one and the same

illness?" she now said, for he had covered his eyes with his hand and

taken a seat on the sofa, while she stood leaning upon the window-sill.

"I and Felix? I don't understand you."

"You have both come into the world too late, you are both wandering

anachronisms, as he says of himself alone in his letter. His energy and

your artistic nature to-day no longer find the soil and air that are

good for them, and that they deserve. When I look about me, dearest, I

say to myself: 'Where are now the people, the prince, the century to

appreciate this power, to lay commissions, reward, honor, and

admiration at the feet of this creative spirit? to post sonnets on the

door of his workshop, to make a passage for him when he strides among

the multitude, as we read that the ancients did, and the great men,

under the rule of the famous popes and the pomp-loving princes?'--Oh!

my dearest friend, I could weep tears of blood when I think how,

instead of all this, you live here, appreciated only by a circle of

good friends and enthusiastic disciples, and are made the butt of

stupid malice or blind ignorance in all the newspapers! And then, when

a demand arises for the production of some work to adorn a square or a

building, wretched quacks, who are not worthy to unloose the latchet of

your shoes, come running up by all sorts of back-stairs and secret

ways, and steal the prize away from you, and you remain hidden in the

dark! Now, don't shake your head! I know how you think about the

applause of the masses, and how little you begrudge it to the poor

wretches who hear no divine voice within them. But be honest now--if

this monument"--she mentioned the name of a man to whom a statue had

just been erected, on which occasion Jansen's application had, as

usual, been rejected--"if this commission had fallen to you--and then

another had followed close upon that--how differently you would stand

in your own esteem when you had become a central figure of your time!

To say nothing of the fact that then you would be able to close the

factory, as you call it, next door, and would have no need to strike a

blow of the mallet that did not come straight from the heart!"

She had talked herself into a state of great excitement; and now, when

he looked up at her, the shining brightness of her look and the soft

glow of her cheeks enraptured him. But he controlled himself and

remained seated.

"What you say is all very wise and true," he said. "But for all that

you don't quite hit the sore spot. I have known all this ever since my

eyes were first opened to what went on around me, to what some people

produce and other people admire. Yet in spite of that I have become

what I am, and what I could no more have helped becoming than I could

have helped coming into the world. Remember, too, how much better off I

am than our friend Felix. As far as the outside world goes, we are both

hampered and confined. The age has as little appreciation of high art

as of the great personal activity toward which all his powers and

wishes urge him. But I can at least put before myself and a half dozen

true friends what there is in me, even if it has no fuller life than

this; while our friend's special strengths can only reveal themselves

in putting him at odds with everybody.

"And, when I look about me here, will not all these dumb creatures of

mine continue to be my companions through life? I sometimes seem to

myself like a father who has a number of daughters, all of them well

brought up and each dear to his heart; and yet, loath as he is to lose

any one of them out of his sight, it seems harder and harder to him, as

the years go by, that no one of them finds a husband, and they all

remain under his roof unprovided for. However, that is fate, and one

learns to accept whatsoever the irresponsible powers bestow upon us.

But that which comes from mortals--"

He suddenly sprang up, ran his hand through his hair, and stepped so

close to his sweetheart, that Julie, little as she feared him even in

his anger, involuntarily retreated a step.

"Felix was right," he said, in a hollow voice. "There is only one way

of escape. These chains or others--we can never be free except on the

other side of the ocean. Julie, if you could only make up your mind, if

you feel as terribly in earnest as I do for our happiness--"

"My friend," she interrupted him, "I know what you would say. But the

more earnestly I long for your--_our_ happiness--the more must I insist

upon our striving to attain it in a perfectly prosaic and sober way.

Your friend is a born adventurer, a circumnavigator--a world conqueror.

Your world and mine is this studio. Can we take it with us in the ship?

And do you think a finer sense of art is to be found among the Yankees

or the red-skins than among our countrymen? No, my dearest Jansen, I

think that with courage and good sense we shall be able to free

ourselves even on this side of the water. You men are masters in

despairing, we women in hoping. And, besides, the end of our year of

probation is still far enough off."

"Hope!" he cried, gnashing his teeth. "If a tigress had me in her

claws, you might, with far more show of reason, call out to me only to

give up hope with life! But this woman! Do you know a more terrible

enemy of human happiness than this lie--this cold, rouged, heartless,

unnatural lie? If she only hated me as immeasurably as she pretends to

love me, truly, I myself should think it too soon to despair. A mortal

can become satiated even with hate; and malice, too, is something of

which one can get tired. But what is to be hoped when it is all merely

a game, and the innermost nature of one's enemy is the nature of a

comedian? Every spark of conscience has been extinguished in this

wretched woman since her girlhood; her life is to her nothing

but a _role_; her love and hate have become merely a question of

costumes--applause and money are her highest and holiest conceptions.

And she fears for both, if she lets me go free. It is flattering to

her--one success more--to be able to pose before herself and the world

as an injured innocent, a robbed wife, a mother whose child has been

taken from her--and for that reason she refuses all my entreaties and

offers with indignation, for she knows well that I would rather give up

any happiness in life than let her have the child. If you had read the

letters I have wasted upon her in these last few weeks! Letters which,

I can truly say, were written with my heart's blood--they would have

made a tigress human; and this woman---read what she answers me! I have

carried on this wretched correspondence behind your back, in the hope

of taking upon myself all that was bitter and humiliating--for what

words have I not stooped to use!--I have borne all the agony of these

last weeks, in order that I might at last lay nothing but the happy

results at your feet. Now read what sort of echo came to me from that

stony heart, and then say whether a man need necessarily be a master in

despairing, to give up all hope here!"

He went to the large closet, unlocked a drawer, and took out several

dainty-looking letters, that diffused a sweet perfume through the room.

Julie read one after the other, while he threw himself down on the sofa

again and stared at the ceiling. The letters were written in a regular,

delicate, clear hand, and in a style which might be taken as a model of

diplomatic art. There were no traces of mere declamation, of

complaining or accusing. The writer had resigned herself to accept an

unhappy fate, for she felt herself too weak and not cold-hearted enough

to take up the battle with him: a battle in which the man to whom she

had given all stood opposed to her. This she could prevail upon herself

to do, for it was only her own happiness that she was sacrificing. But

she could never be brought to give up her claim to her child. The day

might come when the longing for a mother's love might awaken in the

poor child's heart. Then no one should have it in his power to say to

her: "Your mother has no heart for you; she has given you over to

strangers." Upon passages like this, which were repeated in each

letter, especial care had been bestowed, reminding one, here and there,

of the stage, and the last rhetorical flourish just before the curtain

falls. The last sheet, which had been received only a few days before,

concluded as follows:

"I know all, all that you would so carefully conceal from me. It is not

only your wish to have done with the past once and forever, and to give

me back my freedom--for, according to your idea of my character, it

would cost me no effort whatsoever to live as if all were at an end

between us, especially as I do not bear your name on the stage. No, I

know what it is that not only makes you wish for a complete separation

from me, but that makes every delay unbearable. You have fallen into

the net of a dangerous beauty. If my old love for you were not stronger

than my self-love, there would be nothing I should more earnestly wish

for, or would more eagerly aid by all the means in my power, than your

marriage with this girl. She would justify me, would raise me to honor

again in your eyes, and would force from you the confession that you

had cast away your only true friend in order to nurse a serpent in your

bosom. But I am nobler than it is for my advantage to be: not, I admit,

altogether for your sake. The hope of seeing you return to me is too

tempting for me not to be willing to help you to have this experience.

But to relinquish our child to this stranger--who is said to be as

clever as she is beautiful, and as beautiful as she is heartless--to

give my blessed angel, who hovers near me in my dreams, to this

serpent--"

Julie had involuntarily read the last few lines aloud, as if she

scorned to soften down any accusation that was directed against

herself. Her disgust and indignation would not permit her to finish the

sentence--the letter fell from her hand.

"My dear friend," she said, "let us read no further. I must confess you

are quite right; this is hopeless. Kindness is thrown away upon such an

unnatural character as you so rightly called it, and force--where is

the force that we could use? But as for surrendering--hopelessly, and

without striking a blow--no matter how much talent I might have for

despairing, if I were opposed to this woman, I would either conquer or

die!"

He sprang up and seized her hand. "Julie!" he cried, "you put new life

into me. Never shall she enjoy such a triumph--rather let us flee to

the ends of the earth beyond the reach of her hand--rather let us go to

the Yankees and the red-skins, but with you at my heart and our child

in our arms--"

She shook her head earnestly. "No, no, no!" she said. "No self-imposed

banishments! It is a good thing I have my thirty-one years behind me.

Else this youthful enthusiast might succeed in the end in carrying me

off with him, and we should make a great mistake that would soon make

both him and me very unhappy. The land across the ocean is no place for

you, my beloved master. You have never cared to take part in the

modern, sentimental nonsense in our Old World; what sort of a figure

would you cut in the midst of all the humbug of the New? And as for

your giving up your art, and living only for your wife and child--how

long do you suppose you could bear that? How long would it take for the

woman for whose sake you had done this to become a burden to you? And

even if you could rest content with such a life, do you think I would

be satisfied with it? True, I have confessed that I love this man--this

violent, wicked, good, precious Hans Jansen--but I want to see him as

great, as famous, as proud, and as happy as it is possible for any one

to be in this wretched world; to love in him not only the husband and

father, but also the great master, who compels the whole world to join

with me in love and admiration. Oblige me, my dearest friend, by

throwing that correspondence there into the stove, and promise me not

to write any more. In return I promise you that I will ponder day and

night upon the best way for us to free ourselves. And if our year of

probation should pass away without our having succeeded before God and

man--here is my hand upon it! I will be yours--if not in the eyes of

men, certainly in the sight of God; and I believe I am old enough to

know what an honorable woman ought to do and to answer for."

CHAPTER VII.

Our other friends, too, had lost in the autumn mists more and more of

that sunny, paradisiacal frame of mind which they enjoyed when we first

knew them.

Rosenbusch went daily to his studio; but he did little there except to

feed his mice, and to take his flute out of its case, oil and clean it,

without making any attempt to call forth a sound. He would stand for an

hour before the "Battle of Luetzen," which was now completed, and heave

sighs that sounded anything but triumphant. He had long since prepared

a new canvas, on which he was intending to paint the entry of Gustavus

Adolphus into Munich, a theme which he hoped would interest even the

"Art Association." But not a stroke of the brush had he done as yet. To

tell the truth, the temperature in his studio was well calculated to

scare away the muses, and to freeze up the sweet tones of his flute.

Even the mice, who were more accustomed to it, squealed uncomfortably

in their little wire cage; while their friend and master, wrapping the

mediaeval horse-blanket about his painter's jacket, strode thoughtfully

up and down, casting a look of displeasure at the cold stove every time

he passed it, as if he despised it as a friend who only remained

faithful as long as it was kept warm itself. The money he had last

received, for illustrating a book of soldiers' songs, had long since

been spent. It is true, a dealer in antiquities had made him a very

considerable offer for an old casket with a skillfully-ornamented

silver cover, which was said to have originally belonged to no less a

person than General Illo. But he could not make up his mind to barter

this valuable old relic for vulgar fire-wood. He was too proud to

borrow of Elfinger, who had hard work to live himself; or to reveal the

state of his circumstances to the other inmates of the house. If

any one chanced to come across him wandering about alone in his

strange disguise, he declared, with a beaming face, that he was too

full-blooded to bear the heat of a stove. Besides, he was in one of his

poetical moods, and was brooding over an epic poem which was to treat

of the astonishing and pitiful love-adventure of the Swedish commander

with Gustel von Blasewitz. And composing a poem was a very heating

occupation, unless the "shade of a laurel-wreath" was there to cool the

forehead on which stood the anxious sweat of the muses.

Toward noon he threw aside his horse-blanket and went around to

Angelica's room, where it was warm and cozy. The good girl led the same

quiet, industrious life now as before; sold one flower-piece after

another, cheaply but surely; painted the children of tender parents who

had no money to spare for art, but yet liked to see their _salon_

adorned with the red-cheeked curly-heads of their own flesh and blood;

and had certainly no good cause for mourning over the pining away of

the beautiful summer. And yet, she too was perceptibly depressed in

spirits. Whether it was her righteous anger at the flirting and

profitless pangs of her red-bearded neighbor, who since the excursion

on the water had only been permitted to exchange a few hasty glances

and notes with his sweetheart (her father having found out about the

Starnberg adventure, and had a scene with Aunt Babette); or whether the

clouded happiness of her beautiful friend caused her silent pain, or

awakened in her breast a very pardonable longing for a similar

fulfillment of her own earthly mission--who shall say?

She herself never suffered a word of complaint to escape her; and

exhibited, particularly to her secretly-betrothed friend, the most

contented face in the world. But the change in her spirits did not

escape Rosenbusch. He had to submit to be lectured by her oftener than

ever, and in a far sharper tone, not only because of his inactivity,

but also more particularly because of the aimless and unmanly way in

which he carried on his love affair. She would say such harsh things to

him about it, that any one else would have run out of the room. But he,

meanwhile, would water her flowers with the most penitent and humble

mien, would wash her brushes, and end by assuring her that he never

felt so well as when she was blowing him up; he felt then that he had

no better friend in the world than she was. But he would not be such a

fool as to improve, for he only interested her because of his faults.

She had no appreciation of his praiseworthy qualities, inasmuch as she

could not abide poems, _adagios_, and mice. Whereupon she used first to

laugh, and then, with a shrug of the shoulders and a meaning sigh, to

subside into silence.

Nor did "Edward the Fat" pass his days any more cheerfully, though he

was surrounded once more by his city comforts, and was relieved of the

hated task of enjoying Nature. For the first time in his life this

spoiled child of fortune had a wish unfulfilled, and, what sharpened

the sting of the privation, a wish that by no means aspired to far-off

clouds and stars, but lay apparently within reach of his hands.

Heretofore he had had no cause to complain of the unkindness and

cruelty of women. The singular contrast between his indolent, sluggish,

and phlegmatic manner, and the keen intellectual power that flashed

from his eyes and played about his lips, to say nothing of the

contemptuous way in which he was in the habit of treating the proudest

and most exacting women, provoked them to enter the lists with him, and

to challenge and abuse him, until, very unexpectedly, they found

themselves worsted. But now, for the first time, he had encountered a

being to whom he was forced to stoop in every sense of the word; for

she was neither beautiful, nor educated, nor particularly prudish, nor

even of good birth. And this strange creature treated him with the most

persistent coldness, remained as insensible as a stick to his tenderest

words and most heart-felt homage, and, finally, slipped out of his

hands altogether. For, in spite of all their endeavors, neither he nor

old Schoepf succeeded in discovering the girl's hiding-place.

Ever since Schnetz had let him into the secret, Rossel had become more

and more intimate with the old grandfather, and had even proposed to

him to accept of a room in his house. The old man, who, in the mean

while, had moved into somewhat larger quarters, so as to be ready to

receive the girl the moment she should knock at his door, declined this

offer, but was very glad to pass his lonely hours in the company of his

brilliant young friend. They would spend hours--for neither of them had

anything to do--deep in discussions about what was really the main

thing in art, or what should or should not be painted; and it was only

when they heard the door-bell ring at some unusual time that they would

both start up and listen eagerly, hoping it might possibly be the lost

girl returning penitently to her best friends.

The only ones whose spirits remained unaffected were Kohle and Schnetz;

the latter, because his Thersites disposition had struck its roots too

deeply into his nature for him to be either elated or depressed by

anything he experienced; Kohle, on the other hand, because, like the

happy genii of his Hoelderlin, he "soared in the celestial light above,"

and was incapable of giving his heart to the fate of mortals, no matter

how closely he might be bound to them by ties of friendship, for more

than a few hours at a time. During these misanthropical November days,

Schnetz, when not engaged in the service of his little highness, sat in

his den of _silhouettes_, cut out bitter satires, smoked, read Rabelais

at Rossel's suggestion, and, for whole days at a time, spoke to no one

except his pale little wife; while Kohle, in a far more wretched,

unheated room, passed his days making new designs which, with fingers

stiff with cold, but with a heart all aglow with happiness, he sketched

on the back of a large fire-screen instead of on paper, which he had

not the money to buy.

Under these circumstances it was not to be wondered at that the two

meetings of the Paradise Club, which took place before the end of the

year, were not attended by that festal flow of spirits that had

characterized most of their predecessors. Old Schoepf stayed away

altogether; Rossel did not speak a word; Jansen did not make his

appearance until nearly midnight, and sat brooding with a dark look in

his bright eyes, while he emptied glass after glass without being

warmed by his potations. Elfinger, whose relations to his pious

sweetheart grew every day more hopeless, and had begun to seriously

tell upon his spirits, was scarcely more talkative, and the jokes with

which Rosenbusch favored the company had, in Rossel's opinion, a biting

flavor, like preserved fruit that has begun to ferment. The younger and

less prominent members felt the weight that rested on the whole circle,

but were either too modest or too poorly supplied with brains to

succeed in enlivening matters at all; and an uncomfortable feeling

began to creep over first one and then the other, that perhaps in the

life of their society, as in that of every human alliance, the moment

had arrived when a sudden decline succeeds to a period of highest

prosperity, and when a swift dissolution appears more dignified and

more welcome than a long era of gradual decline and decay.

There was one member who did not make his appearance on these evenings,

although he was still in the city and apparently in just the mood for

such festivities--namely, Angelos Stephanopulos. This or that one had

encountered him, on foot or in a carriage, acting as knight to his

lady, the Russian countess, who had been away for a few months, but had

now returned to that same private hotel where--though at some distance

from the nocturnal musical orgies--Irene and her uncle were awaiting

reassuring reports from Italy. Irene had satisfied the demands of

etiquette by making a formal call upon her fellow-lodger, but had

avoided any more intimate intercourse.

Upon this point her uncle had submitted all the more readily to his

young governess because, at bottom, he felt more aversion than liking

for all but martial or dancing music. But another promise which his

strict little niece exacted from him, that he would never say a word to

any one about her former relations to Felix, appeared to him so useless

that he did not think it a matter of conscience to keep it any longer

than while they were all such near neighbors in the country.

At his first meeting with Schnetz he informed his friend and

brother-in-arms of the whole story.

He earnestly besought him to exert all his influence to rouse Felix

from his dogged silence. Only a single visit from him--now, in the

interesting paleness of convalescence--just to thank them for their

sympathy during his illness; and the world must have turned topsy-turvy

since he was young, if these two estranged lovers did not make up

again.

Schnetz listened to these propositions with his usual morose calmness,

abused his imperial terribly, and then remarked--that this commission

was not to his taste. He had too great a regard for Felix to help him

to a bride who could not love him just as he was, with all his faults

and weaknesses. He doubted himself whether he should be doing the young

man a favor if he did so. He was keeping house very comfortably out

there in the solitary villa, going into the woods every day with Homo

and a good double-barreled gun; and even though he did not shoot much,

he unquestionably killed time after a much more manly fashion than if

he were here striving to regain the favor and forgiveness of a spoiled

princess. Besides, he was intending to put his affairs in order soon

after Christmas, and then to set sail in the early spring; for he had

taken it into his head that the air in America would agree with him

better than that of his native land.

This announcement threw the uncle into the liveliest state of alarm. He

depicted to his friend in such dark colors the future that threatened

him, if Felix should carry out this resolution, the prospect of the

life-long guardianship of a Fraeulein who would soon be getting

_passee_, who would grow more whimsical and unmanageable from year to

year, and who would make him suffer for the wrong which she herself had

done to her own happiness by her proud obstinacy; he besought him in

such moving terms not to leave him in the lurch, now of all times, that

finally Schnetz took pity upon him and promised to at least seize the

first opportunity to question Felix concerning the real state of his

feelings.

For a moment he felt tempted, now that they were on the subject of

confessions, to give this lively bachelor, who only wanted to get rid

of his ward in order that he might once more enjoy "life" perfectly

unrestrainedly, a hint in respect to certain natural duties toward

another orphaned child. But a dark presentiment, that possibly a more

suitable hour might come for such a disclosure, restrained him. And,

moreover, as Red Zenz appeared to have vanished from the face of the

earth, there would be no use, for the present, in awakening paternal

feelings of which the visible object was perhaps lost for ever.

CHAPTER VIII.

Thus the year drew toward its end, and Christmas stood before the door.

In former years they had always had a Christmas-tree at the Paradise

Club. But this time the friends felt disposed to celebrate a more

domestic festival, in a narrower circle. In the course of this year

they had been drawn closer to one another, and had withdrawn more and

more from the other members of "Paradise." Nor was Angelica any longer

the only representative of her sex among them, and the only one thus

excluded from the men's festivals. And so it was determined that

Christmas Eve should be celebrated in the studio-building; that the

tree should be set up in Rosenbusch's room, and the table laid in

Angelica's--a plan which the two neighbors laid before the others as a

joint idea of their own. Each deposited his contribution toward the

preparations, in a money-box of which Angelica was the custodian.

Nor did Rosenbusch fail to contribute his share, although Angelica

tried by all sorts of pretexts to prevent him. How he had suddenly

come into possession of money again--for he had not sold any of his

work--was a mystery to Angelica, until she helped him to clear out his

studio in order to make room for the Christmas decorations. Then she

missed the silver-mounted box, his most precious treasure. Upon her

reproaching him about the matter he replied:

"What would you have, my dear friend? It is my misfortune to be a

single man. If I were the father of a family and could not pay my rent

I should be relieved of all want. For you must know that the Art

Society looks at the distress rather than at the talent of those of

whom it buys pictures. Help me to a wife, and I promise you not to

dispose of another article from my museum."

And then for several days he was in the brightest of spirits, hammering

and working as though he were engaged in arranging the studio for his

own wedding, and, in the short intervals of rest, taking his flute from

its case again.

Christmas Eve came at last. In the afternoon the hermit of the lake

returned to the city, with the faithful Homo, who had now become his

inseparable companion. Felix's first visit was to Jansen. They were

alone together for some hours--hours that carried them back to the time

of their early friendship, so freely did each open his heart, and so

keenly did they realize once more what they were and always would be to

one another. Yet they both avoided touching upon the details of their

past, as though it were taken for granted that each had an accurate

knowledge of the other's history.

That Jansen was struggling impatiently to free himself from his bonds,

and that Felix had given up all hope of ever finding his old happiness

again, was all that they confessed. Then they went, arm-in-arm, to

visit Julie, who received her lover's friend with all her sweetness and

kindness. It did Felix good to be with these two happy people, and he

expressed this feeling with so much warmth that Julie thought him

extremely charming, and purposely turned the conversation upon his

emigration plans in order to dissuade him from them, if it were still

possible. But he remained unshaken; and it seemed as if, in spite of

all this kind friendship, he could not wait for the time when he should

set foot upon the shore beyond the ocean. What it was that was driving

him away was not referred to by a word.

Before the evening's festival, they separated for a few hours. Jansen

and Julie had first to light a Christmas-tree for little Frances and

her foster brothers and sisters, and it was eight o'clock when they

reached the studios.

Yet they were not too late, but, on the contrary, had to wait for

some time down-stairs in Jansen's rooms with the other friends,

until Rosenbusch, who was always finding some last improvements to

make in the decorations, gave the signal by ringing a hoarse, old

hand-bell--like his other treasures, an historically authenticated

household utensil of the famous Friedlander.

Besides their intimate circle, Felix, Rossel, Elfinger, Schnetz and

Kohle, no one had been invited but old Schoepf. It had cost much

trouble to persuade the old man to come, for on this day he missed his

lost grandchild more bitterly than ever. Once persuaded, he seemed, in

his silent way, greatly touched; though he strove not to disturb the

merry mood of the others. Then, too, there was so much to be seen and

admired and laughed at in the Christmas room--Rosenbusch had so

surpassed himself, had arranged such tasteful decorations, had made so

many verses and prepared so many mottoes, that it was a full hour

before the distribution of presents was over.

Then when the lights on the tree had begun to sputter and go out, one

after the other, Schnetz suddenly produced a box, in which, up to this

time, he had kept his present concealed. It was a series of the most

amusing silhouettes, which he now passed in review on a white screen by

means of a magic-lantern. They represented the events and adventures of

the past year, none of those present escaping without a full share of

ridicule. The exhibitor himself was not spared, and it is scarcely

necessary to say that his knightship of the rueful countenance was

unmercifully made fun of.

While every one was enthusiastically demanding a repetition of this

shadow dance, Angelica slipped away to look after the supper, like a

careful hostess. At length she reappeared and invited them to table;

whereat Rosenbusch ventured to remark that it was high time they should

cut a door through the wall so that they might visit one another in a

friendly, neighborly way, without having to go round by the cold

corridor. The confusion of the moment permitted Angelica, who was

usually very strict in keeping this light-hearted red-beard within

bounds, to ignore this somewhat audacious remark.

So they entered the other festal hall, in the centre of which stood a

tastefully-laid table covered with shining dishes, plates and glasses,

ornamented with flowers and surmounted by a slender miniature

Christmas-tree, from which hung candy and sweetmeats for the dessert.

But we must unfortunately deny ourselves the pleasure of describing the

joys of the table, to which this select company now abandoned itself.

It is enough to know that it was one of those singularly happy evenings

when everything succeeds, when the serious vein is not too heavy, and

the merriment not too light, the sentiment not too gushing, and the

jollity not too noisy. No one could resist the charm of the cheery

present, or brood with sad thoughts upon the past or future; and even

Felix and old Schoepf soon had no further need to force their feelings,

in order to join in the merry laughter over Schnetz's biting jests and

Rosenbusch's inexhaustible drolleries.

Besides all this, the domestic talents of the two ladies stood the test

most gloriously. Angelica's simple entertainment found favor even with

Rossel; and a hidden genius was discovered in Julie for brewing an

incomparable punch, according to a receipt which she had inherited from

her father, the general. It was, therefore, merely an expression of the

universal feeling when Rosenbusch rose, and in neat verses, which

unfortunately have not been preserved, proposed the health of their two

lady-friends, the foster-sisters of this circle, who had so wisely

administered the peculiarly feminine office of providing for the

earthly wants of poor humanity.

This toast, which was received with the wildest applause, was followed

by a number of merry, gallant, and serious harangues; and even the two

ladies mustered up sufficient courage to make some pretty little

speeches, which, it is true, they did not succeed in finishing without

considerable blushing and hesitation.

CHAPTER IX.

In the midst of a pause that followed the reading of some singularly

tender and beautiful verses by the hitherto silent Kohle, the happy

party heard the clock on a neighboring tower strike the hour of

midnight, and it was only when the twelfth stroke had died away that

their solemnly exorcised spirits seemed to wake once more from their

enchantment.

Rossel rose, went up to Kohle, and embraced him, calling him "du" for

the first time. He declared that Father Hoelderlin looked down from his

blissful heights upon his son, with whom he was well pleased. The

others, too, roused themselves, and expressed, each according to his

fashion, their thanks to the greatly embarrassed poet, to whose health

the only one who could have been jealous of him--the poetical

Rosenbusch--proposed, amid the enthusiastic acclamations of all, that

they should drink the last glass of punch.

Schnetz propounded the question whether sufficient cause could be shown

why this was and must be the last glass. But Angelica, although she

protested that she wished to exert no pressure upon any one else,

persisted, for her own part, in withdrawing; and as the men, too, felt

that the festal mood of the evening had reached its height, it was

decided to leave the faithful Fridolin to extinguish the lights, and to

start together on their homeward ways.

Jansen escorted his betrothed; Rosenbusch offered his arm to Angelica;

behind them came Elfinger with Kohle, of whom he had begged a copy of

his poem, promising in return to give him a few hints in the art of

delivery. Schnetz and Rossel, one on either side, supported old

Schoepf, so as to keep him from falling, for he found it hard to walk

on the slippery pavement, which was covered over with a thin layer of

ice.

The last was Felix. His voice had not been heard for some time back,

and no one noticed when, without saying good-night, he turned into a

side-street, and went his way alone.

Pulling his hat far down over his face, he rushed as hastily through

the raw night as though he were somewhere impatiently expected. His

wounds, which were still scarcely healed, pained him; the fiery drink

had heated his blood after his long abstinence; and restless, joyless

thoughts throbbed through his brain. Before he was aware of it, he

found himself in the square before the hotel where Irene lived. Schnetz

had let fall a word, as if by chance, about their having taken other

rooms, because of the musical _soirees_. Where ought he look for her

window now? They light no Christmas-trees in inns; besides, it was past

midnight, and in only a few of the windows was the light still burning.

His eyes fastened themselves unconsciously upon a bright window in the

second story. The dark outline of a woman's figure was visible there

for a moment; but he could not make out whether it was she who was

peering out through the frosted window into the Christmas night. Then

the figure drew back again, but he remained.

He stood leaning against a lamp-post, insensible now to the chilling

fog and the pain of his wounds. It seemed to him as if he were already

on the shore of the New World, and between him and that bright window

the broad ocean stretched. Never had he realized so clearly that he

could never be happy without this girl, and yet he had never been so

far removed from every hope. He said to himself that he must not return

to this spot so long as he remained in the city, unless he would see

the courage which he had mustered up with so much pain broken again and

his determination shaken anew. He must forget once for all that there

was a bright window here; he swore it to himself with the full

consciousness of how hard it would be for him to keep his vow.

At this moment the light in the window went out. It made a cold shudder

pass over him, as if he had received a confirmation of his fears that

all was at an end forever. Then he roused himself, and slowly started

on the way to his lodgings.

In spite of the late hour, the streets were full of life. The Christmas

mass, which lasted from twelve to one, still kept many pious or curious

people on their feet. Felix had not gone far when he overtook two

couples, who seemed to be in even less of a hurry than himself. A

large, stout woman walked in front, hanging on the arm of a young man

who appeared to be telling her some very amusing story, for she

laughed incessantly in a deep, coarse voice, every minute turning her

head--whose thick, black hair was but loosely wound with a red

kerchief--that she might look at the second couple, as if she wondered

why they did not laugh too. The latter were not walking arm-in-arm; but

the man kept close to the girl and spoke incessantly to her in a low

voice, while she walked by his side with drooping head, as though she

did not belong to him, and were paying no attention to his talk.

The light of the street-lamp now fell upon the group, brightly

illuminating a little hat with a black feather, that sat jauntily upon

a gold-red chignon.

"Zenz!" cried Felix in surprise.

The girl suddenly stood still, and looked around her.

"Is it really you?" he cried, hastily stepping to her side. "Where have

you been hiding all this time? But I see you are with company. I won't

detain you."

She still stood there, without moving or answering a word. But her

companion, an insolent, dissipated-looking young fellow--apparently a

young salesman--took upon himself to reply for her, and declared that

he would not allow any one "to strike up an acquaintance with his girl

in the street," in his presence, and without an introduction to him.

With this he offered Zenz his arm to take her to the others, who had

only just discovered what was taking place, and were looking round

toward the stragglers.

"You have nothing to say here, my good friend," replied Felix, with the

greatest coolness. "If Fraeulein Zenz has no objection to standing here

with me, I have a good deal to say to her, and you can wait until I

have done, unless you should prefer to go on. How is it, Zenz? Have you

five minutes to spare for an old friend?"

The girl now quickly raised her eyes to his and said, in a timid tone

that sounded strangely from her lips:

"Is it true that you haven't forgotten me yet?"--Then, before he could

answer, she turned to the others:

"You needn't give yourselves any further trouble about me; I can find

my way fast enough. Goodnight!"

"Hullo!" cried the young fellow, "that _would_ be cool--to drop a man

in the street in this style when another comes along. Damn it, sir--"

He had just turned in a threatening way upon Felix, and had called up

the others to bear witness that he didn't intend to suffer any such

treatment, when the big, black-haired woman recognized Felix, and

hastily whispered a few words to the excited man that seemed to make a

marked impression on him. He gave vent to a few more furious

expressions, and then suddenly burst out into a hoarse laugh. Making an

ironical bow to Zenz, and calling a coarse epithet after her, he turned

upon his heel and followed the two others, who went on their way as if

nothing had happened.

"Nice company I find you in," said Felix, drawing nearer to the

trembling girl. "I thought it likely you couldn't feel very happy among

them. Come, you must tell me now what sort of people they are, and how

you have been living since I saw you last. If I saw rightly, that big

woman was the 'Black Therese.' Poor child! things must have gone very

badly with you, to make you take refuge with _her_!"

She hung on his arm, and let him lead her down the street. He saw, with

heart-felt pity, how pale and haggard she had grown, and what poor

clothes she wore. Nor could she be induced, at first, to speak a word;

yet her breast heaved as if it would burst, and every now and then she

stood still and drew a deep breath. But his kind words gradually melted

the ice. She told him that she had led a wretched life; had sought in

vain for work, and had finally seen no other way than to go back once

more to her old acquaintance, who had taken her in again. But, because

she was no longer as merry as she used to be, she had not suited the

Black Therese at all; and she would gladly have gone away from her if

she had only known where to turn. The woman had tried to make her

acquainted with all sorts of gentlemen, and had scolded her for a silly

goose, because she would not consent.

That night the Black Therese's lover had come to take both girls to the

Christmas mass. But in the church a friend of his had joined them, and

they were just on their way to a public-house to get something more to

drink. It had seemed as if heaven had opened to her when she heard

Felix's voice. And now, all of a sudden, she felt quite light at heart.

How had he happened to come along just at the right time, and how was

he getting on, and was he really quite well again?

She began to laugh again as she asked these questions, with her old

happy, light-hearted laugh. All her wretchedness seemed of a sudden to

have vanished, and to be forgotten.

"Zenz," he said, "you must not go back to this black devil of a woman.

She will bring you to ruin sooner or later; you can no longer have any

doubt of that. But now, what do you intend to do? Have you ever taken

any thought as to what is going to become of you?"

Her laughing face suddenly grew dark again.

"Indeed I have," she answered, with a thoughtful nod of the head. "I

have made up my mind to look on and see how things go until summer;

then, if I am no better off--I'm not afraid of the water, I will take

another trip on the Starnberger lake, and, when I am just in the

middle, I will close my eyes and spring in. They say it doesn't hurt at

all.

"You see," she continued, when he did not answer, "I shall never be

happy in this world; very few are, and it is all ordered beforehand. So

why should I look on patiently while my few young years pass miserably

away? There is no one to miss me when I am out of the world. And if it

is all the same to _me_ whether I live or not, what does it matter to

any one else?"

As she said these words, she involuntarily let go his arm, and stood

still again for a moment, to recover breath after her quick speech.

He seized her hand.

"Will you do something for my sake, Zenz?" he asked, tenderly--"a very

great favor? Will you promise me to do what I ask you?--to go with me

wherever I lead you? You know well enough that I mean well by you."

She looked at him inquiringly. Then she laid her other hand in his,

too. A blush mounted to her cheeks, as if from a sudden glad hope that

was almost like a shock.

"Do with me whatever you like!" she said, in an almost inaudible voice.

"I have no one in all the world but you. Kill me or make me happy, it

is all the same to me."

"Come then," he answered, taking her arm again. He knew very well what

thought it was that had sprung up within her, and that he must

disappoint her hope. But he left her in her delusion, so that she would

follow wherever he should lead.

They walked for a quarter of an hour, both in silence, through the

dark, deserted streets. At length he stood still before a house, in

whose upper story the windows were still lighted.

"Here!" he said.

She gave a start. "Have you moved?" she asked, regarding the house with

a look of surprise.

"Here lives the man, Zenz, to whom I want to bring you; he will care

for you better than I myself could, even if I were willing to take you

with me to a new world. You know whom I mean, child. You did not think

of him when you said no one would miss you when you were no longer in

the world. Do you remember him now? No," he continued, as she made a

movement to escape from him, "I won't let you go; you know what you

promised me. The old man sitting there up-stairs--if you only knew how

he longs to make up to you for the wrong he did to your poor mother; if

you only knew him, Zenz, as we all do--and now he sits there in his

lonely room this Christmas-night. The lieutenant has told me of all the

things he has brought together, so that he might have some presents

ready for his grandchild in case she should hit upon the happy idea of

presenting him with herself on Christmas-eve. And, Zenz, if you could

only find it in your heart to carry out this thought, even at this late

hour, would you not be better off up there than in the tavern with

those blackguards, where you would be given vile stuff to drink, and

forced to listen to worse talk? And even if this were not so, and you

could not bear to live with him, wouldn't there still be time for that

voyage on the lake of which you spoke?"

This last thought seemed at length to turn the scales.

She suddenly burst out laughing again. "I was caught nicely that time,"

she said; "I positively never thought of such a thing when I promised

you I would do whatever you asked of me. But, then, it was very stupid

of me; I ought to have known-- However, it's quite true that I can try

it for a while; it won't cost me my head; and if it doesn't work--why,

he won't put me under lock and key, so that I can't get away again.

Only you must say to him, in the first place, that I don't particularly

like him. I can't conceal what I really feel."

Felix pulled the bell. A sleepy old woman, who acted as servant to

Father Schoepf, opened the door. "Goodnight, Zenz," said Felix,

cordially pressing the girl's hand. "Say for yourself whatever you have

to say to your grandfather. And I thank you for having kept your word;

you won't regret it. Good-night, and remember me to the old gentleman;

and tell him that I heartily congratulate him upon his Christmas joy.

Tomorrow I will call and see how you get on together."

CHAPTER X.

It was not much earlier when the two lovers, who had likewise separated

themselves from the rest, arrived before Julie's house. They had taken

a roundabout way, for Jansen, who was only too happy to have his

beautiful sweetheart on his arm, and to be alone with her at last,

would hare liked to wander about for hours. The night-air quickened all

his senses, and, in the pale light of the snow and the lamps, the face

at his side appeared to him enchantingly beautiful. But he spoke

little, just as all the evening he had been the quietest of the party.

And she understood him well enough to know that he did not speak to her

simply because he never ceased to think of her. Sometimes he would draw

her closer to him, and touch his lips to her cool, soft cheek, in the

dark shadow of the houses or in the centre of a deserted square. Then

he would speak some tender word to her, only to lapse into silence

again the next moment.

When at last they arrived at the gate before her house, she stood still

and drew the door-key from her pocket.

"We are really here already!" she said. "What a pity! I could walk for

hours. It seems to me as if time stood still when I am hanging on your

arm. But I must relieve my old Erich, who is sitting up until I come.

Good-night, dearest!"

"Here?" he asked, painfully surprised--"here, in the cold street? It is

warm in your rooms."

"And for that very reason," she said, softly, "we should find it so

much the harder to part."

"Julie!" he cried, passionately clasping her to his breast, "_must_ we

part? Can you send me away, when we have not been able to say a

confidential word to one another all this evening? If you but knew how

I felt--"

She gently withdrew from his embrace. "Dearest," she whispered, "I know

only too well. Do you suppose it costs me no struggle to have more

sense than you, you wild man? To still make myself out a girl without a

hearty while all the while I can feel the poor disobedient thing

beating only too wildly? Oh, my darling, if you and I were only alone

in the world--"

"Who is there besides ourselves who can separate us from one another?"

he cried, hotly.

She laid her soft hand entreatingly upon his mouth. There were some

people passing who stopped to listen to his loud voice. "Be quiet,

dearest!" she whispered. "Be good, be gentle, be patient for just a

little while longer; and think, too, of my own feeling. Have you

forgotten that I have determined to be a good mother to our little

Frances? I always want to be able to look her in the eyes, and on our

marriage-day, too, when I wear the bridal-wreath that I have honorably

deserved. The happiness of belonging to you is so great that it may

well be worth a time of probation. And now good-night, until to-morrow,

and don't be angry with me. Some time you will thank me for having

to-day made myself out stronger--than I really am."

With these words she threw her arms tightly round his neck, and gave

him a long and loving kiss. Then she hastily escaped, opened the gate,

and vanished down the dark garden-walk that led to the house-door. He

waited to see the light appear in her window; he could not feel

reconciled to parting from her in this way. But she knew that it would

only be the harder for him to tear himself away if he should see a

light in her window. With throbbing pulse and burning cheeks she

entered the dark room, refusing to take the lamp which the old servant

had in readiness. So she undressed herself by the faint light that

penetrated through the blinds, and hastily sought her bed, to lie a

long time sleepless, thinking of all the happiness that was in store

for her.

Nor did Rosenbusch make any great haste to take his lady home. They

were both in a very merry mood, and he especially made so many

brilliant jokes that he kept her laughing continually. It was by sheer

oversight that they suddenly found themselves standing at last before

her house and Angelica expressed her surprise that the way had been so

short. It was so refreshing to be out in the cold winter night, after

all the punch and laughter.

A droschky drove slowly past. Rosenbusch proposed that they should take

a drive to the Nymphenburg. But she would not hear of such a thing, but

advised him to go home like a respectable person, and not to seek

companions in some wine-house and spend the night with them in

drinking; he had more in his head already than was good for him. But

when she did not succeed in getting the house-door unlocked, she had to

put up with his remark that her hand did not seem to be a very steady

one either. "A man must guide her steps," he sang from the

"Zauberfloete," as he took the key from her and opened the door with a

smart wrench. "It was very true," she said, "she did not know how to

manage latch-keys as well as certain night-birds. But now, many thanks

and goodnight!"

With these words she attempted to step into the house; but he, in his

merry, audacious mood, could not restrain himself from quickly seizing

her round the waist and giving the good girl, who looked positively

pretty with her hood and her red cheeks, a sounding kiss upon the lips.

But this was carrying the joke too far, in her opinion.

"Herr von Rosebud," she said, in her coldest tone, "you have drunk more

than is good for you, and are not entirely responsible for what you do.

For that reason I can't be so severe upon your forgetfulness of all

propriety as I otherwise should be. I will merely remark to you that my

name is not Nanny, and that I wish you a very good-evening."

She made him a formal courtesy, and attempted to slip quickly past him.

But he held her fast by her cloak and said, in a droll, pathetic tone:

"You wrong me greatly, Angelica. Truly, I have such a devilish respect

for you, I honor you so boundlessly as the model of all womanly

virtues, that I would rather eat my head than forget what I owe to you.

But will you have the goodness to remember that we have sleighing now?

and although we two have merely slid here on foot, still I thought

myself entitled, as your true knight, to take this liberty. If this was

an error, can you find it in your heart to condemn me for it to the

eternal punishment of your direful wrath?"

She could not help laughing at the crushed and penitential mien, which

the cunning rascal knew so well how to assume.

"Go!" she said, in her old tone again. "On Christmas night the Saviour

came into the world to suffer for all sinners. And, perhaps, you may be

forgiven too."

"I thank you," he responded, very quietly. "And in token thereof, dear

fellow-Christian, seal your solemn forgiveness, in the sight of this

starry heaven, with a voluntary, sisterly kiss. No, you must not refuse

me this, unless you want me to pass a sleepless night. You are no

Philistine, dearest Angelica."

"I wish I were one," she sighed. But then she kindly and without

further resistance offered him her red lips, and said, once more:

"Good-night, my dear Rosenbusch!" and the house-door closed between

them.

_BOOK VI_.

CHAPTER I.

The new year had come, but it brought little that was new.

One day, about the middle of January, when a light snow was falling in

large flakes, the carriage of the old countess had been standing for

more than an hour before the hotel in which Irene was stopping with her

uncle. The coachman, buried in his high-shouldered bearskin coat, had

fallen into a doze, and the horses hung their heads and meekly suffered

themselves to be covered with the falling snow. But it seemed as though

the silent fall of the flakes would come to an end sooner than the

storm of German and French phrases with which the lively old lady

overwhelmed the young Fraeulein, who sat absently listening to her.

Her uncle had retired into a window-niche, and was looking over an

illustrated hunting-book; now and then he threw in a word, a question

about this or that acquaintance, which immediately gave the old

countess an opportunity to begin a new chapter of her town-gossip.

When, in the midst of this, the servant announced the arrival of the

lieutenant, Irene could not suppress a glad "Ah!" This time she found

his riding-boots, stiff with snow, and his shabby old winter overcoat,

in which he was muffled up to the eyes, by no means so objectionable as

usual, but welcomed him as a friend in need, and, smiling gratefully,

gave him her hand, which he pressed tightly between his rough buckskin

gloves.

But for all that she was disappointed in her hope, for he silently

threw himself into a chair, stretched out his legs and beat time with

his riding-whip on his high boots, while the old lady, taking up the

lost thread of her discourse again, began to spin on as zealously as

ever.

Her conversation dealt for the most part with the festival calendar of

the great world, with receptions, _soirees_, routs, and the amateur

theatricals that had been given by the French ambassador. Then the

question whether there was a prospect of any court balls, and how many

there would be, was discussed at length, with great vigor, and with

many references to former times, when the good lady was a reigning

belle.

All at once it seemed to occur to her that she had the conversation

entirely to herself.

"_Mais savez-vous, mon cher Schnetz_," she said, turning to him, "_que

vous avez une mine a faire peur? Je ne parle pas de votre toilette_--in

that respect you have never been very indulgent toward us. But all the

time I am trying to initiate our dear Irene into the programme of her

winter pleasures--for we can never think of letting her travel off into

that land of cholera and brigands, where they are threatening to cut

the throat of our religion and of the holy Father--you sit there like

Hippocrates--_le dieu du silence; et on voit bien, que vous vous moquez

interieurement de tous ces plaisirs innocents._ Of course, in regard to

dancing, the gentlemen now-a-days are quite _blase_. But although you

yourself can no longer take any pleasure in the joys of the carnival--"

"You are greatly mistaken, my dear countess," interrupted Schnetz,

seriously. "I am so far from being indifferent to the pleasures of

dancing that I actually propose to dance all night long, four days from

to-day, provided I can find a partner who will dare to trust herself

with such a dancing bear."

"Four days from to-day? _Vous plaisantez, mon ami._ Where is there

going to be a ball four days from to-day?"

"Not in the higher spheres, gracious lady, but still a very excellent

and respectable hall; moreover, in masks, which fact would in itself

make it worth attending. The truth is," he said, addressing himself to

Irene, "on Saturday we propose to open the carnival in our 'Paradise,'

about which I have already told you. You undoubtedly remember that

young baron, who took our boat in tow that day on the lake, and who

afterward had the difficulty with that murderous scoundrel? He is going

away to America--no one knows exactly why; and, as we all like him, we

are anxious to give him a formal farewell _fete_. For in all the five

points of the globe he will never see again such a masquerade as we can

make for him!"

A short pause followed these words. Irene had suddenly grown as pale as

death; it seemed to her as if she could not breathe; her uncle laid

aside his hunter's album, and rose, contriving, as he did so, to

secretly step on Schnetz's toe--the latter was apparently occupied in

the most innocent manner, with his heavy silver watch-chain, from which

were suspended a boar's tooth, a few trinkets, and a large seal ring.

"_Comment?_" said the old lady. "He is going off to America? _C'est

drole_--and at this time of year--_au c[oe]ur de l'hiver!_ And I have

been meaning to ask you, my dear Schnetz, to bring this young man to

see me--he certainly looks as if he might be a magnificent dancer, and

from his birth and education he could not but prefer the balls in

society to any dancing parties that your artist friends might give."

"That is a question, countess," remarked Schnetz, dryly, as he rubbed

his disfigured ear; "or, rather, knowing the man as I do, it is not a

question at all. My friend's taste is altogether too unprejudiced for

him to consult the peerage to find out whether he may amuse himself or

not, or to judge by a merry dancer's eyes whether she is worth having

for a partner. He has had sufficient experience of what you are pleased

to call society to enable him to turn his back upon it without regret.

He now seeks society where he can find it; and, if it belongs to the

set you consider disreputable, it is good enough for him on carnival

eve, if for no other reason than because the so-called 'good society'

is only called so because, as a well-known Weimar councilor once

remarked, 'it never yet afforded material for even the smallest

poem.'"

"_Toujours le meme frondeur!_" laughed the old lady. "_Mais on doit

pourtant observer les convenances_; I mean, even if your friend does

sometimes condescend to enter this _Boheme_, as you yourself do--"

Schnetz immediately cleared his throat loudly. "As to the

condescension," he said, with emphasis, "there can be so little talk of

that in the present case, that I can assure you that if the most

accomplished courtiers in your exclusive society should present

themselves for admission to this Paradise, they would be blackballed,

with but very few exceptions. This will give you an idea of what the

gentleman are like. As for our female guests--though they might not

always find favor in the eyes of delicate ladies--I will do them the

justice to say that they always behave themselves with propriety while

they are with us, and that they have a very good idea of what is

expected of them on such occasions. If this were not the case, do you

think I would dare to invite our honored Fraeulein to this masked ball?

to do which, by the way, was the occasion of my present visit."

"Irene? Well, I must confess, Schnetz--_cest l'idee la plus

extravagante que vous ayez jamais eue. Irene, qu'en dites-vous, ma

chere enfant? Mais c'est un idee_--

"It is our rule," said Schnetz, turning to Irene, without paying the

slightest heed to this interruption, "to allow each member to bring a

lady with him, no matter whether she is known to the others or not. Her

cavalier is held responsible by the society for her behaving herself

with propriety. And up to the present time all have shown so much tact

in their choice, that nothing like a scandal has ever occurred. Of

course these good children are of all degrees of education and origin,

respectable burghers' daughters, actresses belonging to the smaller

theatres, and very likely you will find a little seamstress or milliner

among them, for whose unswerving principles I should hardly like to

answer. But all these inequalities disappear in the masquerade, and one

sees nothing but round, pretty faces, which their artist friends try to

set off as charmingly as possible. To have taken part in such a thing,

my dear Fraeulein, will be an experience for you which you will not

forget as quickly as you do the artificial routs of our aristocratic

friends, that pass without mirth or comfort, and of which one is the

exact counterpart of all the rest.

"Then, besides," he continued, as Irene gave no sign either of assent

or dissent, "you needn't stand on any ceremony at all. If you should

not feel at home among us Bohemians, you can regard the matter as you

would a play, whose end we do not stop to see if it bores or depresses

us. I need only add that the young lady to whom Jansen is secretly

engaged is coming, as well as our honest friend Angelica, so that you

will not lack a guard of honor. Now, do help me persuade the Fraeulein,

my dear countess. I am well enough acquainted with her uncle, to know

that he will have nothing to say against it."

"I help you, you godless tempter of youth?" cried the old lady,

wavering between sincere anger and a desire to laugh. "_Mais decidement

vous tournez a la folie, mon cher Schnetz!_ Have you forgotten that I

fill the place of a spiritual mother, _pour ainsi dire_, to our Irene?

that I feel myself responsible for all the impressions and experiences

she may encounter in our Munich? And you ask me to persuade her

to enter a society to which women _de la plus basse extraction_,

shop-girls, grisettes and models belong--a society, in a word, which is

of a thoroughly _mauvais genre_, no matter how much you bad men may

prefer it to ours?"

While she was pouring forth this hasty speech, a singular play of

anger, pity, and withering scorn came and went upon Schnetz's face. At

length the old lady having come to an end, and making as though she

would draw Irene to her arms, as if she were a little chicken who

sought protection from the claws of a hawk, the lieutenant slowly rose,

planted himself before the sofa, folded his arms over his chest and

said, bringing out each word with a certain dry satisfaction:

"You are too old, my good countess, and moreover too thoroughly

petrified by the atmosphere of courts, for me to venture to hope that

you will change, in any way, your ideas about men and things. But I

must respectfully request you not to make use of the expression

_mauvais genre_ in connection with any society to which I permit myself

the honor of inviting Fraeulein Irene. It is opposed to my principles to

introduce young ladies whom I esteem into any circle where they could

be insulted by anything immoral or vulgar. Upon this point, I hold even

more exclusive views than you, in spite of your duties as spiritual

mother. In the days when I was still a frequenter of 'society,' which

is undoubtedly neither better nor worse here than it is in other

capitals, I often overheard ballroom-talk which would not have been

excused in our Paradise, even by the license allowed to those who wear

masks--though we can scarcely be called prudish. It is true the

conversation was veiled in smooth French and still smoother double

meanings, which undoubtedly accounts for its being considered _bon

genre_. So much for mere _words_. And when we come to consider the

deeds of this _haute extraction_ from a moral point of view--why, you

yourself have kept a record long enough to know that one may be very

well versed in the manners of a court, and may yet, as far as looseness

of principles is concerned, rival many a grisette, or, for that matter,

many a model; and that blue blood is quite as apt to run away with the

weaker sex as red. Those gentlemen, especially--to whom you would not

hesitate to trust Fraeulein Irene for an entire cotillion--may I be

allowed to remind you of certain stories, in connection with some of

your own partners? About Baron X., for instance, who--" and he bent

down over the old lady, and whispered for some time in her ear,

notwithstanding the comical struggles she made to protect herself from

the auricular confession thus forced upon her.

"_Mais vous etes affreux_," she cried out at length and struck at him

with her handkerchief, very much in the same way that one tries to rid

one's self of a swarm of importunate gnats.

"I beg a thousand pardons," growled Schnetz, again addressing himself

to Irene. "_C'est contre la bienseance, de chuchoter en societe_--you

see I haven't quite forgotten my catechism of good-breeding even yet,

though I do sometimes sin against it. I merely wished to convince the

countess that the '_Boheme_' from which I have chosen my friends, does

indeed consist of men, and not of angels, but that it would be

impossible for me to introduce the Fraeulein to any one there, from whom

the history of morals and civilization in this city could learn as much

as it could from certain members of the best circles."

The old countess hastily rose. Her face had grown very red, her

nostrils quivered. She gave a slight cough, and then said, turning with

a motherly smile to Irene, who was helping her on with her furs.

"_Ce cher Schnetz, il a toujours le petit mot pour rire._ Well, _ma

mignonne, faites ce que vous voudrez. Je m'en lave les mains. Adieu,

Baron! A tantot! Adieu, Schnetz_, you renegade, you horrid wretch! I

see it is true what the world says of you, and what I have always

disputed, that you have the most malicious tongue in the whole city."

She gave him as she passed a little tap, intended to be light and

coquettish, but really delivered so sharply that the recipient could

easily see how glad the same hand would have been to give him a more

forcible lesson--if it had only been good _ton_.