Next morning, just as day was breaking, we set out on foot on our road
to Constance. There was a pinkish-gray streak of light on the horizon,
sure sign of a fine day, and the bright stars twinkled still in the
clear half-sombre sky, and all was calm and noiseless,--nothing to be
heard but the tramp of our own feet on the hard causeway.
With the cowardly caution of one who feels the water with his
foot before he springs in to swim, I was glad that I made my first
experiences of companionship with these humble friends while it was yet
dark and none could see us. The old leaven of snobbery was unsubdued
in my heart, and, as I turned to look at poor Vaterchen and then at the
tinsel finery of Catinka, I bethought me of the little consideration the
world extends to such as these and their belongings. “Vagabonds
all!” would say some rich banker, as he rolled by in his massive
travelling-carriage, creaking with imperials and jingling with bells.
“Vagabonds all!” would mutter the Jew pedler, as he looked down from the
_banquette_ of the diligence. How slight is the sympathy of the realist
for the poor creature whose life-labor is to please! How prone to regard
him as useless, or, even worse, forgetting the while how a wiser than
he has made many things in this beautiful world of ours that they should
merely minister to enjoyment, gladden the eye and ear, and make our
pilgrimage less weary! Where would be the crimson jay, where the scarlet
bustard, where the gorgeous peacock with the nosegay on his tail, where
the rose and the honeysuckle and the purple foxglove mingling with the
wild thorn in our hedgerows, if the universe were of _their_ creation,
and this great globe but one big workshop? You never insist that the
daisy and the daffodil should be pot-herbs; and why are there not to
be wild flowers in humanity as well as in the fields? Is it not a great
pride to you who live under a bell-glass, nurtured and cared for, and
with your name attached to a cleft-stick at your side,--is it not a
great pride to know that you are not like one of us poor dog-roses? Be
satisfied, then, with that glory; we only ask to live! Shame on me for
that “only”! As if there could be anything more delightful than life.
Life, with all its capacities for love and friendship and heroism and
self-devotion, for generous actions and noble aspirations! Life to feel
life, to know that we are in a sphere specially constructed for the
exercise of our senses and the play of our faculties, free to choose
the road we would take, and with a glorious reward if our choice be the
right one!
“'Vagabonds!' Yes,” thought I, “there was once on a time such a
vagabond, and he strolled along from village to village, making of his
flute a livelihood,--a poor performer, too, he tells us he was, but he
could touch the hearts of these simple villagers with his tones as
he could move the hearts of thousands more learned than they with his
marvellous pathos; and this vagabond was called Oliver Goldsmith.” I
have no words to say the ecstasy this thought gave me. Many a proud
traveller doubtless swept past the poor wayfarer as he went, dusty
and footsore, and who was, nevertheless, journeying onward to a great
immortality; to be a name remembered with blessings by generations when
the haughty man that scorned him was forgotten forever. “And so now,”
thought I, “some splendid Russian or some Saxon Croesus will crash by
and not be conscious that the thin and weary-looking youth, with the
girl's bundle on his stick and the red umbrella under his arm, that this
is Potts! Ay, sir, you fancy that to be threadbare and footsore is to
be vulgar-minded and ignoble, and you never so much as suspect that the
heart inside that poor plaid waistcoat is throbbing with ambitions high
as a Kaiser's, and that the brain within that battered Jim Crow is the
realm of thoughts profound as Bacon's, and high-soaring as Milton's.”
If I make my reader a sharer in these musings of mine, it is because
they occupied me for some miles of the way. Vaterchen was not talkative,
and loved to smoke on uninterruptedly. I fancy that, in his way, he was
as great a dreamer as myself. Catinka would have talked incessantly if
any one had listened, or could understand her. As it was, she recited
legends and sang songs for herself, as happy as ever a blackbird was to
listen to his own melody; and though I paid no especial attention to her
music, still the sounds floated through all my thoughts, bathing them
with a soothing flood; just as the air we breathe is often loaded with
a sweet and perfumed breath ere we know it. On the whole, we journeyed
along very pleasantly; and what between the fresh morning air, the brisk
exercise, and the novelty of the situation, I felt in a train of spirits
that made me delighted with everything. “This, after all,” thought I,
“is more like the original plan I sketched out for myself. This is the
true mode to see life and the world. The student of nature never begins
his studies with the more complicated organizations; he sets out with
what is simplest in structure, and least intricate in function; he
begins with the extreme link of the chain; so, too, I start with the
investigation of those whose lives of petty cares and small ambitions
must render them easy of appreciation. This poor Mollusca Vaterchen, for
instance,--to see is to know him; and the girl, how absurd to connect
such a guileless child of nature as that with those stereotyped notions
of feminine craft and subtlety!” I then went on to imagine some future
biographer of mine engaged on this portion of my life, puzzled for
materials, puzzled still more to catch the clew to my meaning in it “At
this time,” will he say, “Potts, by one of those strange caprices which
often were the mainspring of his actions, resolved to lead a gypsy life.
His ardent love of nature, his heartfelt enjoyment of scenery, and, more
than even these, a certain breadth and generosity of character, disposed
him to sympathize with those who have few to pity and fewer to succor
them. With these wild children of the roadside he lived for months,
joyfully sharing the burdens they carried, and taking his part in
their privations. It was here he first met Catinka.” I stopped at this
sentence, and I slowly repeated to myself, “It was here he first met
Catinka!” “What will he have next to record?” thought I. “Is Potts now
to claim sympathy as the victim of a passion that regarded not station,
nor class, nor fortune; that despised the cold conventionalities of
a selfish world, and asked only a heart for a heart? Is he to be
remembered as the faithful believer in his own theory,--Love, above all?
Are we to hear of him clasping rapturously to his bosom the poor forlorn
girl?” So intensely were my feelings engaged in my speculations, that,
at this critical pass, I threw my arms around Catinka's neck, and
kissed her. A rebuke, not very cruel, not in the least angry or peevish,
brought me quickly to myself; and as Vaterchen was fortunately in front
and saw nothing of what passed, I speedily made my peace. I do not know
how it happened, but in that same peace-making I had passed my arm
round her waist, and there it remained,--an army of occupation after the
treaty was signed,--and we went along, side by side, very amicably, very
happily.
We are often told that a small competence--the just enough to live
on--is the bane of all enterprise; that men thus placed are removed from
the stimulus of necessity, and yet not lifted into the higher atmosphere
of ambitions. Exactly in the same way do I believe that equality is
the grave of love. The passion thrives on difficulty, and requires
sacrifice. You must bid defiance to mankind in your choice, or you are
a mere fortune-hunter. Show the world the blushing peasant-girl you have
made your wife, and say, “Yes, I have had courage to do this.” Or else
strive for a princess,--a Russian princess. Better, far better, however,
the humble-hearted child of nature and the fields, the simple, trusting,
confiding girl, who, regarding her lover as a sort of demi-god, would,
while she clung to him--
“You press me so hard!” murmured Catinka, half rebukingly, but with a
sort of pouting expression that became her marvellously.
“I was thinking of something that interested me, dearest,” said I; but I
'm not sure that I made my meaning very clear to her, and yet there was
a roguish look in her black eye that puzzled me greatly. I began to
like her, or, if you prefer the phrase, to fall in love with her. I knew
it--I felt it just the way that a man who has once had the ague never
mistakes when he is going to have a return of the fever. In the same way
exactly, did I recognize all the premonitory symptoms,--the giddiness,
the shivering, increased action of the heart--Halt, Potts! and reflect a
bit; are you describing love, or a tertian?
How will the biographer conduct himself here? Whether will he have to
say, “Potts resisted manfully this fatal attachment; had he yielded to
the seductions of this early passion, it is more than probable we would
never have seen him this, that, and t' other, nor would the world have
been enriched with--Heaven knows what;” or shall he record, “Potts loved
her, loved her as only such a nature as his ever loves! He felt keenly
that, in a mere worldly point of view, he must sacrifice; but it was
exactly in that love and that sacrifice was born the poet, the wondrous
child of song, who has given us the most glorious lyrics of our
language. He had the manliness to share his fortune with this poor
girl. * It was,' he tells us of himself, in one of those little touching
passages in his diary, which place him immeasurably above the mock
sentimentality of Jean Jacques,--'it was on the road to Constance, of
a bright and breezy summer morning, that I told her of my love. We were
walking along, our arms around each other, as might two happy, guileless
children. I was very young in what is called the world, but I had a
boundless confidence in myself; my theory was, “If I be strengthened
by the deep devotion of one loving heart, I have no fears of failure.”'
Beautiful words, and worthy of all memory! And then he goes on: 'I drew
her gently over to a grassy bench on the roadside, and, taking my
purse from my pocket, poured out before her its humble contents, in all
something less than twenty sovereigns, but to her eyes a very Pactolus
of wealth.'”
“What if I were to try this experiment?” thought I; “what if I were,
so to say, to anticipate my own biography?” The notion pleased me much.
There was something novel in it, too. It was making the experiment in
the _carpore vili_ of accident, to see what might come of it.
“Come here, Catinka,” said I, pointing to a moss-covered rock at the
roadside, with a little well at its base,--“come here, and let me have a
drink of this nice clear water.”
She assented with a smile and a nod, detaching at the same time a little
cup from the flask she wore at her side, in _vivandière_ fashion. “And
we 'll fill my flask too,” said she, showing that it was empty. With a
sort of childish glee she now knelt beside the stream, and washed the
cup. What is it, I wonder, that gives the charm to running water, and
imparts a sort of glad feeling to its contemplation? Is it that its
ceaseless flow suggests that “forever” which contrasts so powerfully
with all short-lived pleasures? I cannot tell, but I was still musing
over the difficulty, when, having twice offered me the cup without my
noticing it, she at last raised it to my lips. And I drank,--oh, what
a draught it was! so clear, so cold, so pure; and all the time my
eyes were resting on hers, looking, as it were, into another well, the
deepest and most unfathomable of all.
“Sit down here beside me on this stone, Catinka, and help me to count
these pieces of money; they have got so mingled together that I scarcely
know what is left me.” She seemed delighted with the project, and sat
down at once; and I, throwing myself at her feet, poured the contents of
my purse into her lap.
“_Madonna mia!_” was all she could utter as she beheld the gold. Aladdin
in the cave never felt a more overwhelming rapture than did she at sight
of these immense riches. “But where did it come from?” cried she, wildly.
“Have you got mines of gold and silver? Have you got gems, too,--rubies
and pearls? Oh, say if there be pearls; I love them so? And are you
really a great prince, the son of a king; and are you wandering the
world this way to seek adventures, or in search, mayhap, of that lovely
princess you are in love with?” With wildest impetuosity she asked these
and a hundred other questions, for it was only now and then that I could
trace her meaning, which expressive pantomime did much to explain.
I tried to convince her that what she deemed a treasure was a mere
pittance, which a week or two would exhaust; that I was no prince, nor
had I a kingly father; “and last of all,” said I, “I am not in pursuit
of a princess. But I 'll tell you what I am in search of, Catinka,--one
trusting, faithful, loving heart; one that will so unite itself to
mine as to have no joys or sorrows or cares but mine; one content to go
wherever I go, live however I live, and no matter what my faults may be,
or how meanly others think of me, will ever regard me with eyes of love
and devotion.”
I had held her hand while I uttered this, gazing up into her eyes with
ecstasy, for I saw how their liquid depth appeared to move as though
about to overflow, when at last she spoke, and said,--
“And there are no pearls!”
“Poor child!” thought I, “she cannot understand one word I have been
saying. Listen to me, Catinka,” said I, with a slow utterance. “Would
you give me your heart for all this treasure?”
“_Si, si!_” cried she, eagerly.
“And love me always,--forever?”
“_Si_,” said she, again; but I fancied with less of energy than before.
“And when it was spent and gone, and nothing remaining of it, what would
you do?”
“Send you to gather more, _mio caro_,” said she, pressing my hand to her
lips, as though in earnest of the blandishments she would bestow upon
me.
Now, I cannot affect to say that all this was very reassuring. This
poor simple child of the mountains showed a spirit as sordid and as
calculating as though she were baptized in May Fair. It was a terrible
shock to me to see this; a dire overthrow to a very fine edifice that
I was just putting the roof on! “Would Kate Herbert have made me such
a speech?” thought I. “Would she have declared herself so venal and
so worldly?--and why not? May it not be, perhaps, simply that a mere
question of good-breeding, the usages of a polite world, might have made
all the difference, and that she would have felt what poor Catinka felt
and owned to? If this were true, the advantages were all on the side
of sincerity. With honesty as the basis, what may not one build up of
character? Where there is candor there are at least no disappointments.
This poor simple child, untutored in the wiles of a scheming world,
where all is false, unreal, and deceptive, has the courage to say that
her heart can be bought. She is ready in her innocence, too, to sell
it, just as the Indians sell a great territory for a few glass beads or
bright buttons. And why should not I make the acquisition in the very
spirit of a new settler? It was I discovered this lone island of the
sea; it was I first landed on this unknown shore; why not claim a
sovereignty so cheaply established?” I put the question arithmetically
before me: Given, a young girl, totally new to life and its seductions,
deeply impressed with the value of wealth, to find the measure of
venality in a well-brought-up young lady, educated at Clapham, and
finished at Boulogne-sur-Mer. I expressed it thus: D-y=T+a?, or an
unknown quantity.
“What strange marks are you drawing there?” cried she, as I made these
figures on the slate.
“A caprice,” said I, in some confusion.
“No,” said she; “I know better. It was a charm. Tell truth,--it was a
charm.”
“A charm, dearest; but for what?”
“_I_ know,” said she, shaking her head and laughing, with a sort of
wicked drollery.
“_You_ know! Impossible, child.”
“Yes,” she said with great gravity, while she swept her hand, across the
slate and erased all the figures. “Yes _I_ know, and I 'll not permit
it.”
“But what, in Heaven's name, is trotting through your head, Catinka? You
have not the vaguest idea of what those signs meant.”
“Yes,” she said, even more solemnly than before. “I know it all. You
mean to steal away my heart in spite of me, and you are going to do it
with a charm.”
“And what success shall I have, Catinka?”
“Oh, do not ask me,” said she, in a tone of touching misery. “I feel it
very sore here.” And she pressed her hand to her side. “Ah me,” sighed
she, “if there were only pearls!”
The ecstasy her first few words gave me was terribly routed by this vile
conclusion, and I started abruptly, and in an angry voice, said, “Let us
go on; Vaterchen will fear we are lost.”
“And all this gold; what shall I do with it?” cried she.
“What you will. Throw it into the well if you like,” said I, angrily;
for in good sooth I was out of temper with her and myself and all
mankind.
“Nay,” said she, mildly, “it is yours; but I will carry it for you if it
weary you.”
I might have felt rebuked by the submissive gentleness of her words;
indeed, I know not how it was that they did not so move me, and I walked
on in front of her, heedless of her entreaties that I should wait till
she came up beside me.
When she did join me, she wanted to talk immensely. She had all manner
of questions to ask about where my treasure came from; how often I went
back there to replenish it; was I quite sure that it could never, never
be exhausted, and such-like? But I was in no gracious mood for such
inquiries, and, telling her that I wished to follow my own thoughts
without interruption, I walked along in silence.
I cannot tell the weight I felt at my heart I am not speaking
figuratively. No; it was exactly as though a great mass of heavy metal
filled my chest, forced out my ribs, and pressed down my diaphragm; and
though I held my hands to my sides with all my force, the pressure still
remained.
“What a bitter mockery it is,” thought I, “if the only false thing in
all the world should be the human heart! There are diamonds that will
resist fire, gold that will stand the crucible; but the moment you come
to man and his affections, all is hollow and illusory!”
Why do we give the name worldliness to traits of selfish advancement
and sordid gain, when a young creature like this, estranged from all the
commerce of mankind, who knows nothing of that bargain-and-barter system
which we call civilization, reared and nurtured like a young fawn in her
native woods, should, as though by a very instinct of corruption, have a
heart as venal as any hackneyed beauty of three London seasons?
Let no man tell me now, that it is our vicious system of female
training, our false social organization, our spurious morality, laxity
of family ties, and the rest of it. I am firmly persuaded that a young
squaw of the Choctaws has as many anxieties about her _parti_ as any
belle of Belgravia, even though the settlements be only paid in sharks'
teeth and human toupees.
And what an absurdity is our whole code on this subject! A man is
actually expected to court, solicit, and even worship the object that he
is after all called upon to pay for. You do not smirk at the salmon in
your fishmonger's window, or ogle the lamb at your butcher's; you go in
boldly and say, “How much the pound?” If you sighed outside for a week,
you 'd get it never the cheaper. Why not then make an honest market
of what is so salable? What a saving of time to know that the splendid
creature yonder, with the queenly air, can only be had at ten thousand
a year, but that the spicy article with the black ringlets will go for
two! Instead of all the heart-burnings and blank disappointments we see
now, we should have a practical, contented generation; and in the same
spirit that a man of moderate fortune turns away from the seductions
of turtle and whitebait, while he orders home his mutton chop, he would
avert his gaze from beauty, and fix his affections on the dumpy woman
that can be “got a bargain.”
Why did not the poet say, Venality, thy name is Woman? It would suit the
prosody about as well, and the purpose better. The Turks are our masters
in all this; they are centuries--whole centuries in advance of us. How
I wish some Babbage would make a calculation of the hours, weeks, years,
centuries of time, are lost in what is called love-making! Time, we are
told, is money; and here, at once, is the fund to pay off our national
debt. Take the “time that's lost in wooing” by a nation, say of
twenty-eight or thirty millions, and at the cheapest rate of labor--take
the prison rate if you like--and see if I be not right. Let the
population who now heave sighs pound oyster-shells, let those who pick
quarrels pick oakum, and we need no income-tax!
“I'll not sing any more,” broke in Catinka. “I don't think you have been
listening to me.”
“Listening to you!” said I, contemptuously; “certainly not. When I want
a siren, I take a pit ticket and go to the opera; seven-and-sixpence
is the price of Circe, and dear at the money.” With this rude rebuff I
waved her off, and walked along once more alone.
At a sudden bend in the road we found Vaterchen seated under a tree
waiting for us, and evidently not a little uneasy at our long absence.
“What is this?” said he, angrily, to Catinka. “Why have you remained so
long behind?”
“We sat down to rest at a well,” said she, “and then he took out a great
bag of money to count, and there was so much in it, so many pieces of
bright gold, that one could not help turning them over and over, and
gazing at them.”
“And worshipping them too, girl!” cried he, indignantly, while he turned
on me a look of sorrow and reproach. I returned his stare haughtily, and
he arose and drew me to one side.
“Am I, then, once more mistaken in my judgment of men? Have _you_, too,
duped me?” said he, in a voice that shook with agitation. “Was it for
this you offered us the solace of your companionship? Was it for this
you condescended to journey with us, and deigned to be our host and
entertainer?”
The appeal came at an evil moment: a vile, contemptible scepticism was
at work within me. The rasp and file of doubt were eating away at my
heart, and I deemed “all men liars.”
“And is it to me--Potts--you address such words as these, you consummate
old humbug? What is there about me that denotes dupe or fool?”
The old man shook his head, and made a gesture to imply he had not
understood me; and now I remembered that I had uttered this rude speech
in English, and not in German. With the memory of this fact came also
the consciousness of its cruel meaning. What if I should have wronged
him? What if the poor old fellow be honest and upright? What if he be
really striving to keep this girl in the path of virtue? I came close
to him, and fixed my eyes steadfastly on his face. He looked at me
fearlessly, as an honest man might look. He never tried to turn
away, nor did he make the slightest effort to evade me. He seemed to
understand all the import of my scrutiny, for he said, at last,--
“Well, are you satisfied?”
“I am, Vaterchen,” said I, “fully satisfied. Let us be friends.” And I
took his hand and shook it heartily.
“You think me honest?” asked he.
“I do think so.”
“And I am not more honest than she is. No,” said he, resolutely,
“Tintefleck is true-hearted.”
“What of _me?_” cried she, coming up and leaning her arm on the old
man's shoulder,--“what of _me?_”
“I have said that you are honest, and would not deceive!”
“Not _you_, Vaterchen,--not _you_,” said she, kissing him. And then, as
she turned away, she gave me a look so full of meaning, and so strange,
withal, that if I were to speak for an hour I could not explain it. It
seemed to mean sorrow and reproach and wounded pride, with a dash of
pity, and above all and everything, defiance; ay, that was its chief
character, and I believe I winced under it.
“Let us step out briskly,” said Vaterchen. “Constance is a good eleven
miles off yet.”
“He looks tired already,” said she, with a glance at me.
“I? I'm as fresh as when I started,” said I. And I made an effort to
appear brisk and lively, which only ended in making them laugh heartily.