THE BLUE CAMPANULA.
Woodland gloom--high beeches form a temple's hall--mighty oaks keep
watch before it; in their midst a green glade in which a hill rises
clad with weeping willows and large fronded ferns growing on every
side.
Eva sits upon the hill, she has fled from the forester's little house,
whither the party of visitors from Warnicken had made an excursion,
which was presided over by the Regierungsrath, who knew all the paths
in these beautiful Samland woods. There was the Frau Gerichtsräthin
with her daughters, the Frau Banquier with her gallant son, whose Latin
mistakes made him uncertain of the upper form in the Kniephof College,
but who had a flower culled from a poetical casket ready for every
lady; there were yet other ladies and girls all in light straw hats,
beneath which the withered faces of town cousins looked very odd; yet
they, too, all continued their handicraft here, and the echoes of the
woods and the little room of the forest-house rang again with city
tales, and with the recapitulation of every folly that occurred in the
town of pure reason.
Eva fled from this sociable circle; alone she followed a footpath into
the wood, farther and farther until she reached that solitude, that
spot dedicated to melancholy, where the weeping willows rock
whisperingly in the wind.
There she gathered rosemary, and, like Ophelia, began to deck herself
with it; she thought of her buried love, and her whole former life
seemed so sad to her, so worthy of tears! Her mother's picture, who
weeping had once left her, rose before her, for the Frau Räthin was not
her mother, the Kalzows were her adopted parents, who never spoke of
her real mother, never! No token of the latter's existence ever reached
the daughter; she must tarry in some far-off place, must have to
suffer, to atone for something; never was her name mentioned in
society, and little Eva, herself, for eight years, had been Fräulein
Kalzow in the eyes of God and man, and this had all been carried out
correctly, and according to the universal law of the country as the
Regierungsrath always said, when he wished to denote that anything was
particularly excellent and admirable.
But Eva still saw her mother before her! it was indeed a touching
picture; the pale lady with those large, enthusiastic eyes, which the
daughter had inherited; for the small, sparkling coal black eyes of her
adopted mother had nothing in common with that heritage, and she saw
these orbs veiled in tears, as she had seen them at the last farewell,
and thus this picture accompanied her through life.
And again the weeping willows rustled! How gloomy was the boarding
school, were the classes! Eva was no light-hearted girl, and was
avoided by the other pupils; questions were upon her lips that did not
stand in the catechism, nor in her school books; these queries
displeased her teachers, all the more so, because often they could not
give an answer to the enquiries; the best meaning one amongst the
governesses jokingly called Eva the little philosopher; but in the
school she was universally called the girl with the inquiring eyes. Her
eyes did indeed speak many questions of her heart to which life alone
could impart a reply. Yet Eva was not happy! Her heart thirsted after
love; but she did not possess the art of winning it easily by ready
acquiescence.
Once, it might be in her twelfth year, she had found a little friend,
an innocent girl with merry eyes, who attached herself to Eva like a
burr. The latter even became merry in her company, beginning to jest,
to play, to dance with the child. This continued throughout one whole
winter; when the little one returned after the Easter holidays, she was
distant and shy towards Eva, and withdrew entirely from her. For long
Eva bore this unmerited estrangement silently, at last she enquired its
cause.
"I am not to associate with you," replied the little one, with downcast
eyes, "on account of your mother--"
This word buried itself deeply in the girl's heart, and became united
to all her sad thoughts; and again in the head class of the school, an
enlightened teacher, who in deep draughts had inhaled the air of pure
reason which was wafted thither from the Königsberg philosophical dyke,
had made remarks about the sad consequences of false piety, which could
be seen in many near examples, and thereupon all her schoolfellows
looked with meaning glances at Eva, who became alarmed at the enigmatic
nature of this insinuation.
Thus she had a right to enquire with her eyes, and with her heart;
because a dark shadow fell upon her life.
And again the weeping willows rustled! should no friend then approach
her, no love adorn her life? The only one of whom she had dreamed that
he might stand nearer to her heart, had become estranged from her
again, and her life was lonelier than ever!
But why the wreath of rosemary? Does he deserve such mourning, who
flutters heedlessly from flower to flower? No, he does not deserve it.
And she flung the rosemary wreath aside; she left the shade of the
weeping willows and through the high, bushy ferns sprang down the hill.
"A blue campanula the proud singer called me; good, so may they ring
around me, those blue bells; I will be sad no more, I will deck myself
with the joyous, open hearted children of the wood."
And she hastened into the cooler valley where the woodland rivulet
rippled between alders, and plucked the tiny bells of the wood, the
flower of the manifold campanula, which like a blue ribbon intersected
the valley.
"I will be glad," murmured she to herself, as, sitting upon the
moss-clad roots in the shade of a wide-spreading oak, she twined the
large flowered bells into a wreath for her head, while she twisted the
smaller ones into a garland, and thus she adorned herself like a wood
nymph. The green blooming girdle set off her slender form to advantage.
And she began to sing a cheerful song, as though she would take her own
joyful mood by surprise.
Suddenly there arose a rustling in the bushes, and a man in shooting
dress stood before her. She sprang up in alarm, then stood still in
confusion, and cast her eyes to the ground.
"I regret that I should disturb you," said the stranger, "but I felt
constrained to satisfy myself as to whence came such lovely singing."
"The wood belongs to all the world," replied she, "and above all to
sportsmen."
"Like yourself, my Fräulein, I am merely a visitor here, I certainly
have a right to disturb the stags and hinds, which at such a season of
the year have no claims to be spared, but on no account may I startle
other living creatures out of lovely hiding places."
Eva now raised her eyes, and regarded the stranger with a cursory
glance; his figure was tall and slight, his features seemed to be
bronzed by a southern sun, his eyes were half closed, listlessness lay
in their glance, but a gentle, refined smile played upon his lips.
"I did not expect to find so charming a flower-fairy in this extensive
forest, where the hart-royals dwell. You are as completely buried
beneath leaf and flowers, as a Chinese woman of the wood, because if
these little bells could ring, they would yield a far sweeter peal than
that which the women of the Celestial Empire tinkle before their
ancestors' images."
"Have you heard those bells ring?" asked Eva, with that boldness, which
is often merely an indication of great embarrassment.
"Certainly, my beautiful fairy! I have heard the bells of human folly
in every zone; they have much the same sound in all parts; one flies
from them, and finds them again everywhere; however, why should one
destroy this charming woodland quiet with such thoughts? But yet.
Robbers everywhere! Do not be alarmed my lovely child! I am not one of
them, I only mean the hawks which hover yonder about the summits! The
nightingales have already winged their southern flight, it is a pity!
Their songs would sound so exquisitely here in the valley as an
accompaniment to a living picture, to this _fleur animée_, the lovely
_campanula_!"
Again Eva ventured to raise her glance, and saw a wide-open blue eye
resting upon her. She had been mistaken before, when she deemed it to
be small and insignificant; she thereupon recollected that there are
eyes upon which the lids rest with heavy pressure, then suddenly seem
to shake off this weight and gleam with a full, bright light.
"I am ashamed of myself," said she, already more confidentially, "it
was childish folly to deck myself with these flowers. I was sitting
over there upon the hill beneath the weeping willows, you probably know
the little spot. Suddenly, my heart became filled with fear, I hastened
down into the valley, and fancied I should become more cheerful, if all
these flowers' eyes looked at me when placed quite close beside me."
"Still so young and yet sad?" asked the stranger, as he drew nearer
concernedly, removing his fowling piece from his shoulder, and leaning
upon it.
"Nor do I myself know why," replied Eva with embarrassment, "it seems
to be wafted over us! There is indeed so much sadness in the world."
"Yet if it does hover about in the air, it only settles and remains
there where personal experience makes one susceptible of it, and what
can a young girl have experienced?"
"Little and much!"
"You speak as if you were a sybil, promulgating mysterious prophecies!"
"Ah, no, my Herr! Little that can be told, what is but little for
others, but unutterably much for myself!"
"Then no bankrupt father, no dead mother, no brother fallen in a duel?"
"Nothing of that kind!"
"Perhaps even a school friend, who, married before--"
"Oh, how you scoff!"
"Or, perhaps a dear friend, who has transferred his heart to another's
keeping!"
Eva became red, and looked down upon the ground; the sportsman struck
his gun against the earth.
"Oh, that I could leave it alone! You are right; this scoffing tone is
horrid. Yet it is a means of defence against the world, and those who
have learned to know it, at home and abroad, use it, and it becomes a
habit to them; but here, where such sweetly-charming innocence
encounters me in the shadow of the tall forest trees, here I might
adopt another tone, as I feel my heart also is quite different. Truly,
I feel as if in a fairy tale! If there were still enchanted princesses,
I should believe I had found one here, and I am already looking round
for the monster that guards you, so that in knightly combat I may
release you from the dragon; I have an incomparable weapon; my bullet
will penetrate through any scaly armour."
"But we are talking too long, my Herr," said Eva, rising. "Excuse me,
but my friends are expecting me."
"Then, of course, I must retire," replied the sportsman, as he stepped
respectfully on one side.
Eva bowed pleasantly, and followed the path which led into the valley.
"May I ask, my Fräulein, where you wish to go?" said the stranger's
voice, behind her; "on this road you would go still farther into the
forest! That, indeed, confirms my idea that you dwell in some invisible
fairy-palace, as queen of this wood, or that you are, after all, only a
flower-spirit, that will float away to dance in the air with elves."
"I am, indeed, quite confused," said Eva, turning back. "Yonder lies
the hill, with the weeping willows, and yet I hardly even know by which
road I reached it! My friends will be seeking me; they will be uneasy
about me! The sun already begins to glow with evening's red, between
the tree-stems from the west, instead of beaming above their heads."
"If you really belong to mortal beings, my Fräulein, and even to the
most prosaic class of them, who are known under the name of seaside
visitors--"
"Now you are right, my Herr!"
"And if you will initiate me into the secret of the point whence you
commenced this solitary wandering in the wood, I will guide you to the
right road."
Eva told the name of the forest-house where her friends were resting.
"Then you must confide yourself to my unwelcome companionship."
"I am grateful to you, my Herr!"
"Oh, is it not a little adventure for you to wander through this
wilderness, accompanied by a gentleman, who happily no longer can be
accounted a young one. I certainly have experienced adventures enough
in teak and palm groves, with tigers and crocodiles, and have wandered
through forests with brown and black beauties, while apes and parrots
looked on enviously; but to tell the truth, this nice little adventure
in the Royal Prussian chase has a greater charm for me than the
encounters with beauties who shine in native brown like old mahogany."
They were now passing by the hill. The heather, which grew wild upon
it, was bathed in the evening's crimson, which also flooded the
quivering bowed branches of the weeping willows.
Eva did not take any notice of it; she was quite absorbed in her
conversation with the stranger.
"Oh, you cannot think, my Fräulein, how a man's mind develops, not only
with his wider aims, but also with his more extensive travels. So much
weighed upon me; my fatherland had grown too small for me; I was a
dreamer and an enthusiast; and as such, had laden myself with guilt."
"It pleases you, doubtlessly, to accuse yourself," said Eva. "Those are
generally the best people who perceive so many dark spots in their own
life."
"Did your governess tell you that?" said the sportsman, smiling. "The
good lady may be mistaken."
"How disagreeable you are," said Eva, petulantly.
"Believe me, it was bad enough! Even now, when I feel myself freer, I
often see the old shadow cross my path. But in those days the world's
contempt pursued me in such a manner as to crush me to the ground. Only
when I convinced myself that the world, as it is called, is merely a
very small, fading portion of the great world through which I wandered,
that what is whispered and insinuated here on the East Sea, becomes of
no importance already on the Adriatic, and still less so far, far away
on the Pacific, since then I became storm-proof and invulnerable to the
little pin-pricks of public opinion, to the gossip of the provincial
neighbourhood. But what am I telling you! You do not yet know what all
this means, and that you do not know it, that I can see how strange the
dark legend of human guilt is to you, that it is which refreshes and
benefits me so intensely. You still possess a delicate little
conscience that at the outside ticks like a watch; my own alarms me
with the groaning beats of a large clock, such as that which hangs at
the Kremlin in Moscow."
"If you were in earnest about it," replied Eva, "you would not pass it
over in such a light tone."
"Life, thought, feeling, my Fräulein, with you are all cast in one
mould. Therefore, you do not comprehend how, in a man of the world, it
is all in confusion, how often in him his soul weeps, while his
thoughts spend themselves in frivolous raillery."
"That is a bad habit," said Eva. "Why do people turn everything
topsy-turvy? Nature must run its course; the tree with its straight
growth strives to attain the summit, the plant the blossom, and both
Heaven! What, then, would our good Lord say to His world if the trees
wished suddenly to stand upon their heads, stirred up the earth with
them, and with their roots sought to reach the sky?"
"There are plants, though, my Fräulein, which one can turn upside down,
and which then continue to grow briskly; perhaps I am some kind of
offshoot of that species. Yet, seriously speaking, my Fräulein, we
stand immeasurably higher than Nature, and, therefore, can fall
immeasurably lower."
Eva seemed to be lost in meditation, when she heard her companions'
voices, calling her name, sound through the aisles of beeches.
"We are at our goal," said the sportsman, "a few more steps and at a
turn of the road you will see the roof of the forester's lodge."
"I thank you, my Herr!"
"But you shall not escape me thus! You penetrated much too far into the
Royal Forest; I am a sort of assistant to the chief Forester, and must
enquire about your antecedents. If I have understood the echo of these
beech-aisles correctly, your name reminds one of Paradise, and it shall
also remind me of it."
"I am called Eva, my Herr."
"Yet we no longer live in those primitive days when a Christian name
sufficed to prove our identity before the Creator and created."
"My name is Eva Kalzow!"
"And your father?"
"Regierungsrath."
"How prosaic! One meets a fairy in the wood, and her father is a
Regierungsrath! And now, you live--"
"In Warnicken, my Herr!"
"Thank you; the enquiry is closed, so far as I am concerned. I am an
official personage, who has neither the duty nor the right to introduce
himself by name. Think that I am the wild huntsman who traverses the
woods at night with black hounds and halloes, but by day escorts lovely
women. I shall not, however, place the campanula in my herbarium, but
in a vase of fresh water, where bouquets of sweet recollections bloom.
Farewell, my Fräulein!"
The stranger took leave with a courteous inclination.
Eva's glances followed him into the thicket, while the Kanzleiräthin,
with her round, buxom daughter drew near from the other side.
"You were surely not alone, Eva?" said the latter. "I heard the bushes
rustle over there."
"And how we have sought you; it is late already," remarked the
Kanzleiräthin, as she put on her spectacles, in order to examine the
girl from head to foot and see whether some adventure did not peep out
of the folds of her dress.
"I had lost my way," said Eva, "and had fallen asleep beneath the
weeping willows! There I dreamed of a wild huntsman; he took me upon
his steed, and we sped through the air like a whirlwind."
"Eva, where are you?" resounded the Regierungsrath's voice. "The mists
are beginning to rise from the marshes; we shall take cold on our way
home."
"I have seen the Erl-king, papa, with the golden hoop; yet I am still
alive, and you will take me home safe and sound, and not as a dying
child."
And, beginning to warble Schubert's song of the Erl-King, Eva walked on
with firm steps and exalted demeanour, in front of the home-bound
party.