RECOVERY.
Again the days passed calmly and quietly at Doenninghausen, but they wore
a different aspect from those which had preceded Christmas. Then the
Freiherr had been the centre around which everything revolved, now it
was Johann Leopold. Ludwig had pronounced all exciting causes dangerous
for his patient, and begged that all his wishes might, as far as
possible, be fulfilled. Therefore every one whose presence he requested
was relieved from all other claim; even the meals, from which at other
times only serious indisposition could excuse any member of the family,
might be disregarded for Johann Leopold's sake.
With the egotism of an invalid, he required that either Ludwig or Aunt
Thekla should be beside him all day, even when he was sleeping.
He took pleasure also in his grandfather's visits, so long as the old
Herr could sit still; but as soon as he began, according to his habit,
to pace the room to and fro, the sick man grew so restless as to oblige
Ludwig courteously to dismiss the Freiherr.
"The lad is like a nervous girl," the latter would then say, with an
irritated knitting of his brows; but the next moment he would add,
"Well, we must be satisfied with seeing him as well as he is; by and by
he will be perfectly reasonable again."
Perfect recovery, however, came but slowly. Only gradually did his
memory of people and events begin to revive. One morning when his
grandfather was sitting beside him he suddenly said, "Johanna!" and
after a while he added, "I want to see her; let her come to me."
"Yes, my dear boy, I will send her to you," the Freiherr replied; "but
send for Magelone too, or she will be hurt."
"Magelone!" he repeated, and his eyes expressed distress. "Magelone! No,
no, she must not come! I will not see her. It is all her fault."
The Freiherr was startled. Johann Leopold was more seriously ill than he
had supposed. "I will send Johanna," he said, rising; but the patient
refused now to see even her. "No; send Dr. Werner," he said, fretfully.
"I want him; he is the only one who knows what is good for me."
The next morning he insisted upon seeing Johanna, and she went to him.
"Sit down; I have much to say to you," he said, after her first
greeting. "Pray, Aunt Thekla, leave us alone."
The old lady withdrew with an air of surprise. Johann Leopold lay still,
staring before him, while Johanna contemplated him with compassion. His
sunken temples, his neglected beard, his haggard eyes, made him still
look very ill.
"Red Jakob,--what do you know of him?" he asked at last.
"I asked Ludwig--Dr. Werner, I mean--to take your place there," she
replied. "You can depend upon him----"
"I know that," he interrupted her. "Well, what does he think?--how is
Jakob?"
"Not well; Ludwig thinks his arm will always be useless."
"I thought so," said the sick man. "Does Christine know it?"
"Yes; I wrote her about it," Johanna made answer. "She was with him
yesterday, and came to me afterwards. She was very sad----"
"And has given the poor fellow up, of course," the invalid interposed.
"You do not really believe that," said Johanna. "Do you not remember
calling them the 'happy unfortunates'? Christine considers it a matter
of course that she is now to take care of the helpless man. 'God has
taken from me my little Jakob, and so I am better able to work for the
big one,' she said; adding that she would do it joyfully if he would
only be content, but that it would almost break his heart not to be able
to earn his own living."
"Perhaps he may do so yet. I may be able to help him in that," said
Johann Leopold. And after a pause he went on, in a hard tone, "Suppose I
were no longer the heir, but ill and a cripple for my lifetime, how
would my future betrothed behave to me? Do not reply. I know that our
opinions upon this point agree, and that I cannot lay any claim to
affection."
He looked so unhappy as he spoke that Johanna felt compelled to
contradict him, but he cut her words short impatiently.
"Let us consult about Red Jakob," he said. "With whole limbs he would
have had to go, for the sake of grandpapa's game; but crippled he may
stay. About a mile and a half from here, among the mountains, I have a
small estate, inherited from my mother. It is called Forest Hermitage,
and the house is little more than an observatory. The grounds about it I
have laid out as a forester's garden. The man who has had the care of it
wishes to move down among his children in the valley. What do you think?
Would Jakob and Christine like to live in that solitude?"
"They would be enraptured----" Johanna began.
The invalid interrupted her. "Then Dr. Werner shall propose it to
Jakob," he said, and, covering his eyes with his hand, he sighed
heavily. "It would enrapture no one to live in a solitude with me," he
said, as if to himself, as Johanna, filled with solicitude lest the
conversation should have been too much for him, called Aunt Thekla from
the next room.
But the exertion seemed to have enabled Johann Leopold completely to
conquer his disease. From this time he made rapid strides in
convalescence; he was soon able to leave his bed, and at the end of
January Aunt Thekla announced one morning with tears of joy, "He is
coming down at noon to-day."
Just after this news, as Johanna and Magelone were left alone in the
room, the latter said, "Have you written to Otto?"
"No, not yet." And Johanna bent over her work.
"He begged you so earnestly to do so. Why should you be so cruel to your
friend?" Magelone continued. "You really must do it; I ask you for my
own sake. Otto must have carried off with him my little ivory tablets
which he took from me to tease me. Write to him to send them back to
me."
"Why not do so yourself?" Johanna asked. "Then you could inform him
concerning Johann Leopold."
"I? What are you thinking of?" exclaimed Magelone. "I think he showed
great tact in asking you to write."
"Tact?" Johanna repeated. "I do not understand you."
"Why, yes; of course it would have been painful for me to destroy Otto's
hopes. You are unconcerned, and can do so much better. How you look at
me!" she went on. "Did you never think that if Johann Leopold were to
die, Otto would be the heir?"
"Magelone! You cannot believe that Otto reckoned upon that?" cried
Johanna.
"I do not believe it: I know it. He has talked with me of it more than
once," Magelone replied. And after a pause she added, with a mocking
smile, "How you look, my dear Johanna! Is it possible that you can have
been at all mistaken in our cousin Otto? His is no ideal character. He
is a thorough man of the world, selfish and grasping in the extreme."
Johanna made no reply, and was glad when Magelone soon after left the
room. How could it be that this woman, who had known Otto from
childhood, should judge him so falsely? A man of the world, yes; but far
too gay and warm-hearted to be capable of the calculation with which
Magelone accredited him. Johanna told herself that she had been wrong to
delay sending him the letter for which he had begged her, and she
resolved to write to him to-day.
But as she sat pen in hand with the paper before her, she discovered
that Magelone's remarks had produced an effect. The ease with which,
before hearing them, she could have expressed her delight in Johann
Leopold's recovery was gone. What she wrote seemed to her first like a
protest against Magelone's declaration, and then to be too warmly
expressed. When she had destroyed several beginnings she confined
herself to a mere announcement of Johann Leopold's rapid improvement,
with a request for the return of Magelone's memorandum-tablets. When the
letter had gone, she would fain have recalled it.
Ludwig had requested that there should be no demonstrations of pleasure
at Johann Leopold's reappearance in the family circle; and when the
convalescent joined them, the Freiherr, Aunt Thekla, and Johanna greeted
him quietly as if he had not been absent. Leo, however, would not be
repressed; he leaped up upon the friend whom he had so long missed,
barking loudly, and nearly knocked him down. At this moment Magelone
entered the room.
"Johann Leopold!" she cried joyously, and, hastening to him, she took
his hand in both her own and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. He
grew paler than before.
"Do not trouble yourself,--I know all you would say. I know my
friends," he said, in a tone audible only to herself, as he withdrew his
hand.
She changed color, but the next moment she smiled again, and, with a
slight shrug, took her usual seat at the window. Aunt Thekla, who had
heard nothing, but had observed the manner of the two, looked anxiously
at her brother, who, however, was talking with Ludwig, pacing the room
to and fro the while, and seemed to have noticed nothing of the meeting.
"Leave us! No, my dear doctor, you must not think of it," he said now,
pausing in his walk. "After all the sad days which you have passed with
us, you must learn something of the cheerful side of Doenninghausen."
"Cheerful side!" Magelone repeated to herself, casting an expressive
look upwards, while the Freiherr added, "You said lately that you were
about to write a book; do it here."
"Thank you, Herr von Doenninghausen," Ludwig replied; "but I could find
no leisure here for writing. Good work must be done among those who work
too."
The Freiherr tossed his head. "There we have the arrogance of the
scholar," he said, and his eyes flashed beneath his bent brows. "Do you
mean to imply that I do not work?"
Ludwig smiled. "Let us make a distinction. You work at your good
pleasure as the whim seizes you, while the work to which I allude must
be the result of a certain outward or inward pressure. Moreover, the
projected book will not be written at present. I am going to India."
"And you tell us this only when you are just going away?" Johanna cried,
reproachfully; and Aunt Thekla asked, dropping her work in her lap, "For
heaven's sake, my dear doctor, what can you want in India?"
Ludwig came to the window where they were sitting. "Study, madame," he
said. "An expedition, half scientific, half mercantile, is about to
start for Gujerat and the Vindhya Mountains. I join it as physician.
Moreover, my final decision was made only to-day."
"What does your father say to it?" asked Johanna.
"Of course he made all sorts of objections at first, but gradually he
relinquished his opposition, and now he admits that the journey will be
of great advantage to me."
The Freiherr again interrupted his walk. "Advantage!" he growled. "What
advantage can India bring to a German physician? But science and trade
are the idols of the present age, to which men sacrifice not only human
beings but sound sense into the bargain!"
With these words he left the room, closing the door behind him with a
crash.
Aunt Thekla grew pale and red by turns. "Pray do not be offended with my
brother," she began.
Johann Leopold interposed: "What is there to be offended about?" and he
smiled faintly. "You ought to feel flattered, my dear doctor. Grandpapa
wishes to keep you here, and is angry to think that you can prefer India
to our Doenninghausen. Doenninghausen, you must know, is in the eyes of
every member of the family the very ideal of perfection, a paradise on
earth."
"Not in my eyes," Magelone called out from the other window: it was
insufferable to have no one taking any notice of her.
"My child, how can you say so?" Aunt Thekla admonished her.
"And why not?" Magelone replied. "You all of you have such a passion for
the truth, why should I not say that I like Berlin a thousand, nay, a
million times better than Doenninghausen,--that I have been better
entertained in papa's meanest garrison-town than here?" She yawned.
"Every morning when I wake I wonder why the slumber of the Sleeping
Beauty does not overtake us."
As she said this, she glanced from beneath her drooping eyelids towards
Johann Leopold. She wanted to vex him: he had been too disagreeable. But
he rose with an air of indifference,--the bell for the second breakfast
had just rung,--approached her, and offered her his arm.
"With your views I should have you on my side if I were to imitate the
doctor and take a flight into the world," he said. "But no more at
present; our grandfather must know nothing of it as yet."
Again they sat at table side by side as before the accident, and
Magelone forced herself to discuss indifferent topics indifferently, but
all the while the question would obtrude itself, "What did her cousin's
'into the world' mean?" Was he only jesting, or was it a concealed
menace, or the mere whim of a sick man?
"He is too indolent to go away,"--it was thus she consoled
herself,--"and grandpapa would not allow it, nor would I." So long as
she could consider Johann Leopold as securely her own he was more than
indifferent to her, but now when it looked as if he were freeing
himself, withdrawing from her sway, she wanted at all hazards to hold
him fast, and this not from calculation alone. He had repulsed her
advances to-day, but ice does not melt beneath the first sunbeam, and
her amiability must conquer, like the sunshine, through persistency. If
the doctor were only gone! His keen, observing glance made her
uncomfortable.
Her wish was shortly to be fulfilled; Ludwig departed on the following
morning. Very early, while he was busy packing, Johann Leopold came to
his room. "I do not mean to disturb you," he said, throwing himself down
on a sofa, "but I cannot spare one moment of you. You have spoiled me; I
shall be doubly lonely now."
Ludwig frowned. "Do not be so weak," he said; "it is not fitting. You
look badly,--you have not slept well."
"I have not slept at all," Johann Leopold replied. "After our
conversation of last evening, after your answer to my questions----"
"You wanted the truth," Ludwig interrupted him, "and I thought I owed it
to you."
"You did, and I thank you for it; but it is hard to bear."
Ludwig's lips quivered, as they always did when he was moved, and for a
while he went on stuffing some things into his portmanteau; then he
said, "Finish it all quickly; there should be no half measures where the
knife is necessary."
Johann Leopold passed his hand wearily across his forehead and eyes.
"You are right; it is time I should do what must be done."
"If you see that, do it instantly,--to-day,--within an hour! Can I help
you? Perhaps it would be easier for you if I spoke with the
Freiherr----"
Johann Leopold started up and changed colour. "No, no, I must do it
myself; I must first be clear in my own mind. But I thank you," he added
more quietly, "and later I may entreat your help in another way. I may
reckon upon it, may I not?"
"Upon my best efforts, assuredly," Ludwig answered, pressing the
delicate white hand extended to him. "But what do you mean? I am not
fond of vague promises."
"You shall know more as soon as possible. Your ship sails on the 14th of
March,--time enough to arrange everything," said the other, sinking back
among the sofa-cushions.
"Time enough to fall back into the old indolence," thought Ludwig, but
he did not utter his thought, and hurriedly finished locking his trunk
and portmanteau.
The servant came to say that the carriage was waiting.
"Stay here!" Ludwig said, decidedly, as Johann Leopold rose. "The
morning is bitterly cold; it is another kind of hardening process to
which I would have you subject yourself. Good-by."
They shook hands, and before Johann Leopold could add a word of
gratitude to his 'Farewell,' Ludwig had left the room and closed the
door after him.
Leave-taking was so painful to him that he had suppressed all mention to
the family of the time of his departure, and had only late on the
preceding evening requested of Johann Leopold to order his conveyance in
the morning; but he was not to escape thus. In the lower story old
Christian requested him to step into the drawing-room for a moment, and
there, to his surprise, he found the entire family, with the exception
of Johann Leopold; even Magelone had not ventured to absent herself.
The Freiherr came towards him with outstretched hands. "My dear doctor,
you wanted to steal away," he said, "but we could not allow it. It is
not my fashion to talk of gratitude, but I hope you know what
obligations we are all under to you. You have grown dear to us, and I
beg and hope that you will in future consider Doenninghausen as another
home in the full sense of the word. So soon as you return from your
travels we shall expect you." And he kissed the young man's forehead, as
he was wont to do in taking leave of all belonging to him. Aunt Thekla
with tears in her eyes wished him a happy journey, and hoped he had
breakfasted well. Magelone offered him her finger-tips with a smile, and
Johanna, who had on her hat and cloak, declared that she was going to
drive to Thalrode with him.
With sparkling eyes he followed her into the corridor, but at the head
of the stairs he paused and took her hand. "Dear Johanna, I thank you;
but let me drive off alone," he said. "It is only prolonging a farewell
if you accompany me. Stay here for my sake. Good-by! good-by!"
His last words were scarcely audible. He took her in his arms, and for
the first time in his life kissed her on the lips,--a long, ardent kiss,
that thrilled her to the heart. Then, while she stood as in a dream, he
ran down the stairs. The next moment the door of the carriage was shut,
and the wheels rattled over the pavement of the court-yard.