And my perplexity was still further heightened when on reaching home I
found a letter from the commerzienrath lying on my table:
"My Dear Young Friend:
"Oh, these women, these women! I just now learn for the first time what
you have kept from my knowledge half a year--that you have so long been
working, like Samson among the Philistines, in my establishment. Did I
not, when I last saw you in the house of our never-to-be-forgotten
friend, entreat you again and again to let me know as soon as you
recovered your liberty? Why have you not done so? why have you hidden
your light so long under a bushel? You always had a great inclination
that way, but so much the more is it now time that you should let it
shine before men--and, just now, before me. Therefore come here as soon
as possible; I have a multitude of things to talk over with you about
matters here, as well as at the works, which last--as I now,
unfortunately, know for the first time--you thoroughly understand.
[These words were underscored.] You will here pass some pleasant days
among none but good old acquaintances, of whom none is older nor a
better friend of yours than your obedient servant,
"Philip August Streber."
I laid the letter, which was written in a large, round business-hand,
somewhat tremulous in places, upon the table, and paced my room in
extreme astonishment. How upon earth did the man know that I was here?
that I understood these things? Who could have told him? There was but
one explanation possible. But why----
"But why torment myself about the matter?" I cried, took my hat, and
set out for Paula's house.
"We are a little nervous this morning," my old friend whispered to me
at the door of Paula's studio.
"Don't you know what it is?" I asked in the same tone.
The worthy man shook his head, the head which in his opinion was
playing so important a part in the history of modern art, and said:
"One would have to have seven senses, like a bear, to know what is in
the hearts of the dear creatures."
With these words he opened the door.
Paula was alone, as Süssmilch had told me. She hastily laid pencils and
palette aside, and came to me with her hand extended. I saw at the
first glance that she had been weeping, and, although her cheeks were
flushed at this moment, she looked to me pale and unwell.
"You were expecting me, Paula?" I asked, holding her hand in my own.
"Yes," she answered; "and as you come at an unusual time, I suppose you
know why I was expecting you."
"It was your doing, Paula, was it not?" I said.
"Yes," she replied.
She looked me full in the eyes. Her look had that strange, half-sad,
half-indignant expression which I had only observed once, on the
morning of that fatal day when she disengaged herself from my arms in
which I had clasped her to save her from the falling Belvedere. It was
a recollection which filled me with an indefinite fear, and so confused
me that my glances fell before the maiden's large luminous eyes.
At this moment I heard her draw a long breath, and as I looked up the
strange expression had vanished from her eyes, and her voice was soft
as ever, as, taking my hand and leading me to a small sofa, she said:
"Come, let us sit down and consult what is to be done right calmly and
wisely, as brother and sister should do."
"Did they know then all the time that I was here?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered; "and I would have told you all if you had asked
me; but you did not ask; it was a little secret which you, quite
unnecessarily, seemed to think yourself bound to keep; a harmless game
of hide-and-seek, such as every one plays now and then. She played the
same game: I was on no account to let you know that she was resolved,
at any price, to have _Richard the Lion-heart_, and that she inquired
after you in every letter, I told her that I would say nothing about it
so long as you did not ask. But the commerzienrath, I believe, really
did not know, although we cannot altogether trust him. For that he now
writes for you so eagerly as you tell me, is no proof: he needs you
just now."
"Did you send him my memorial?" I asked.
"That was dreadful, was it not?" said Paula, smiling with pale lips;
"but I had to do what you hesitated at doing, and perhaps could not do
yourself: I had to do it, even at the risk of your displeasure, for it
was a matter in which, as it seemed to me, your whole future was at
stake."
"My whole future?"
"Scarcely less. Indeed rather more; for you must know that I am proud
of you, George, and convinced that you only need the means to
accomplish really important things in your profession. The
commerzienrath has these means. You must teach him to employ them; you
are the only one who can, for I have long known that he has taken the
exact measure of your talents with that acuteness of insight which is
peculiar to men of his stamp. And now he has in his hands the proof of
what you can do. Then you have the advantage that he is personally
well-disposed toward you, so far as such an egotist may be said to be
capable of unselfish, genuinely human interest in any one. In a word:
the opportunity is a more propitious one than you are likely ever to
have again."
"You send me away, Paula," I said, "out of these dear old associations
into others altogether new and strange, from which it is scarce
possible that I can return as I departed, while it is quite as
improbable that I shall find again what I leave. Have you well
considered all this? And if, as I must suppose, you have considered it,
then----Paula, I wish it were less easy for you to send me away."
"Who says that it is easy for me?" asked Paula, quickly rising and
taking a few steps across the room. These steps, by chance apparently,
brought her to her easel, and she remained standing before it with her
face averted from me.
"I mean," I said, "that I wish you found it harder to do without me, if
not on your own account for the sake of your mother and your brothers;
that, in a word, I were to them what you are now. But, Paula, you have
always been so proud; and in truth you have now more reason than ever."
Paula had found something to do at her easel, and some little time
passed before she answered:
"You men are strange creatures: everywhere you wish your influence to
be felt; even what you approve does not come to pass satisfactorily
unless it is your doing. But this is only a transient feeling of yours,
which I can well understand----"
"I do not know whether you quite understand it," I said in a low tone.
"Perfectly, perfectly," she said, bending lower over her easel; "when
any one is as much attached to another as you are to us, he desires to
be always giving, and feels it a heavy loss if this comes to be out of
his power. But I really do not see why we sadden ourselves so
unnecessarily. You are not going to be carried away from us forever.
You are only moving out of a narrow, wretched channel, unfit for so
proud a ship, into the broad ocean. Of course you will of necessity
often forget us a little, or perhaps entirely; for the man who wishes
to do anything great and complete must have his arms free: he cannot
and must not drag the toys of his childhood or the idols of his youth
with him through life. I wish that you would see that clearly, George;
bring yourself to see it clearly in this moment, of which I repeat that
I consider it a decisive one; since now, for the first time in your
life, after long years of apprenticeship, you enter on the rights of a
master--can for the first time show yourself as you are. At a decision
like this, all subordinate interests must stand back: all, George; even
we--our mother, your brothers, your sister."
I could not see her face, which she still held down, but there were
tears in her voice.
I approached her, but she turned her face away.
"Paula!" I said.
I wished to say more; to tell her all; to tell her that if I were to
lose her by my decision, whatever else I might win by it seemed
inexpressibly worthless to me; that----
"Paula!" I said once more, but I said it at her feet, with hot tears
streaming from my eyes. I strove for words, but they would not come.
A soft hand passed gently over my hair, and it seemed to me--I was not
sure then, nor am I now--but it seemed to me that she lightly touched
my brow with her lips. Then I heard her voice, and its tone was calm,
sweet and clear:
"George, my brother, you must not thus distress your poor sister. Now
go and bid our mother farewell. She has long foreseen the approach of
this moment, and has impatiently longed for it. In her lives, far more
than in us, George, the spirit of the war for freedom. She knows, from
her own experience, that a man must give up home and goods and wife and
children, and all that is dear to him, to devote his life to a great
and good cause. Come, George!"