Waiting.
The winter had passed. More than six months lay between that eventful
autumn night, and the spring day which now poured its sunny
magnificence over B. Six months, full of snow and ice, full of new
sieges and new triumphs. Now the bloody strife had ended. Overthrown in
his last, despairing struggles, exhausted, driven back into the very
heart of the country, the enemy at last confessed itself beaten. The
last war for the Rhine had been fought; henceforth, new boundaries were
to guard the ancient river and the land through which it flowed.
In the Rhine-country the first thunderbolt of war had fallen; here the
people had most feared and trembled, most fervently prayed; because
here the danger had been most imminent; and it was the Rhineland that
was to be first greeted as saviour and conqueror. The trembling hope
that had a little while ago followed the departing soldiers, was now
changed into shouts of exultation and plans of victory.
The old city of Bonn did not remain behind in the joy of victory, in
the festal-splendors that lighted up every town and hamlet. Here, too,
banners waved from roofs and towers; windows and doors were garlanded,
and a gay, triumphant life ruled over all. The house of Doctor Stephen,
which had usually been the first to celebrate a victory, belonged this
time to the number of those which, bare and garlandless, with closed
doors and drawn blinds, gave token that its inmates were called to
lament the fallen. The death of his nephew, and respect for the
surviving sister, had this restraint upon the doctor and his wife; but
all proper sorrow for Frederic and all fitting respect for Jane, could
not hinder the doctor from preparing a private festal reception for his
Professor on the morning of his return; and although the house showed
no outward adorning, he and his wife had secretly intruded into the
professor's apartments, and passed a whole afternoon in decorating
them.
At this moment the doctor stood at the top of a huge ladder, in a hard
tussle with the obstinate end of a festoon which would not yield to the
windings required to form the initials which were to be displayed over
the door of the professor's study. The Frau Doctorin stood at the foot
of the ladder and indulged in some rather merciless criticisms as to
the artistic capabilities of her wedded lord; now the spray was too
high for her, now too low, now she would shove it to the right, now to
the left; at last she declared that the initials were crooked. The
doctor rearranged, perspired and growled alternately; but at last he
lost all patience.
"You cannot judge rightly down below there, child!" he said angrily
"Just go back to the door and look at it from there. The general
impression is the great thing to be considered, not strict accordance
with mathematical lines!"
The Frau Doctorin, obediently stepped back, but just at that moment
when she stood leaning against the door, the better to enjoy that
all-important general impression, the door was opened from the outside,
and the unexpected visitor, with an outcry of terror and compassion,
grasped the old lady who had almost fallen into his arms.
"Herr Behrend," sounded the doctor's voice, in its deepest bass, down
from the ladder, "be pleased to remain standing there! That is right!
Now tell me if the garland is too high, and if the initials are really
crooked."
With a polite apology Doctor Behrend released the old lady from his
arms, and stood there immovable to take a look at the decorations in
question.
"It is very beautiful, very finely designed, but--"
"I told you so, the general effect is all right!" cried the doctor
triumphantly, while with a last stroke of the hammer he fastened a
festoon to the door; then he laid aside the hammer, and clambered down
the ladder to extend his hand to the younger colleague from whom he had
long been separated.
"I came to see if Walter's apartments were in any sort of order," said
Doctor Behrend, "and to my great surprise I find them festally adorned.
You have attended to this in person--"
"Yes, I am the very man!" said the doctor with great self-satisfaction.
"We are not quite through here, but come with me into the professor's
sanctum; there you can better admire our work."
With these words he seized Doctor Behrend by the arm and drew him into
the study. The professor's "sanctum" differed very much to-day from its
appearance when the professor was at work there. Everywhere were traces
of the ordering hand of the doctor's wife; the green curtains were
thrown back, and through the open window streamed in the full dazzling
sunlight. The writing-table, the walls, even the bookcases were adorned
with flowers and festoons, and the whole had an exceedingly festal
appearance.
It was very strange, but the young surgeon showed little or no delight
over all this; he said something of the very tasteful arrangement, of
the kindly feeling that prompted it, but all these tokens of respect to
his friend seemed to affect him more painfully than otherwise.
Happily, in the joyous excitement Doctor Stephen remarked nothing of
this peculiar constraint. "He will not take it so ill, will he?" he
said rubbing his hands in ecstasy. "So entirely without song or
garland, the professor was not to enter my house, which of all others
has the first right to welcome him. He will meet welcomes enough
outside! All B. has blazoned his name on its shield as her hero and
poet, and the students are wild with enthusiasm. He is the only one of
the professors who has fought with them, and how he has fought! I tell
you, colleague, there was exultation enough here whenever your letters
or other tidings of him arrived. City and university alike went wild
over him, and his poems that you sent us, as your malicious Mr. Atkins
would say, like Congreve rockets, set fire to both old and young. Do
you know that the university designs giving him a reception?"
"I have heard so, but I shall advise the gentlemen to make no
arrangements on his account. It is very doubtful whether Walter
returns."
The doctor in his horror almost let fall the vase of flowers he had
just lifted.
"Doubtful as to his coming? Good heavens! we confidently expect his
regiment this very morning."
"Certainly! But I fear Walter will not be with his comrades. According
to the letter I received from him this morning, he appears to be
tarrying behind in H., and to have no intention of coming home."
The doctor sat the vase so violently down upon the writing-table as to
break it. "I wish our whole military strength might be brought to bear
against this obstinate lieutenant, and force him to come home!" he
cried angrily. "And so he is not to return to us! He went away as a
sick man, whose life we half despaired of; and now, when he might come
back healthy, honored, admired by all the world, he will not come.
Doctor Behrend, there is some hidden reason for all this! He might have
come with you if he had chosen, but he really flies from B. Why did he
always make his military duties an excuse for absence, and now that
they are ended, why will he persist in remaining away! Something has
happened. Tell me what it is."
"I know nothing about it," replied Doctor Behrend evasively. "Perhaps
he dislikes the ovation which awaits him here. You know he could never
endure being placed in the foreground."
"Nonsense!" cried the doctor furiously. "He must now step to the
foreground. We tolerated that anxious timidity in the scholar; but now
when he has launched out under full sail as a poet, we forbid all such
whims!"
Behrend shook his head. "Do not cherish too great hopes as to Walter's
poetic future," he said. "I very much fear that with the sword, he will
also lay aside the poets, then bury himself among his books, shut
himself out from the outside world more vexatiously than ever, and in a
year's time stand just where he did at the opening of the war."
"He will not do that!" cried the horrified doctor.
"He will; it would just suit his fancy. With all his genius, Walter
remains an incorrigible dreamer; his energy is only an impulse of the
moment. In moments of excitement and inspiration such natures do and
dare all; as soon as the incitement is wanting, they sink back again
into their dreaming. Life in its every-day dress is nothing to them,
simply because they do not understand it."
"And a delightful thing it must be to dream away one's life," cried the
doctor excitedly pacing up and down.
"Sensible men like you and me, Doctor Behrend, haven't the least idea
of the nonsensical things that haunt such a learned, poetic head as
Walter Fernow's."
"He needs a spur to effort," replied the doctor, gravely. "He needs an
energetic, ardent force to remain daily and hourly at his side, and
wrest him from that ideal life, to animate him for the conflict
with the world and give him what he does not possess; ambition and
self-confidence. If this were granted him, I believe there is no height
he might not attain in the long future yet before him. But if an
unhappy passion once comes to such a nature--"
Here Doctor Stephen suddenly wheeled around, and with supreme
astonishment gazed into his colleague's face. "An unhappy passion!" he
cried. "For Heaven's sake, our professor has not fallen in love!"
Behrend bit his lips in vexation. "Oh, not at all! It only occurred to
me as a mere supposition."
Doctor Stephen was not so easily satisfied. "You have hinted at the
truth," he said, "now out with it; who is the professor in love with?
How long since it happened? Why is the love unhappy? I hope it is no
French woman. Are the hindrances on the side of family, national
hatred, or what?"
"I know nothing at all about it, my friend."
"You are positively insufferable with your know-nothingness," growled
the old doctor. "You know all about this matter and you might confide
in my discretion!"
"I repeat to you that my idea is founded upon a mere suspicion. You
know Walter's reticence; he has never spoken a word to me on the
subject. In any event, I urgently implore you not to take advantage of
my indiscretion, and tell the Frau Doctorin--"
"My wife?" The doctor threw a glance at the door, which fortunately, he
had closed behind him. "God forbid! That would be to set all the women
of B. in an uproar! The professor has already become a hero to our
ladies; if now, the nimbus of an unhappy love surrounds him, he will be
overwhelmed by their romantic sympathy. Who would have thought this of
our timid professor, when he sat here at his writing-desk, and I gave
him lectures upon his health, which I warned him was going to ruin
physically and mentally! Now he goes to the war, fights, makes verses,
falls in love--it is most atrocious!"
"I must go," said Behrend, evidently anxious to shorten the interview.
"You will excuse me for to-day."
"Well, go then!" growled the old doctor. "I can get nothing out of you;
but let the professor only come home, and I will set his head right."
The young physician smiled incredulously. "Well, try it!" he said. "I
have done my utmost; but that sickly melancholy is beyond my power."
He went, leaving Doctor Stephen very much out of sorts. All his joy in
the festal preparations was over, and he said to himself that if the
professor really came, he would be hardly in the mood to do justice to
the reception prepared for him. All delight in the anticipated surprise
was over. Since Frederic's death, everything had gone wrong.
The death of their nephew had come very near to the doctor and his
wife. It had been a bitter day for them when the young man who bad gone
from them as a servant, was brought home in his coffin, as their
nearest relative. The sting which ceaselessly tormented Jane, and would
allow her no peace, had also its smart for them, when they thought how
the sister's child, so long and so anxiously sought, for whose recovery
thousands had been sacrificed in vain, had lived as a menial in their
own house, without enjoying the slightest share of the wealth and the
affection that should have been his. And yet, the poor fellow had been
so grateful for the little they had given him out of mere kindness! His
honest, sincere parting words rang continually in their ears! "You have
been very good to me during these three years; if I come back, I will
richly repay you; if not--may God reward you!"
In Frederic Erdmann, the servant Professor Fernow had brought with him
to B., who would have recognized the lost Fritz Forster? The name his
foster-parents had given him had prevented the discovery, and a second
change of name had been still more unfortunate for him. If his sister
had come back to her relatives as Johanna Forster, it might have led
her brother, who knew that his family had gone to America, to a
remembrance, to a declaration, which would have thrown light upon all;
the foreign name of Jane Forest had made this impossible, and the
subordinate position of Frederic had done the rest. The servant
naturally had made no inquiries as to her history or her former name;
and Professor Fernow, who knew both, in his hermit-like seclusion, kept
himself too remote from the doctor to be made the confidant of his
family affairs, and of the researches Jane was making. Indeed Jane,
having Atkins at her side, kept these researches as much as possible
from her uncle. The chance solution of the whole mystery, which might
have occurred at any moment, did not come, and the decisive word had
been spoken only in the hour of death. Perhaps all this had been more
than mere chance; it was not to be. Of all this wealth, nothing was to
fall to Forest's heir but the splendid monument over his grave, and it
was of no avail to Frederic when young Erdmann wrote in answer to the
letter addressed to him, removing the last possible doubt, and
confirming word for word all that had been already learned. The dead
received the name justly his due; but it was too late for aught else.
The relations between Jane and her relatives were, if possible, colder
than ever, and she did not make the slightest effort to increase their
warmth. When, accompanied by Atkins and Alison, she had come with her
brother's corpse to B., she had been most kindly and sympathetically
received by her uncle and aunt; but she gave this kindness no return.
She secluded herself with her sorrow more obstinately than before with
her pride, she bore her grief as she was wont to bear all else, alone
and silently. The doctor and his wife could not comprehend a sorrow
inaccessible to consolation or sympathy, and were more than ever
confirmed in their belief in Jane's heartlessness. In fact, hers was
too self-reliant, energetic a nature, to change in a day, or become
untrue to its proper character. In the moment of her deepest agony, she
had shown her dying brother that she really possessed a heart; but she
showed this to none else, and the words Doctor Behrend had spoken of
Walter, applied also to her. Her future, too, depended upon a power
outside herself; and the few next days would decide whether she would
return to the old hardness and reticence, or gradually become that
being which one only recognized in her; assert that true nature against
which she had fought so long, and which had first asserted itself at
the hour of her brother's death.