As the next day was Sunday, I had leisure to reflect upon the singular
behavior of the doctor the evening before; but either the affair was in
itself too complicated, or else my memory had suffered from the effects
of my strong potations, and I could arrive at no satisfactory
conclusion. That the strange man loved me much, after his fashion, I
had innumerable proofs, and his anger on the previous evening had been
rather that of an elder brother, who sees that the younger, whom he
loves, is straying from the right way.
But what upon earth had I done amiss, then? It could not be possible
that the doctor could seriously reproach me with my determination to
make my own way in the world. He himself had trusted to his own
resources very early in life, and with the toughest perseverance
carried out his own plans.
Assuredly the fact that I had chosen the lot of a workman could be no
crime in the eyes of a man whose heart beat so warmly for the poor, and
who devoted his whole life to the relief of poverty and misery. The
cause of his wrath must lie elsewhere; and after long pondering I came
around to the point, that the picture of Paula's, upon which I figured
as Richard the Lion-heart, had been the starting-point of our dispute.
Had he taken it amiss that Paula held fast to her model? Did he grudge
me the honor of being painted by her? Was he vexed that this picture
was not in his possession, but in the hands of a man whom he so hated
and despised as the commerzienrath? These were all questions worth
considering. I concluded at last that my supposition must be correct,
and resolved that this very day, before I called on Paula, I would have
a look at the cause of our quarrel.
So about noon I set out for the academy, in the halls of which the
great exhibition of paintings had been open now for some weeks. It was
my first visit to an exhibition of the sort. My knowledge of pictures
up to this time was restricted to a few old discolored saints in the
churches of my native town, the engravings and family portraits in the
superintendent's house, and the pictures which I had seen growing under
Paula's hand. Still, as I had over and over contemplated and studied
these few with never-ceasing delight, and had for years been witness of
the development of a genuine artist nature, I had, perhaps, if no more,
at least no less enthusiasm for beauty than the hundreds that flooded
the exhibition-rooms. I cannot describe the feeling with which I, now
following the throng, and now separated from it, wandered through the
lofty rooms. I had never seen anything like this. I could not have
conceived it possible. Were there then so many men who knew how to
handle pencils and colors that the walls of this labyrinth of rooms
were hung from ceiling to floor with the works of their skill? And was
the world so gloriously rich? Was the sky that bent above the sunny
bays of the South in truth of so marvellous a blue? Did snow-clad
mountains really tower so majestically into the luminous ether? Was the
twilight thus mysterious in the pine-fringed gorges of our own
mountains? Did such infinite multitudes of birds indeed hover over the
enormous rivers of Africa? Did the palaces of Italian cities rise thus
gorgeously above the narrow canals along which black gondolas were
noiselessly gliding? Were there halls in princely mansions whose marble
floors thus clearly reflected the luxurious furniture and the forms of
the guests? Yes; all these things that I here saw depicted really
existed, and much more which my eager fancy added, half in dreaming.
For the more I looked, examined, and admired, the stronger came over me
a sense of having seen all this before; yes, seen so clearly that I
could tell the artist what he had done well, and where he had fallen
far short of the lovely reality. Often I felt really angry with a
stupid painter who had seen so dimly, and so poorly represented what
little he saw. In a word, in the briefest space of time I had become a
finished connoisseur of the noble art of the painter, with the solitary
drawback that I could in no case have told how the artist should go to
work to make his picture better; but perhaps this was a special
qualification for the office of critic.
I had probably wandered thus for an hour through the rooms, when
stepping into one of the last, which was remarkably brightly lighted by
a skylight, I started with sudden and extreme surprise. Looking over
the heads of the crowd that filled the hall I seemed to see myself. And
it was myself, or at least my counterfeit in Paula's picture, the
picture which I had come on purpose to see, and which I looked for so
far in vain. A particularly large group was collected before it,
looking with eager and admiring eyes at Paula's work, while from many
fair lips came the words, "Charming!" "how beautiful!" "what depth of
feeling!" It was a queer sensation to me to see myself thus lying upon
a bed, in a rich robe of fine linen, and scarcely concealed by a light
drapery. The blood suffused my cheeks; I expected every instant to see
the crowd turn from the picture to me to compare the copy with the
original. But it was probably no easy thing to discover in the tall,
healthy young man, in plain citizen's dress, standing back in a window
niche, the original of the lion-hearted king, glorified by legend, in a
picture on public exhibition. At all events no one made the discovery,
and I was left to contemplate the painting at my leisure.
Now I observed for the first time that the picture was of far larger
dimensions than the study which I knew. It was, in fact, a new picture,
which had been completed since I last had seen Paula. So much the more
wonderful, as it seemed to me, was the striking likeness to the
original. Here were my curled reddish locks, my rather broad than high
forehead, my large blue eyes, which found it so difficult to take an
expression of anger. Even the feverish flush which lay upon the sunken
cheeks of the royal Richard might at this moment have been seen upon
those of the man in the window. In other respects the design remained
the same, only the young knight who had the lineaments of Arthur had
perhaps withdrawn a little more into the background, so that the
broad-shouldered yeoman with the features of Sergeant Süssmilch came
better into view. An admirable figure was the Arab physician, _alias_
Doctor Willibrod Snellius, the most singular personage that could be
imagined, in the garb of a dervish, and one whom one could not help
liking, notwithstanding his ugliness, so that the generous confidence
of the king became at once intelligible.
This then was the picture which Paula had painted and Hermine bought.
Was there not here a two-fold reason for a little pride and even
vanity? Must not the original be very firmly implanted in the artist's
heart when she could make from recollection alone so true a likeness?
Must not the original be somewhat interesting to the purchaser, when
she was willing to pay such a price for the copy? These were foolish
thoughts, and I can affirm that they vanished as soon as they arose,
and the next moment I was heartily ashamed of them. Vexed with myself I
aroused myself from my foolish dreaming and turned my gaze once more
upon the picture, in front of which the eager crowd of gazers had
increased.
Among the new spectators I noticed a lady in a rich and becoming
toilette, leaning on the arm of a slender and rather foppishly dressed
gentleman. The lady attracted my attention by her elegant figure and
the vivacious manner in which she gesticulated with her little hand in
its dainty kid glove, and spoke with great animation to her companion,
who was evidently more interested by the spectators than by the picture
itself. As her back was towards me I could only from time to time catch
a glimpse of her face when she glanced over her shoulder at her
companion. But the glimpse that I caught affected me powerfully,
without my being able to explain the cause: a dark eye-brow, a fleeting
glance from the corner of the eye, the contours of a brunette's cheek
and of a rounded chin. Yet I could not turn my gaze from the lady. I
even made one or two attempts to catch sight of her face, but she
always turned it to the other side. The gentleman then seemed to
propose that they should go: they were about leaving the room, when in
the moment that they crossed the threshold the lady turned her head
once more towards the picture, and I came very near uttering an
exclamation of surprise? Was it not Constance?
"Did you see the Bellini?" a young officer near me asked an
acquaintance who approached and accosted him.
"That lady with the gray-silk dress. Cashmere shawl, and jaunty hat? Is
she the Bellini?"
"Yes, indeed. Is she not a charming creature?"
"Superb! And who was the gentleman with her? Baron Sandstrom, of the
Swedish embassy?"
"Do you suppose he would let himself be seen here with the Bellini?
What are you thinking of, baron? It was Lenz, the tenor of the Albert
Theatre."
"The man that brought her on the stage?"
"The same. She has a wonderful talent, they say. Well, we shall see
what there is in it."
"See? You would not go to the Albert Theatre, baron?"
"Why not, when a Bellini is in question?"
"You are a gay fellow, baron."
"I can return the compliment, if it is one."
And the two young men separated, laughing.
I breathed deeply. "Thank heaven!" I murmured. "Thank heaven that it
was an actress and not Constance von Zehren. I would not meet her on
the arm of such a fop and hear a pair of such fellows speak of her
thus."
It did not, in the first moments of my surprise, occur to me that I had
only to follow the lady in order to catch another look at her; and now,
as I hastily traversed the rooms she was no longer to be seen. Again I
breathed deeply, with a sensation of relief, when I had convinced
myself of the inutility of further search, and said to myself: "It is
better that I should not see this Fräulein Bellini again." And while I
said this I felt my heart beat violently, and my eyes still wandered
searching through the crowd. They were strange recollections which the
face, at once known and unknown, of this lady, had awakened within me;
recollections from a time in which the impressions once received
remained forever.
These memories did not leave me until I traversed the long streets of
the city, many of them new to me, on my way to Paula's residence, which
I had the doctor carefully describe to me the previous day. Being
Sunday, the shops and stores were closed, but the streets were still
full of life. It was a clear, cold forenoon in the beginning of
December. A little snow had fallen in the night, just enough to give a
silvery glitter to the roofs and bring into handsome relief the
projections and ornaments of the façades. Numerous pedestrians hastened
along the streets; showy horses in handsome carriages pawed vigorously
upon the frosty pavement, and even the wretched jades in the rickety
_droschkies_ trotted rather better than usual. The sight of this
cheerful life scattered the evil dreams that had tried to master my
soul, I felt myself so young and strong in the midst of a vast,
powerful stream which drove me along but did not overpower me. All was
new, fair, and rich; who could know to what glorious shores the current
would bear me? And even now I saw a fair harbor and a beloved form
beckoning to me, and I hastened my steps until I arrived, out of
breath, at a large, handsome house in one of the most fashionable
suburbs, and, on asking the porter if Frau von Zehren was at home, was
shown up two flights of stairs.
"But the ladies are not at home," said the man.
"No one?"
"One of the young gentlemen may be."
"I will see."
"Can I take any message?"
"No; I wish to see them."
The porter closed his window, not without a sort of suspicious look at
the tall stranger, who did not appear to be a gentleman of fashion, and
I hurried up the two carpeted flights of stairs, and drawing a deep
breath I pulled the bell over which was a brass plate with the name
"Frau von Zehren," and under it "Paula von Zehren."
"Which of the boys shall I see?" I asked myself, and in fancy I saw the
friendly faces of Benno, Kurt, and Oscar, at the door; but a step
approached which could belong to neither of the boys. The door was
opened and the old furrowed brown face of the sergeant looked at me
inquisitively out of its clear blue eyes.
"Good day, sergeant."
The sergeant in his surprise very nearly let fall the bunch of brushes
he had in his hand.
"Thunder and lightning, are we here at last? Won't the _gnädige Frau_
and the young gentlemen be glad!--and the young lady too! Come in!"
And he pulled me in and closed the door behind us, and then led me into
a room in which the furniture greeted me as old acquaintances.
The old man pressed my hands, exclaiming over and over:
"How splendid we are looking! I believe we are bigger than ever. And
how we must have been working to make our hands so hard! We have had
hard times, eh? But we have held up bravely, that is the main thing.
How long since we got out of that cursed hole?"
Thus the sergeant questioned me, and pushed me into an easy-chair; and
he was quite indignant when I told him that I had already been over two
weeks in the city.
"It is not possible!" he cried. "Two weeks without coming to us, and we
have been expecting you every day! It is not possible! It is enough to
turn a man into a bear with seven senses!"
"Every one for himself first, old friend," I said. "Suppose I had come
here first of all, and Fräulein Paula had asked what the tall George
was going to do?"
The sergeant scratched his curly gray head. "To be sure, to be sure!"
he said. "Self is the man. With a woman or a girl, of course, it is
quite different; and so one had to bring them away at once that they
might have some one to rely on on the way, and here, upon first moving
in, some one to look after things; for women are women and men are men.
Am I not right?"
"Doubtless, Süssmilch, doubtless. So you have been here, of course,
ever since?"
"Of course," said the old man, who had taken a seat opposite to me, but
sat upon the extreme edge of the chair, as if to show that he knew how
to keep within the bounds himself had fixed. "And apart from other
things, can they ever get on without my head?"
"And without your hands?"
"Not of so much consequence, though they come into play sometimes too,"
the old man replied, arranging the brushes between his fingers, "but
the head" and he thoughtfully shook this interesting and important part
of his person.
"I have just seen it at the exhibition," I said, a light suddenly
flashing upon me in regard to the part the old man's head really played
in the family arrangements.
"Does pretty well, don't it?" said the sergeant; "but the monk is
better still."
"Who?"
"The monk. To be sure nobody knows what we are painting. But you must
see it."
The old man sprang up with youthful alacrity and led me into a large
and high apartment adjoining, which was Paula's studio. Sketches and
designs of all kinds were hanging and leaning upon the walls, with
heads, arms, and legs in plaster, a couple of sets of ancient armor, a
lay figure draped with a long white mantle, and near the window, which
reached to the ceiling, an easel with a picture from which the sergeant
removed the covering.
"Here's the place to stand," he said. "Is not that splendid?"
"Splendid indeed!" I exclaimed.
"Was I not right that my head is quite another thing here?" said the
old man, pointing proudly to the work. The scene was from _Nathan the
Wise_, and represented the monk about to sound the intentions of the
templar. Both figures stood out clear and plastic, with such animation
in their looks that one might almost catch the words from their lips;
the grand simplicity in the good weather-beaten face of the pious
brother who had once been a squire, and had many a valiant lord and
accomplished many a hard service, none of which had ever been so hard
to him as this commission of the patriarch. On the other side the
templar, young and slender, his head thrown defiantly back, his lips
compressed with an expression of discontent, and his blue eyes bent
upon the poor monk. In the middle distance a portion of Nathan's house,
and the palms that surround the Holy Tomb; behind these the domes and
slender minarets of Jerusalem, with the haughty crescent sharply
defined against the southern sky, where the eye lost itself with
delight in the immeasurable distance.
"The young gentleman has something from us; here, for instance, and
here," said the sergeant, pointing with his finger at the eyes and
mouth of the templar, and then looking again at me; "but I said at once
that it is not so good as King Richard; by far not so good," and the
old man shook his head gravely.
"But the Fräulein cannot paint me always," I said; "that would at last
become too monotonous. With you it is different: such a head as yours
is not to be met with again."
"Yes," said the sergeant. "It is curious: one never believed it; in
fact one hardly knew he had a head; but that's the way they all talk
that come here, and they want me in all their studios; and Fräulein
Paula did lend me once or twice, but in the other pictures one looks
like a bear with seven senses, and don't know himself again."
"And how is she?" I asked.
"Oh, well enough, if we did not have to work so much; but from morning,
as soon as it is light enough, until evening when it is too dark to
tell one color from another, working here in the studio, or copying in
the museum--no bear could stand it, let alone such a good young lady
who has not yet got over her father's death, and secretly weeps for it
every day. It is a real pity."
The old man turned away, laid the brushes in the box, and passed the
back of his hand quickly over his eyes.
I stood with folded arms before the picture, which no longer pleased me
when I thought that she worked on it unresting from morning till night,
while grief for the loss of her beloved father still dimmed her eyes.
It would be a great thing to have fifty thousand _thalers_ and be able
to say: "You shall not have so hard a life of it; you shall not lose
your beautiful eyes like your poor mother."
"How is Frau von Zehren?" I asked.
"Well enough in health," answered the sergeant, moving back the easel;
"but she has scarcely a glimpse of light; and the doctor, who ought to
know best, told her, when she asked him, that there was no hope that
she would ever see again."
"And Benno and the others?"
A bright gleam passed over the old man's brown face,
"Ah," said he, "there we have our pleasure, and with each one more than
the other, Benno has been a student now for a month, and Kurt will soon
enter. Yes, we are happy in these. And our youngster too! He is going
to be a painter, and has begun of course upon my head, and not done so
badly for his fifteen years. Look for yourself, if it is not----"
At this moment there was a ring at the door. The old man stepped to the
window and looked out.
"I thought it was they. You see we all went out walking, because the
day is so fine; but it is too soon yet for them to be back; it must be
some one else; I will see;" and the old man put back the drawing-board
on which Oscar had sketched his first head from the life, and left me
alone in the studio.
I heard a voice in the passage which I thought I recognized as Paula's,
and then the door opened, and Paula entered.
At first she did not observe me, and I saw at a glance that the
sergeant had said nothing of my arrival. Advancing quickly she looked
eagerly at the covered picture on the easel. The fresh air of the
winter day had reddened her cheeks, her lips were slightly parted. I
had never seen her so fair, nor could I have believed it possible.
Suddenly she perceived me; she stopped, gazed at me with fixed eyes and
a frightened look. "Paula," I said, hastily coming forward, "dear
Paula, it is really I."
"Dear George!"
She stood before me, and I took both her hands, while she looked at me,
smiling and blushing.
"Thank heaven, George, that you are here at last. I have had no quiet
hour since I knew that you were free again, and on the way here: I
could not imagine where you were staying; I even feared something had
happened to you. What have you been doing, and what adventures have you
had, you bad boy? I know of one already, and that from the fairest
mouth in the world."
Paula had seated herself upon a low chair near the picture, and looked
up to me with smiling eyes.
"You need not be so confused," she said, mischievously.
"With a sister, you know, it makes no matter. I am in the exclusive
possession of all Benno's tender secrets, and lately Kurt has honored
me with his confidence. He is smitten with the twelve-year-old daughter
of the geheimrath who has recently moved into the rooms below, and vows
that Raphael never painted such a head. Why should I not be your
confidante also, especially since you are my eldest brother--or are you
not?"
I was surprised to hear Paula, who usually weighed every word,
chattering after this fashion. A great change must have taken place in
her since we had parted. It was no longer the Paula who in the shade of
the high prison walls had developed under my eyes from a child to a
maiden, and whom I thought I knew as I knew myself. What had loosened
her tongue in this way? And whence had she the free carriage which I so
much admired in her, as she now sat in a graceful posture in the low
chair, while a beam of sunlight touched her head which seemed
surrounded with an aureola?
"But you don't answer me," she resumed; "and really you have no cause
to be ashamed of what you have done. Hermine says that without you the
boat would have been lost, and probably the ship also. You may judge
how proud I was when I heard it. And what do you think was my first
thought?--that my father could have heard it too."
Paula's large eyes filled with tears, but she quickly suppressed her
emotion and said:
"Yes, I was proud of you, and happy in the thought that you should
commence life with such a noble deed, a deed worthy of yourself. And
now you must tell me what you have been doing all this time, and you
must expect to pay the penalty if I am not entirely satisfied with you.
Sit here in this chair. We have a quarter of an hour yet before my
mother and the boys come back. An idea about the picture there had come
into my mind, but it is better so."
I gave the dear girl an exact account of all that had happened to me
since my discharge. She listened with the closest attention, and only
once smiled when I took pains to prove that I should have entered the
machine-works in any event, and that the fact that the commerzienrath
was my employer was far from agreeable to me.
"But neither the commerzienrath nor Hermine know anything about it."
"No," I answered; "and that is one comfort."
"Which will not last long, for they will soon learn it."
"From whom will they learn it?"
"From me, for one. Hermine has adjured me by sun, moon, and stars, to
give her notice of the runaway as soon as he is found; and the tears
were standing in her beautiful eyes, and Fräulein Duff laid her hand
upon her shoulder and said, 'Seek faithfully, and thou wilt find!' I
can assure you, George, it was a moving scene."
Paula smiled, but so kindly that her banter, if she was bantering me,
did not wound me. On the contrary I was thankful to her, very thankful.
I had considered over and over how I should tell her of my strange
meeting with Hermine without embarrassment, and now under her kindly
hands all was smooth and straight, which my clumsy fingers would have
hopelessly entangled. I was grateful to her--very grateful.
And now Paula told me of Hermine, and how amiable and good she had been
to her, and had spent the three days she had stayed in Berlin almost
exclusively in her company, and had at once fallen in love with the
picture at the exhibition--here Paula smiled again very slightly--and
could not reconcile herself to leaving it, after she had bought it, for
a whole month at the exhibition. She further related how the notice
which _Richard the Lion-heart_ had excited had already brought her new
commissions, and that her _Monk and Templar_ was already sold for a
handsome sum to a Jewish banker; and how her studio had since been
visited by very distinguished persons, indeed more frequently than was
agreeable, and she had had to lock up her portfolios of sketches
because they began unaccountably to disappear.
"You can judge," she went on, "how inexpressibly happy all this makes
me. Not that I think myself entitled to be proud--I think that I well
know my defects and how great they are--but it is a sweet consolation
to me to be at ease about the future of my mother and brothers, and
that the boys can now go boldly forward in the paths they have chosen,
without being compelled anxiously to consider every step--all the boys,
from the youngest to the oldest, is it not so, George?--from the
youngest to the oldest."
She looked full into my eyes, and I very well understood what she
meant.
"I do not anxiously consider every step, Paula," I said. "I know that I
am in the right path; why should I then be anxious?"
"I have boundless confidence in you," replied Paula; "both in your
clear-sightedness and your energy. I know that you will make your way;
but one can make his way with greater or with less labor, and in longer
or in shorter time; and your sister desires that her brother, who has
been so cruelly cheated of so many years of his life, may lose no
moment, and may encounter no obstacle which his sister can remove from
his path."
"I thank you, Paula," I said; "from the whole depth of my soul I thank
you; but you will not be angry with me for trusting that the hour may
never come when you will have to work for me; for that I may ever be
able to care for you and yours--this, my clearest hope and most
cherished desire, I see that I must now renounce."
"How can you speak so?" said Paula, gently shaking her beautiful head.
"True, I deserve it for my own wilfulness. You must consider me a
foolish girl who allows herself to be dazzled by the false glitter of
success. But believe me, it is not so. I know very well that I may be
let fall just as quickly as I have been lifted, far above my desert.
And then I may fall sick, or my invention may fail me: I cannot go on
forever painting you and old Süssmilch; and a girl has so little
opportunity to make well-grounded studies, and to extend the narrow
circle of her experience. And then what would become of the boys, of
me, of all of us, if we had not our eldest to look to?"
"You are jesting with me now, Paula."
"Indeed I am not," she said, earnestly. "I have only too often felt how
my powers are no longer sufficient for my brothers, and that young men
need to be guided by a man, and not by a woman, who does not know where
the limit lies to which a youth may go, nay, must go, if he is to
become anything. Good friend as the doctor is, I cannot rely on him in
this point, for he is an eccentric, and an eccentric is no fitting
model for a young man. For this reason I have been all the time wishing
for you. You know the boys so well, and they are so fond of you. I know
no one to whom I would so willingly intrust them."
"But, Paula, a workman in a machine-shop, a mere common journeyman
blacksmith, is no pattern for students and young artists."
"You will not--yes, you will always be a workman, but not always a
journeyman: you will become a master, a great master in your craft. And
the day is no longer distant; at least it is much nearer than you
think. You do not know your own worth."
Paula said this with a slightly elevated voice, and with flashing eyes.
I was so in the habit of giving full confidence to her words, and it
had so prophetic a sound, that I did not venture to express the slight
doubt that arose in my mind as to its fulfilment.
At this moment came a ring at the bell. "It is my mother and the boys,"
Paula said hurriedly and softly.
"They do not know that you have been two weeks at liberty; my mother
could not comprehend how you could let so long a time elapse without
coming to see us, after you had once reached the city. You must not let
her know that it has been so long."
At this they came rushing in at the door: Oscar, my favorite, Kurt, my
second favorite, and Benno, who had always been my third favorite, who
came with his mother on his arm; and there was rejoicing, and shaking
hands, and kisses, and exultations, and perhaps some tears, though I am
not sure. Of course I must spend the day with them. And in the evening
nothing could keep them from seeing me home, that they might bring
their sister word where and how I was living: and then I went back with
them a piece of the way until they were out of the workmen's quarter,
and in a part of the town which they knew better; and when I returned
it was very late, and I fell asleep at once and had a long dream about
the picture which Paula had painted, and Hermine had bought, and the
fair Bellini, who resembled Constance von Zehren, had so much admired.