Produced by Charles Bowen, page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/dividedheartothe00heysiala
2. Includes 1. A Divided Heart; 2. Minka; and 3. Rothenburg on the
Tauber.
A DIVIDED HEART
[Illustration: Paul Heyse]
A DIVIDED HEART
AND
OTHER STORIES
FROM
PAUL HEYSE
_TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH_
With an Introduction
BY
CONSTANCE STEWART COPELAND
New York:
BRENTANO'S
CHICAGO PARIS WASHINGTON
Copyright. 1894,
BY
BRENTANO'S.
* * *
BURR PRINTING HOUSE,
NEW YORK.
To
My Mother
C. S. C.
CONTENTS.
Introduction--Paul Heyse
A Divided Heart
Minka
Rothenburg on the Tauber
INTRODUCTION--PAUL HEYSE
PAUL HEYSE.
INTRODUCTION.
It occasionally happens that a reader expecting to find the customary
account of an author's early struggles for bread and knowledge, his
bitter disappointments, his late and almost joyless success, is
surprised by the record of a singularly fortunate life; of a life which
advances easily and naturally from a peaceful and promising childhood
to an equally peaceful, famous old age. Goethe's was such a life; and
reading it, one feels that sharp encounter with the hardest facts of
existence would have lessened his greatness, would have disturbed that
perfect serenity of soul which made him philosopher as well as poet,
and fostered his fidelity to high ideals of life and art.
A countryman of Goethe's, Paul Heyse, born in Berlin in 1830, two years
before the great poet's death, was no less fortunate in the lot to
which fate assigned him. Heyse's power was unlike Goethe's in kind and
degree, but the opportunities for its development were equally
favorable. His father was a philologist and lexicographer, whose home
was comfortable and refined, and whose friends were cultured and
literary. He took charge of his son's early education, and naturally
laid great stress on language, inculcating the love for purity and
exactness in its use, which is one of Heyse's best qualities.
Stimulated by the atmosphere of his home, and by these studies in
literary _technique_, Heyse began to try his skill in original work at
a very early age, and was only seventeen years old when his first book,
"Jungbrunnen: New Tales by a Travelling Scholar," appeared. Although
this production encouraged his friends in the belief that a great
future lay before him, it made no impression whatever on the world at
large, and the young author pursued his studies at the Berlin
University without astounding anyone by phenomenal brilliancy or
success.
Finishing at Berlin, he betook himself to Bonn, and spent a year
studying Romance and philology with the famous Diez. So great was the
interest in mediaeval languages which Diez succeeded in awakening in
the young man, that in 1850 Heyse travelled to Italy and employed a
year in examining the precious manuscripts of the old Italian
libraries. The results of these researches were afterwards published
under the title "Romanische Jnedita auf italienischen Bibliotheken
gesammelt;" and a book of Italian songs was also presented to the
world.
Upon his return to Germany, Heyse at once began serious literary work,
and put the first rung in the traditional ladder to fame. Although his
present place in literature is due to his work as a novelist, his first
creations were dramas in verse. He aspired to become a poet; not a
singer of songs and lyrics, but a great dramatic poet, whose lines
should chant, and whose thoughts should create a new era. To this end
he experimented with the various styles of dramatic composition and
tried the Shakespearian, the Greek, and the late French, in rapid
succession. His work was so beautiful in form and so faultless in
finish that it attracted immediate attention. A master's hand was
evident in every line, and albeit there was a subtle something lacking
of the true poetic fire, a certain circle of fastidious and critical
_literati_ found the dramas highly satisfactory and hailed Heyse as a
rising poet. In 1854, King Maximilian II. of Bavaria, whose court was a
veritable literary academy, called him to Munich and assured to him an
audience and an income. After a time the income was discontinued, but
Heyse's works were then amply remunerative, and he has lived in Munich
to this day. No environment could be imagined more congenial to a man
of Heyse's tastes than that of the court at Munich; and once settled
there, he began to fulfil the hopeful prophecies of his friends. In
1857, his drama, "The Sabine Women," took the prize offered by the
king, and was produced on the royal stage. Notwithstanding that it
satisfied the literary sense of the court, it failed to please the
people. There was too much finish, too much studied elegance, and too
little warmth of feeling, to appeal to their sympathies. Not until
"Colberg," "Elizabeth Charlotte," and "Hans Lange" had appeared, would
the general public acknowledge Heyse as a great dramatist. Even then
they found a flaw; for, although the characters were strong and
interesting, and some of the situations were intensely dramatic,
Heyse's dramas, as a whole, were lacking in one essential quality,
action. They were more suitable for the study than the stage; more
interesting to one appreciative reader who could enjoy the beauty of
the workmanship and feel the strength of the conception, than to an
indifferent audience expecting to be amused or excited by actual
happenings.
In fact, they were dramatized novels, instead of true dramas, or
dramatic poems. "Not deep the poet sees, but wide," and Heyse's view
was not wide. He lacked a poet's objectivity, the power to create the
type from the individual, the power to discern the universal and
essential beyond the particular and accidental. He studied life
attentively and described it vividly and truthfully, but he saw no new
message, created no new thought.
Evidently, Heyse was neither a great dramatist nor a great poet; and
although he was a man of unquestionable power, he reached forty years
of age without having made any permanent impression on his time. But
the good fortune which had attended his youth did not desert him in
middle age. He lived amid congenial surroundings; wrote constantly and
with increasing power; and gradually attained a self-knowledge which
enabled him to recognize the true field for his exertions.
He began writing novels in verse, then short stories in prose, and at
length, in 1873, he wrote his great novel, "Children of the World." In
this he expressed his philosophy of life. The man Heyse, with his
intense admiration of physical beauty, his love of nature, his utter
disregard of conventionality, his keen insight into the uttermost
corners of human hearts, looks out of every page. The reader, whoever
he may be, and however strongly he may disagree with much that he
reads, is spellbound from first to last. The scenes between Edwin and
Toinette in the first part of the book are as idyllic and unworldly as
those between Marius and Cosette in "Les Miserables." Toinette herself,
so exquisitely beautiful, so courageously true to her conception of her
own nature, and so pitifully mistaken in that conception, fascinates us
as she does Edwin, and excites our deepest compassion. Edwin, too,
grave, and thoughtful, and warm-hearted as he is, seems no mere
"character," but a living man. They are all children of the world,
living entirely in the present without hope or desire for a future
life. The existing world supplies them with all they ask. As Edwin
says: "O beloved, a world in which we may attain such triumph over
fate, over our own and that of those we love; in which the tragical is
glorified by a gleam of the beautiful; in which intense joy of life
sweeps through us, bringing softening tears, even as we shudder in the
presence of death--such a world is not desolate." It is Heyse's own
creed, this of the all-sufficiency of the present life. In one of his
lyrics he has expressed it more explicitly--"Kein Ernst und Drueben, nur
ein Jetzt und Hier!", and later on in the same poem he says:
"Das eine wissen wir:
Auch wir vergehen, und das ist Trotz genug."
Since this was written at the time of his son's death, his disbelief in
immortality must be at least sincere.
Having now abandoned his aspirations towards poetic and dramatic fame,
Heyse worked as his own nature dictated, and soon made for himself a
distinctive place in German literature. In 1876, his other long novel,
"In Paradise," a story of artist life in Munich, appeared. Unlike
"Children of the World," "In Paradise" is full of humor and has little
philosophy.
But the short story is Heyse's favorite form of expression, and it is
in the short story that his power is best revealed. With the exception
of a few essays, dramas, and one-act pieces, he has written nothing but
short stories for the last fifteen years, and in that time he has
produced so many that they would fill several shelves in a large
library.
Since Heyse believes that every story should embody some specific
thought, something to distinguish it absolutely from every other, it is
easily comprehensible that many of his tales are morbid and unreal. But
the best of them are veritable bits of life; life viewed not only from
the outside as any keen observer may see it, but life as the
philosopher knows it, the inner life which gives value and purpose to
this "fleeting show." He spares no detail of common experience, which
may give strength and vividness to his stories, but he chooses the
themes themselves from the world of ideas. His stories are not
primarily character studies, though the men and women produce the
impression of actual life; nor are they stories with plots and
thrilling events. They are histories of crises in human lives, of
strange problems and situations, of subtle influences working
unexpected issues. The majority are stories of love, psychological,
like most modern love tales, but picturesque and human as well.
Although the hero and heroine are separated, if separation must be, by
some obstacle in their own natures rather than by any untoward
circumstance of life, they are not dissected and analyzed till they
lose all human semblance. They are as unconsciously true to themselves
as living beings, and are not less difficult to comprehend. Heyse has
searched human hearts to the depths; he has read the motive behind the
act; he has seen the thousand thoughts and feelings which make that
motive complex; but he has not made his great knowledge an excuse for
writing semi-scientific treatises in the guise of fiction. His
characters never lose personality; they give fascinating glimpses of
their deeper selves, but they make no full confessions; they are
elusive and surprising, and therefore indescribably charming and real.
All classes of German society have contributed to enlarge Heyse's world
of fiction, but it is of the educated middle class that he most often
writes. While a certain sameness in type is noticeable in his
characters, there is no marked sameness in the individuals. The men are
usually cultured, thoughtful, and passionate; the women are beautiful,
noble-minded and vivacious; but each man and each woman has traits
which make his or her personality distinct from all others. The women
are strangely captivating. Toinette, in "Children of the World," Lucile
and L.'s wife in "A Divided Heart," Christel and the Governor's lady in
"Rothenburg on the Tauber,"--they all claim our interest and sympathy
as they do that of the people about them. In fact, Heyse always forces
us to feel what he wishes to tell us. He is never guilty of writing
about a character; the men and women are before us and we are left to
draw our own conclusions. Yet we inevitably sympathize with him, and
blame or praise as he would have us do.
Heyse uses nature merely as a background for human beings. He never
indulges in long rhapsodies over sunsets and beautiful views, or in
lengthy descriptions of any scenes whatever; but he has Thomas Hardy's
power of making places absolutely real in a few vivid words. Nature
must be very dear to him, and he must understand her very thoroughly,
or he could never reproduce her charm so truly. "Rothenburg on the
Tauber" is a story of the spring-time; and reading it, we breathe the
cool air of spring, see her pale tints, live through her sunny days and
misty, moonlit nights. In "Minka," the gloom of a sombre autumn day
depresses us as it does Eugene, and lends some of its own unearthly
sadness to the strange story.
All of Heyse's writings have atmosphere, that indefinable quality which
no amount of mere description of places and people can give, but which
comes of itself from the heart of the sympathetic writer. And Heyse is
evidently deeply in sympathy with every subject which he treats.
Feeling intensely himself, he wishes his readers to share his feeling,
and he is so consummate a master of his art that he is sure of this
effect. From the first word it is plain that he has something important
to say, and the reader has no choice but to read on to the end. Nor is
it possible by reading ten of Heyse's stories to divine what the
eleventh may be. He is true to his principle of making each one utterly
unlike all the others. This, perhaps, is one of Heyse's greatest
charms. Prolific as he is, he never wearies one with sameness; his
twentieth volume is as interesting and surprising as his first.
Whether or no Heyse's works will live is a problem which must be left
to its own solution. They are purely modern products, tales of
nineteenth-century people, actuated by nineteenth-century thoughts and
feelings; and though many of them are artistically perfect, they are
saturated with the author's own personality, and have not that
universal truth of application which usually characterizes the world's
classics. "L'Arabbiata," "On the Banks of the Tiber," "The Maiden of
Treppi," "The Mother's Picture," "A Divided Heart," and "Rothenburg on
the Tauber," are among the best of the short stories. His "Tales of the
Troubadours" are very beautiful, but are somewhat marred by a freedom
of speech which approaches actual vulgarity. It is this unfortunate and
unnecessary frankness which has brought against Heyse the accusation of
immorality, although all his stories have an "upward tendency," and are
time to the highest ideals. No one reading "A Divided Heart," or
"Rothenburg on the Tauber," could doubt the rectitude of the writer's
moral sense, or his love for the best in human nature.
Since Heyse is still living, the thousand and one interesting facts and
anecdotes which come to the world's knowledge only after a great man's
death are not yet told of him. His life has been even and uneventful;
poor in those startling changes of fortune which make the usual
attractive biography, but rich in inner experience, in the vivid
impressions, intense feelings, and great thoughts, which make actual
life full of interest and meaning.
A number of Heyse's works have been translated into English, but many
more deserve wider popularity than their own language can give them.
Their great writer, realistic as Balzac, analytic as Tolstoi,
picturesque as his own countryman, Ebers, should become as famous here
as he is in Germany, and add one more to the increasing list of great
men whose writings are precious, not alone to their own countries, but
to the world. C. S. C.
A DIVIDED HEART
A DIVIDED HEART.
It was still early when I left, although the company was one of those
which do not become lively until after midnight. But a gloomy
uneasiness which I had brought with me, would not yield to the good
wine and tolerable humor which seasoned the bacchanal; so I seized a
favorable moment and took French leave. As I came out of the house and
inhaled the first breaths of the pure, night air, I heard some one
following me and calling my name.
It was L., the eldest and gravest of our circle. I had heard his voice
scarcely twice the whole evening among the noisy chatter of the others.
I esteemed him very highly, and was usually delighted to meet him. But
just then I desired no man's company.
"It has driven you out also," he said, as he caught up to me, and,
stopping for breath, glanced at the starlit spring heavens. "We were
neither of us at home among those hardened bachelors. When I saw you
slipping out, a melancholy envy, which you must pardon, came over me.
Now, thought I, he is going home to his dear wife. She has been
sleeping for some time; he steps on tip-toe to her bedside; she at once
awakens from her dream, and asks--'Is it you already? Did you enjoy
yourself? You must tell me about it to-morrow.' Or, she has been
interesting herself in a book, and opens the door herself when she
hears your footstep. To be so received means to be at home somewhere in
this world. In my lonesome cell there is no one waiting for me. But I
enjoyed that good fortune for twelve whole years, and am far better for
it than our young friends yonder, who have no perception of the best
things life can offer, and who speak of women as the blind do of
colors. Are you not of my opinion, that one only half knows them when
one speaks merely from hearsay, and says, with the usual irony, a
'better half'?"
He put his arm in mine, and we walked slowly along the deserted
streets.
"You know, my dear friend," said I, "that I am a marriage fanatic, with
good reason. If I neglected to preach its gospel to the heathen this
evening, it was only from a general disinclination to speak where I am
not altogether at ease. I feared, too, that my usual eloquence on the
subject might leave me in the lurch. But, truly, it would not be the
first time that I have argued alone against a whole gang of obstinate
bachelors."
"I admire your courage," he replied. "For my part, I am always hindered
from contradicting the scoffers by an absurd heart-beating; it seems to
me a desecration to gossip of the school in which one learns to fathom
the deepest and most beautiful secrets of human life."
"You are quite right," said I, "and I have often reproached myself for
being beguiled into discussing in prose, after the manner of a
scientific problem, what one may properly confess only in verse. And
yet certain silly speeches always excite me to protest again. When I
hear it said that marriage is the death of love; that the obligation to
fidelity quenches passion; and that, since no man can master his heart,
even the best should hesitate before forming a life-tie, my vexation at
the foolish babble runs away with my reason, and I begin to speak of
things which one regards as mere exaggeration unless he has himself
experienced them."
To this he did not reply, and we walked silently side by side. I
observed that he was lost in recollections which I did not wish to
disturb. I knew nothing of his marriage, except that he had lost his
wife many years before, and mourned her as if it were but yesterday. An
old lady who had known her told me that she was an irresistible person,
with eyes which no one who had once looked into them could ever forget.
Her daughter, lately married, I had met once at a social affair; she
impressed me as an amiable, but very quiet, young woman.
L. had been a military man in his younger days; but being severely
wounded in the Schleswig-Holstein war, he had withdrawn to a country
estate and passed his best years there with his wife and child. After
he became a widower, a spirit of unrest seemed to drive him over the
earth, and it was only from time to time that he made a brief
appearance among his old friends. He was a stately, handsome man even
yet. His hair, although streaked with gray, stood thick and curly above
his high, bronzed forehead, and in his eyes there gleamed a quiet fire
which told of imperishable youth.
At the next crossing he stopped.
"My way properly leads down there," said he, "but, if you do not
object, I will accompany you for a distance. My sleep has not been
worth much for some time, and 'In that sleep what dreams may come'
seldom amount to anything. Besides, I am going away in a few days. Who
knows when we can chat with each other again."
We set forth on our, or rather on my way, but for a long while the talk
would not take the right channel.
The warm, night wind was as soothing as the murmur of a cradle-song;
the stars blinked like eyes which can scarcely keep themselves open. A
fine mist moved slowly across the heavens, weaving a veil over the
shining firmament.
"Bear in mind," said I, "we shall be wakened from our first sleep by a
spring thunder-storm."
He neither answered nor glanced at the heavens, but continued to look
fixedly at the ground. Suddenly he began, "Do you know what I have
always lamented? That Spinoza was never married. How that would have
improved his ethics! He had no conception of certain problems; and I
have always wondered how he would have regarded them if they had come
under his observation."
"Which do you mean?" I asked.
"You know he was the first to deny the power of reason over our
passions, and to advance the profound thesis that a passion can be
displaced only by one stronger. But what happens if two equally strong
passions together rule the same soul?"
"Are there then two precisely similar passions?" I asked; "I myself
have never experienced anything of the kind, and am inclined to be
sceptical until I see it proved in another man."
"There are certainly no test-scales for feeling," he replied, "but
whoever has had such an unfortunate experience will have no doubt of
its reality. But one can scarcely make it comprehensible to a third
person, because the psychological constellation under which alone this
situation arises seldom comes into position, and can almost never be
observed as quietly as other phenomena. Even you as a novelist would
hardly be able to make use of such an occurrence. You must have heard
often enough that you novelists search for psychological problems and
dispense with probability. Wonderful people! They wish to learn
something, and yet, if one tells them of what is not to be found on
every highway, they refuse to believe it. If a botanist discovers and
describes a new plant accidentally bearing blossoms on the root instead
of the stalk, no one doubts his veracity. But a new growth of human
flora, heretofore unnoticed by the thoughtless observer, is immediately
designated as a daring invention."
"You forget," I broke in, "that people wish to enjoy fiction with the
heart alone, not with the intellect, and that the heart refuses
everything which is not closely akin to it. Therefore I feel very
lenient toward the average reader. In real life he is interested only
in certain things which he understands, prizes, and considers
desirable; such as money and land, social reputation, family happiness,
and more of the same sort. Consequently, he likes in books only such
stories as deal with rich and poor, rogues and honest men, and, for a
sort of relish, with a little of the so-called love necessary to
complete a happy marriage. Whatsoever there is beyond that, is evil.
Yet in every human breast there lives a still presentiment that there
is something glorious about the unusual, about a feeling, for instance,
that fills the heart to overflowing, even to the breaking of all
conventional bonds. But my poor wise Leopardi was right; the world
laughs at things which it otherwise must admire, and, like the fox in
the fable, blames what it really envies. A great love, for example,
with its passionate joys and sorrows, is universally envied, and
therefore unsparingly condemned. They consider it dangerous, and I have
found this view sanctioned everywhere in men's judgments of life and
fiction. 'Do not destroy my home!' cries the peaceful citizen to the
passion which is breaking into his house like an armed man. And if he
feels himself adequately protected by his armor of conventionality,
more invulnerable than iron or steel, he fears for children and
parents, and the tender heart of his wife. Although the danger may not
have been great after all. Only what we recognize as true has power
over our souls; and surely you yourself have seldom encountered in this
cold world of ours any strong passion or heart-instinct out of the
catechism, and yet truly felt."
"That is true," he said, "and therefore I have never yet discovered,
either in psychology or romance, a trace of that peculiar situation
which I mentioned. Once I imagined that, in the writings of one whom I
consider a true artist, I had found something similar when, in looking
over Alfred Musset's short stories, I came across the title '_Les Deux
Maitresses_.' But no, the hero loved one and flirted with the other.
That happens thousands of times. But what I mean--"
He broke off, seeming to regret that he had gone so far. I allowed only
a slight word to betray my intense interest. I did not wish to elicit
any confidence which he would not freely give me. I knew also that
there is a midnight hour for long-buried histories, when they burst the
bars of the closed breast and rise up to walk about once more in the
pale light of a starry heaven. One must then guard his tongue well, for
a careless word may frighten the timid ghosts back to their graves.
So I remained silent and waited. We were approaching a little
enclosure, a grove of ash-trees, and on the seats under the wind-tossed
branches several homeless men lay sleeping peacefully. In the darkest
corner of the shaded place stood an empty bench.
"If it suits you," said L., "let us sit here a moment. I would like
best of all to imitate yonder vagabonds and spend the night here _sub
divo_. The south wind possesses me."
Then, after we had been sitting dumbly side by side for some time, "Of
what were we speaking?" he began; "was it not of people's inability to
imagine situations which they themselves have never been through? How
can one expect it of them, since even the individual himself cannot
always comprehend what he has too undeniably felt?
"And when I now look back on that time and observe everything calmly
from a distance, does not my own heart oftentimes seem to me a riddle?
To you, indeed, that which is unintelligible to most people will seem
natural enough; namely, that the love I bore my wife was strengthened
instead of weakened by the years of unclouded happiness. One might say
that every deep and earnest affection is artistic. As the artist and
the poet bear and cherish the burning thought within them, ever
striving to approximate it to their highest ideal, so love, if not
mistaken in its object, is a ceaseless advance. But I see this
comparison halts a little. Let it be. Only you must know that I was one
of those fortunate beings who consider the possession of a beloved wife
as a daily gift from the gracious gods; and that I was still feeling a
sort of lover's devotion when the young likeness of the dear woman had
already outgrown childhood.
"I do not know that you would have understood this better, if you had
known the woman. Many passed her by without suspecting what a rare
spirit looked out upon the world from those quiet, all-understanding
eyes. I myself, in our first hour of meeting, felt indissolubly bound
to her. But I shall not attempt to describe her. At this moment, as is
always the case with those whom I hold dearest, I see her picture only
in uncertain outlines, although I could draw any indifferent face even
to the wrinkles. It was so even when she was living; I carried with me
the feeling of her personality as a whole, and when she appeared it was
like a new revelation.
"Many did not consider her a beauty, and she had not the slightest
desire to please in that way. But to others she seemed supremely
charming, and far beyond comparison with any merely pretty woman. I
often pondered over this mysterious charm of hers. I came to the
conclusion that, while the good qualities of the average lovable person
affect us at different times, with her the whole character revealed
itself every moment. Goodness, cleverness, earnestness and
cheerfulness, grace and firm strength,--her entire treasure was always
at hand. But I see I am still praising and describing. I will only say
that the first meeting decided my fate.
"I immediately realized that it was not one of those sudden,
short-lived passions which I had often experienced during my frivolous
officer-life. Until now I had never, even in the warmest love-affair,
been able to think of a union for life without feeling a quiet aversion
to the loss of my freedom. In the first hour I knew that this love
concerned my soul's welfare; that I could never again be my own master,
even though I should be obliged to remain away from her forever. I
could not long endure the uncertainty as to her feeling for me. I was
somewhat spoiled by previous successes. Yet it scarcely distressed or
surprised me, when, though she acknowledged that my presence was
pleasant to her and that she would be glad to see me often, she said
she did not return my passionate feeling, and thought too highly of a
union for life and death to enter into it half-heartedly, as into
something of little moment.
"She became still dearer to me through this refusal, although from any
one else such treatment would have sorely wounded my vanity. Before her
all mean and petty feelings disappeared, and a man's best nature was
aroused, as alone worthy of her.
"It never occurred to me to withdraw myself, grumbling and pining, in
order to make myself missed. After the first pain was over, I seemed to
myself rashly presumptuous in having proposed at all. I believed that I
could not better atone for this ridiculous hastiness than by remaining
unassumingly near her. Her parents kept open house; and, being always
welcome, I exerted myself to be cheerful, and to suppress every feeling
of jealousy toward my companions in misery. But my nights were
wretched, and I often brooded over the darkest resolves.
"Now imagine my feeling when one morning I received a note from her; I
might call upon her during the day. She had something important to say
to me.
"I found her alone. She met me in the greatest agitation, stretched
both hands to me, and cried, 'You live! God be thanked!' Then she told
me that toward morning she had had a frightful dream, in which she had
seen me lying dead before her with a deep wound in my forehead. An
unspeakable grief had suddenly seized her, almost as though a hot,
buried spring had burst forth from her inmost soul and gushed from her
eyes in an inexhaustible stream of tears. In that instant she knew that
she loved me, and must die if I did not revive. When she awoke from the
dream and reflected upon it, her happiness at finding it untrue was
nearly fatal to her; her heart beat as violently as if it would leap
from her, and she was scarcely able to write the note to me.
"From that morning until her death, that warm spring of love was never
exhausted. Whenever I remember--no, I dare not. I would seem to you a
strange visionary, or, at best, weary you with confessions that could
give you nothing new. I am no poet; and even Dante, with all his
display of color and sound, could not save Paradise from monotony.
"Every day we experienced some new happiness, especially after our
child was born. She was a lovable child; and yet it was a long time
before I could learn to love her for her own sake. During the first
years, I loved her because of her mother, and she pleased me only so
far as she resembled her. It was, so to speak, only an additional charm
of this dear woman's that she had given life to such a child. I tell
this to you, that you may know what a boundless love filled me, and how
it never grew cool or more rational with years.
"Indeed, she even succeeded in displacing another passion, to which I
had formerly given all my spare time, but which now scarcely ever
manifested itself. Even in the cadet school, I had been an enthusiastic
violinist, and believed that I could not live without music. And when I
realized that my wife was a stranger to the true nature of music, it
pained me for a moment. But I would have renounced as unnecessary or
troublesome, anything in which she had no part. Indeed, I easily
convinced myself that this lack was but one perfection the more. Her
true, simple nature, always at one with itself, shrank from the
mysterious depths, the spiritual twilight, into which music lures us.
It troubled her that she could not find the key to this fascinating
riddle; but she seemed to fear that she might be drawn into a moral
perplexity which would admit of no redemption. It was not indifference
toward the musical world, but rather a lack of sensitiveness, which
barred her way to the heart of it. She thoroughly enjoyed a folk-song
or dance melody. A Beethoven symphony pained her--indeed, could drive
her to despair.
"All her artistic sense was in her eyes. She enjoyed every visible
thing with the most exquisite feeling, and would study the lines of a
face, a landscape, or a building, for hours together. Her hand was
well-trained, but she placed little value on her sketches and
aquarelles. Her technical skill did not equal her power of artistic
perception. Besides, within the limits of our country estate, amid
entirely commonplace surroundings and unattractive people, she had
little opportunity to perfect herself.
"Thus, for different reasons, both our talents remained dormant. But,
occasionally, the desire to take my violin from its case and play
through my old favorites once again, would seize me like a physical
necessity. This I would do in perfect secrecy in some distant part of
the woods. When the longing was satisfied, and I returned to the house
like some penitent sinner, we would both laugh if she chanced to meet
me with the violin under my arm. She often implored me to ignore her
weakness; perhaps I might cure her of it. But her untroubled
cheerfulness was more to me than all the sonatas in the world.
"For nearly eight years we lived thus, entirely for ourselves, and
reminded only by little excursions and visits to the city, that any
world existed beyond our pine woods. Then our child sickened with the
measles, and retained from them a bad throat-trouble, which our
physician advised us to check at once by a sojourn in milder air.
Although it was harvest-time, we soon decided to leave home and take
our child to Lake Geneva, for which place my wife had always preserved
a tender feeling since her school-days at a French _pension_ there.
"In Vernex, where, as yet, the hotels had not rendered the beautiful
shore unsafe, we found an excellent house, entirely after our own
hearts. It was arranged for only a dozen guests, and was situated in
the midst of a beautifully green garden, with a most glorious view of
the lake and the mountains on the south shore. We settled ourselves in
two spacious rooms on the second floor. My wife and child slept in the
small room; the large one adjoining it served as the sitting-room, and
at night my bed was made on the divan. The corresponding rooms on the
ground floor beneath us were occupied during the first day by an
English couple, who disturbed us by continual playing on the piano; but
when they departed on the following day, they left such stillness
behind them that we might have considered ourselves the only persons in
the paradise, had not the usual meals, in an elegant dining-room,
reminded us that we still had half-gods near us.
"On the first evening I was surprised by a tender stratagem of my
wife's. As I unpacked the great trunk belonging to her and the child,
which she herself had filled at home, I struck something hard, which
proved to be my violin-case.
"I embraced her heartily as I saw her smile with pleasure because she
had accomplished this so cleverly and secretly.
"'As I brought my color-box,' she said, 'there was no need for your
instrument to remain at home. I know a hundred places by the lake and
on the road to Montreux, where I can carry on my daubing by the hour,
while you are conjuring your uncanny spirits up here.'
"Yet it happened otherwise than I had first thought in my excitement
over her loving forethought. The case remained unopened, and for a full
week not one musical thought occurred to me. I would sit by the hour on
the balcony with an unopened book in my hand, wholly absorbed in the
nobly beautiful picture before me. Or I would accompany my wife and
child on their walks; and when my wife had settled down to sketch the
magnificent chestnut-trees, or the white houses surrounded with
fig-trees and vineyards, glimmering on the slopes in the ravines
between Montreux and Veytaux, I would stretch myself in the shade near
by; chat with the child, who was visibly improving; and feel so
completely satisfied with God and man, that that sultan who vainly
searched the world for the happiest man would finally have found him in
me.
"One morning I allowed them to go out alone, for I had several
necessary letters to write. It was a quiet, beautiful day; not a breath
of air ruffled the mirror-like lake; I had moved my table before the
open balcony door, and was congratulating myself on the deep stillness
of the house, when, in the room beneath me, I suddenly heard that
fateful piano, which I had so often cursed, sound again, and so loudly
that I knew the lower balcony door must also be open. In my vexation I
at first closed mine; but after listening a moment or two, I reopened
the door and stepped outside, in order not to lose the slightest tone.
The ten fingers playing Bach's Prelude on the little piano below me
belonged to no Englishwoman. Late last evening new guests had moved
in--so the chambermaid had announced--a French man and woman, brother
and sister. Which of the two was then playing I naturally did not know.
But from the touch, although it was firm and strong when necessary, I
decided upon the sister. I have seldom heard such beautiful, distinct,
and, as it were, mature playing; yet it had no trace of so-called
classic objectivity, but rather a very personal charm, as if the
player's deepest nature were speaking to me. I would have wagered my
head that the musician was a brunette, with those gray eyes which
Spaniards call 'green.' I know it is folly; but it is not the only one
of which you will find me guilty, and it had not less power over me
because a sound human intelligence might resist it.
"You know that Gounod composed a violin accompaniment for this Prelude.
The purists and Bach-pedants reject it. But it has such an irresistible
melody that every violinist learns it by heart. It was not long before
I had taken my instrument from its case, tuned it sufficiently, and
placed the bow in position. And then began a most wonderful duet on two
floors, played with as much calmness and precision as if it had been
well practised. There was not the slightest hesitation; my violin was
never in better condition, and the little piano rang as full and soft
as if it had been changed over night into a powerful concert grand.
"After we finished there came a pause, and I wondered with some
trepidation if another approach than that of sounds would be proper. I
stepped out on the balcony, hoping that the player would appear on the
terrace. But a new piece which she began drew me forthwith back into
the room. This time it was a Chopin Impromptu which I knew perfectly.
Since I had been unable to play much, I had read an unlimited quantity
of music, and my memory was very well trained.
"Again seizing my bow, I attempted a modest accompaniment to the
somewhat quaint, but passionately musical, confession. Then came
something from Schumann, and so on _ad infinitum_. I believe we played
three full hours at one stretch. When my wife finally returned--it was
the second breakfast--hour she found me much overheated, and bathed in
perspiration.
"She even listened to the last bars of a Beethoven sonata, to which I
was playing the treble. 'What duet have you arranged for yourself?' she
asked, smiling, and when I told her that I knew the pianist as little
as she did, she laughed outright. 'I did not bring the violin in vain,
after all, and if I sketch chestnut-trees by the hour, I shall know
that you are busy and happy.'
"I attempted to reply somewhat jokingly, but made a miserable failure.
The music had moved me exceedingly; and, although I never believed in
presentiments, I was unable to shake off a premonition of something
unusual and uncanny. I longed to remain away from dinner, but felt
ashamed of such a boyish feeling. But my shyness about making the
player's acquaintance was unnecessary. She did not appear at table; so
we met only her brother, a slender, serious young Frenchman, whose hair
and complexion at once proclaimed his southern origin. In fact, we
learned later that his home was at Arles. His father had been an
Alsacian from an old German family, a merchant, who, conducting a
branch business in that city of beautiful women, had finally lost his
heart to the most charming one. He had afterward settled there and
founded a great banking-house, that the son, who was inclined toward a
diplomatic career, might find the way easily open to him. Both parents
had died recently, and the son was still in mourning for them; but he
seemed either very reserved for his age, or oppressed by some secret
trouble, so that, beyond a few courteous words of greeting, we heard
little from him. His sister, after whom my wife immediately inquired,
was still tired from the journey, and also from the music, he added,
with a side glance at me. Her physician had forbidden her to play, but
she could not refrain from it. In the register, which was brought to
him after dinner, he wrote a simple, commonplace name, but beneath it
that of his sister--Countess So-and-so.
"So she was married, and perhaps we should meet her husband also. I do
not know why this thought affected me unpleasantly, since I had never
yet seen the lady herself. I awaited the evening in strange suspense.
On entering the dining-room we saw the brother and sister seated
directly opposite us. I was not in the least surprised. The young woman
appeared precisely as I had imagined; beautiful dark hair, slightly
curly, and bound in a simple knot at the back of her head; a face far
from regular, but charming for its pale ivory-color and beautiful
teeth; and, truly, gray eyes, the iris inclosed with a dark ring and
shot through with golden lights, exactly as I had fancied from her
playing.
"She talked little, addressing herself only to my wife when she did
speak. It was nothing new to me to see that the latter could at once
attract even this shy and reserved heart.
"After dinner, when we went out into the garden, over which the stars
were twinkling, it was not long before I observed the two sitting
together absorbed in earnest conversation. One could hardly have
imagined anything lovelier than this pair, so unlike, yet so truly
equal in charm and nobility of appearance and manner. They were nearly
the same size, although my wife was stately and well-developed, while
the stranger was girlishly slight; but her arms and neck, which I saw
later in lighter clothing, were perfectly rounded, and resembled
those of some Arabian women whose pictures I had seen in a friend's
sketch-book. The brother had withdrawn; I walked to and fro on the
lower part of the terrace, smoking my cigar, gazing absent-mindedly
over the shimmering lake, and now and then hearing a detached word from
the conversation of the women. The child was sleeping quietly upstairs,
for she was put to bed every evening before we went to dinner.
"'She is extremely charming,' my wife afterwards said to me, 'but even
more unhappy than she is beautiful and lovable. She has been separated
for two years from her husband, who is a _mauvais sujet_, a gambler and
spendthrift, who has already wasted her whole dowry. When she realized
that she had married a worthless man, she insisted upon returning to
her parents. So you may imagine that when her mother and father both
died, it was much harder for her to bear than for many other loving
daughters, who find comfort in their husbands. She is now living with
her brother, but, although he adores her, she cannot have him with her
forever. Sometime she will be entirely alone and dependent on herself,
and, since she is a Catholic and cannot release herself from her
hateful tie, she looks forward to a hopeless future. When I showed
active sympathy because of her mourning, she told me all this without
the least sentimentality, and with the calmness of a strong soul. But
when she mentioned that the Count occasionally came to see her to
extort money, although he no longer has the slightest claim on her
property, her voice trembled, the mere thought of the villain is so
repulsive to her. Her health has suffered under all these emotions. I
promised to care for and pet her like a loving sister, and you should
have heard how prettily she laughed. The poor young woman! I am much
pleased that your violin travelled with us. She said your playing
seemed so sympathetic.'
"She never wearied of talking about her new friend. I teased her
because, contrary to her usual habit, she had allowed herself to be so
quickly conquered.
"'Only beware of yourself!' she replied, laughing. 'I certainly do not
understand the language of tones, but I know that with them one can
confess far deeper secrets than we revealed to-day with words.'
"'As long as there is a solid floor between us, there is no danger,' I
interrupted, jokingly. But I knew very well the first evening that it
would not be safe to jest with those dangerous gray eyes.
"For a long while I could not sleep. The theme from the Prelude sounded
constantly in my ears. At midnight I arose, and, going softly into the
neighboring room, gazed at the beloved faces of my wife and child by
the light of the little night-lamp. The charm worked, and I passed a
perfectly quiet, dreamless night. But my first waking thought was
again--danger!
"You will understand why the matter seemed so serious to me, when I
tell you, that I am one of those with whom all spiritual crises
complete themselves on the instant, without delay or hesitation, with
the calm fatality of a natural law. Although it is often well to
understand one's self at once without being obliged to question mind or
heart--like the commander of some fortress, who, recognizing the
superiority of the besieger, needs no council of war--yet, in either
case, if time can be won, everything may be saved, and the relief may
come which would have been too late, if there had been a premature
surrender.
"Thus, perhaps, it might have been better for me, and I might have
acted more wisely that morning, if I had not regarded the matter as an
unavoidable decree of fate. The symptoms were indeed precisely the same
as when I fell so suddenly and violently in love with my wife. But
the situation was different. With a wife and child, and eight added
years--acknowledge that you find it inexcusable to yield thus passively
to a passion, instead of opposing it with all my strength, and calling
the good spirits of house and home to my aid.
"Strange to say, notwithstanding this new affection, I was not for a
moment untrue to what I had previously loved; neither did I think
coldly of my wife, nor wish her absent that I might have only that
other face before my eyes. It was as if one of my heart's chambers had
been empty and was now occupied; but between it and the next the door
was standing open, and the two occupants were on the best of terms,
even crossing the threshold now and then to visit each other.
"That may seem to you merely an idle fancy. It is only a miserable
attempt to explain the remarkable condition in which I found myself--a
condition not quite so clear then as to-day, since at first it seemed
treason towards my dear wife, and I bitterly reproached myself for it.
Soon, however, I reassured myself that I took nothing from her by this
division of my heart; that, on the contrary, my strong, pure love for
her received new nourishment through this quickening of my inner life.
"All this I tell to you alone. Thousands would consider it
self-deception or morbid extravagance. Knowledge of the human heart is
still in its swaddling-clothes, notwithstanding the age of the world,
and most people never go beyond the A B C, even though they consider
themselves experienced.