Was it Sickness or----?
June, with its oppressively hot days, was at an end. In Professor
Fernow's lodgings it was as silent as a church on a week-day; nothing
moved here, not a sound broke the profound stillness that reigned in
these apartments. One room was like another; book-case succeeded
book-case, and upon each stood volumes in endless rows. The curtains
were let down, a dim twilight prevailed. The genius and the science of
centuries were heaped together here, but not a single fresh breath of
air intruded into this solemn seclusion.
In this study, which differed from the other rooms in nothing but
perhaps a still greater mass of books, sat the professor before his
writing table, but he was not at work; pen and paper lay unused before
him; his head thrown back against the upholstery of his easy chair, his
arms crossed, he gazed fixedly at the ceiling. Perhaps it was the green
window curtains that made his face appear so strangely pale and ill,
but his bearing also expressed an infinite weariness, as if both mind
and body were wrought to their utmost tension, and his eyes betrayed
nothing of that intensity of thought--which is perhaps just about to
solve some scientific problem; there lay in them only that melancholy,
purposeless reverie which so often absorbs the poet, so seldom the man
of science.
The door opened, and softly as this had happened, the professor
trembled with that susceptibility peculiar to very nervous persons;
Doctor Stephen appeared on the threshold, and behind him the anxious,
care-worn face of Frederic was visible.
"Good evening," said the doctor entering the room. "I have come to give
you another lecture. You are not so well to-day, are you?"
The professor glanced at him in surprise, "You are mistaken, doctor! I
find myself quite well. There must be a misunderstanding, I did not
send for you?"
"I know that," said the doctor, coolly. "You would not send for me
unless it were a matter of life or death, but this Frederic here has
declared to me that all is not quite right with you."
"And indeed it is not," said Frederic, who, as he saw the displeased
glance of his master, had taken refuge behind the doctor, and placed
himself under that gentleman's valiant protection. "He has not been
well for a long time, and I know now just when it began; it was that
day when the Herr Professor went out in the rain without his umbrella
and came back with that American Miss and without his shawl"--
"Silence, Frederic!" interrupted the professor suddenly, and with such
a vehemence, that Frederic started back affrighted before that unwonted
tone. "You would do better to attend to your own affairs, than to
meddle with things you know nothing about. Go now, and leave us alone!"
Confounded at the unwonted severity of his usually indulgent master,
Frederic obeyed reluctantly, but the doctor, without paying the least
attention to the professor's glance, which plainly enough betrayed a
wish for his withdrawal, drew up a chair and sat down in it.
"You have been at your studies again? Of course! This magnificent
summer's-day, when all the world hastens out into the open air, you sit
here from morning to night, or rather until far into the night, at your
writing desk. Tell me, for God's sake, how long do you think this can
go on, and you bear up under it?"
The professor, although not without evident reluctance, had resumed his
former seat, and appeared not yet to have become master of his
excitement. "I must have taken cold," he said, evasively.
"No, it is not cold," interrupted the doctor, "it all comes from so
much study, which has now become a mania with you, and will bring you
to your grave if you do not allow yourself some recreation. How often I
have preached this to you! But what can one do with a patient who
always listens gently and patiently, always says 'yes,' and always does
just the contrary to what he is ordered to do!"
The professor had indeed listened with great patience. "I have always
followed your directions," he affirmed in a low voice.
"Oh yes, literally! If, for example, I sent you to bed, you lay down
obediently, but had lamp and books brought to the bedside, and studied
until four o'clock in the morning instead of until two. You must
possess a good constitution to enable you to do all this; until now it
was only your nerves that were ruined. If you go on in this way a year
longer, you will have the consumption; I give you my word for that!"
The professor rested his head on his hand, and gazed straight before
him. "So much the better!" he said resignedly.
The doctor sprang up impatiently, and noisily shoved back his chair.
"There we have it! You really long for death! There is nothing healthy
in your learning. Consumption of mind and body; that is the end of it
all."
Fernow had risen at the same time. He smiled sadly. "Give me up,
doctor; I repay your care only with ingratitude! My health is entirely
undermined, I myself am best conscious of this, and with all your good
will and all your medicines you cannot help me."
"With medicines--no," said the doctor gravely. "Only a radical cure can
save you; but I fear it is quite useless to advise you."
"And what would your advice be?" asked the professor abstractedly,
fastening his glance again upon his books.
"For a year--for a whole year long, you ought not to touch a pen, not
even to look into a book, and above all, not to think of a syllable of
science. Instead of this you must take constant physical exercise, and
if you can obtain it in no other way, work with hoe and spade in the
garden and keep at it until you grow hungry and thirsty, and can defy
every change of weather. Don't look at me in such astonishment, as if I
were pointing you out the direct way to the other world; such an
entirely shattered nervous system as yours, only the most powerful
remedies can avail. It is my firm conviction, that such treatment,
energetically begun, and persistently carried through, will save you in
spite of all these premonitions of death."
The professor shook his head incredulously. "Then I certainly must
despair of cure; you must yourself know that to carry on the work of a
day laborer in my position is impossible."
"I know it to my sorrow! And you are the last who yield to such
requirements. Well then, study on in Heaven's name, and prepare
yourself for the consumption. I have preached and warned
enough.--Adieu!"
With these words, spoken in great exasperation, the good natured, but
somewhat choleric Doctor Stephen took his hat and went out at the
door; but in the ante-room, the giant figure of Frederic had posted
itself,--there was a dumb, questioning look upon his anxious
face.--The doctor shook his head.
"Nothing is to be done with your master, Frederic!" he said. "Give him
his usual medicine, it is the old complaint that has again"--
"Oh no, it is not that!" interrupted Frederic with great positiveness,
"it is something entirely new, this time, and since that day when the
American Miss"--
The doctor laughed aloud. "I hope you will not make the arrival of my
niece answerable for your professor's illness," he said, greatly
diverted at this juxtaposition of things.
Frederic lapsed into an embarrassed silence. This certainly had not
been his intention; he only knew that both these incidents occurred
together.
"Well, and how is it really with your master this time?" asked the
doctor.
Frederic, greatly embarrassed, kept twirling his hat in his hands; a
literal description of the circumstances that had so impressed him, was
beyond his power of language. "I do not know--but he is entirely unlike
himself," he persisted, obstinately.
"Nonsense," said the doctor curtly. "I must know that better. You give
him the usual medicines, and then above all see that you get him away
from his writing desk today, and out into the open air; but take care
that for his especial recreation he does not pack a folio along with
him. Do you hear?"
So saying, the physician went down the stairs, and when he had arrived
there, asked for his niece.
"She has gone out," replied Frau Stephen in a very ill humor. "She went
at four, and, as usual, alone. Speak with her, doctor, I implore you,
once again, and represent to her the impropriety and adventuresomeness
of these long, solitary walks."
"I?" said the doctor; "no, my dear, that is your business, you must
expostulate, with her yourself."
"Expostulate!" cried the old lady, angrily; "as if anyone could succeed
in that with Jane; whenever I venture a slight hint as to this or any
other of her independent proceedings, I receive this invariable reply:
'Dear aunt, please leave all such matters to my discretion;' and not
another word am I allowed to say."
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "And do you really believe I should
succeed any better?" he asked.
"But half the city is already talking about the freedom of this girl"
cried the Frau Doctor, excitedly, "Everybody thinks us accountable for
it all, and everybody is wondering why we allow her to go on as she
does."
"Is that really so?" returned the doctor with stoical calmness. "Well,
then, I only wish that all these people who are criticising us, could
have Jane Forest in their houses a single week just to test their own
authority. They would soon get tired enough of trying to control her.
Jane, with her bluntless, and our professor up there with his
gentleness, are two obstinate mortals, with whom all B. can do nothing.
And so the only thing you and I can do about it, wife, is just let them
both have their own way."