When I reached home it was one o'clock--a fact which I could scarcely
comprehend. It seemed to me as if not hours but weeks had elapsed since
I parted from Hermine. I went on tip-toe to her room and bent over her
bed, where she lay sleeping, one arm beneath her head, like a
slumbering child. And like that of a child was the expression of her
face, as though a happy dream were passing through her spirit. It
seemed to me like a crime to sit watching, with a world of sorrow and
anguish in my soul, by the side of this blessed peace; and yet slumber
was impossible to me. So I put the shade before the night-lamp again,
and went to my own bed-chamber where I had already lighted a lamp.
In the dim light of this lamp which only made a few objects in the room
visible while the rest were plunged in darkness, I sat for hours before
the hearth in which the last spark had long died out from the ashes,
revolving in my breast thoughts indescribably painful. In vain did I
endeavor to recall my old cheerful courage; it seemed to have died out,
like the embers in the ashes before me, which had once glowed as
brightly and sparkled as cheerfully: in vain did I try to bring to my
memory all the goodness and kindness that life had brought me hitherto,
and in which it still was rich; nothing would appear to me in the old
light: all was empty, gray, and dead, as though the world were but a
scene of devastation and decay, and I were wandering comfortless and
alone, among the ruins of splendors long passed away.
A reaction from my excessive excitement must have overcome me at last.
I dreamed that there was a gray twilight that was neither night nor
day. I was wandering alone upon the bleak ridge of the promontory at
Zehrendorf, and a bitter piercing wind was blowing from the sea. All
was waste and desolate, and there was nothing to be seen but the ruin
of the old Zehrenburg, which rose dumb and defiant in the twilight. But
when I looked at it, it was not the old castle, but a gigantic statue
of stone, which was the Wild Zehren looking with dull glazed eyes
towards the west, where his sun had set forever in the eternal sea. And
though no light illuminated the gray twilight, a bright glitter flashed
from a golden chain which was on the neck of the stone giant who was
the Wild Zehren, and spurs of gold gleamed upon his feet of stone, and
brightly flashed the bare blade of the broad knight's sword which lay
across his knees of stone. And as, full of inward terror, I watched the
statue, a small figure came through the tall broom and drew near the
stone giant, which it crept lurkingly around, and watched from all
sides. And the queer small figure was the commerzienrath, and he made
the oddest faces and cut the strangest capers when he found the giant
was so fast asleep. Suddenly he began to clamber up the knees, then
stood upon tip-toe and took the golden chain from the giant's neck and
hung it around his own, then sprang down and took the sword, and lastly
the golden spurs, which he buckled on. Then with ridiculous pomposity
he strode backwards and forwards in the knight's accoutrements, and
tried to brandish the sword, but could not lift it, while his spurs
kept catching in the high broom and tripping him, and the heavy chain
upon his shoulders pressed him down, so that he suddenly became a
decrepit and bowed old man who could scarcely stand upon his feet, and
still tried to balance himself like a rope-dancer, upon the sharp edge
of the precipice where the chalk-cliff fell perpendicularly to the sea.
I strove to call to him to have a care for Hermine's sake, but I could
neither speak nor move; and suddenly he fell over the cliff. I heard
the heavy fall of his body upon the pebbly beach, and the giant begun
to laugh, a laugh so loud, so terrible that I awakened in fright, and
with wildly-beating heart looked around the room, into which, through
the curtains, there fell a gray twilight which was neither night nor
day, just as it had been in my dream, and I still heard the resonant
peals of laughter, but they were blows with which some impatient hand
was battering at the house-door. I hastened to open it myself.
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"A message for Herr Hartwig, and--and--ah! you are there yourself, Herr
Hartwig, I see."
It was a servant from the hotel at which for many years my
father-in-law had been in the habit of stopping whenever he came to the
town.
"Yes; what is the matter?"
"My master sends his respects, and--and the Herr Commerzienrath has
just been found dead in his bed."
I stared aghast into the face of the man: he probably thought that I
had not understood him, and stammered out his awkward message again;
but I had perfectly well understood him at first; that is, I had
understood the meaning of his words. The commerzienrath has been found
dead in his bed. That is very easily said, and as easily understood.
The commerzienrath had been found dead in his bed.
"I will come at once," I said.
The man hastened off; I went back to my room, put on my overcoat and
hat, took a pair of dark gloves instead of the light ones I had worn
the previous evening--all quite mechanically, as if I were going out
about some ordinary business. "The commerzienrath has been found dead
in his bed," I repeated, as I would have repeated a report brought to
the office that a belt had broken in such and such a shop.
Then suddenly a pang darted through me as if a dagger had been thrust
into my breast.
"Poor child!" I muttered, "poor child, how will she bear it? But there
is so much misfortune in the world; so much misfortune, and he was an
old man."
Thus I left the house, in which the inmates already began to be
stirring.
"You are going out early this morning," said the porter, coming out of
his lodge. "Anything happened at the works?"
I did not answer: not until I had reached the street did I comprehend
the meaning of the man's words. It was now near seven o'clock, and
already clear daylight. The wind had hauled to westward, and was
blowing hard. It was raining: streams of water poured from the roofs,
and the heavy snow that had fallen in the night was mostly changed into
gray slush, through which the bakers' and milkmens' carts were toiling
heavily. I was shivering, and said to myself that it was a very
disagreeable morning; but no other feeling awakened in me. At a corner
I met a hearse with no following of carriages; the driver upon his high
seat had pulled his cocked hat down over his face; the broken-down
horses were going at a half-trot; the hearse slipped about in the
slush, and the threadbare black pall that was hung over the hearse
flapped to and fro in the wind.
"That cannot be the commerzienrath," I said, looking after the hearse
with a vacant mind.
Thus I reached the hotel.
"Number eleven: first door to the right at the top of the stairs," said
the porter.
He accompanied me up the stairs, more, no doubt, from curiosity than
sympathy, and told me that the Herr Commerzienrath had arrived in the
last train yesterday evening, and he had been ordered to wake the
commerzienrath at half-past six this morning, as he had a note to send
to Herr Hartwig. He knocked at the door punctually to the minute, and
the Herr Commerzienrath had called out quite plainly: "Very well; let
Louis bring my coffee;" and when ten minutes later, Louis took the
coffee up, the commerzienrath did not answer, and they found he was
dead. Who would have expected it? Such a robust old gentleman! And they
sent off at once for Doctor Snellius, because he was Herr Hartwig's
family physician, and the doctor would certainly be here in a minute.
"This door, Herr Hartwig, this door."
The door was ajar. The landlord, the head-waiter, and another man, if I
remember rightly, were standing in the large room, into which the dim
light fell through the half-drawn curtains. At the farther end of the
room was a bed, before which two lights were burning on a small table.
"We left everything as we found it," said the landlord in a low tone,
as he went with us to the bed. "It is a rule with me in such cases to
exercise the greatest discretion. One has then no reason to reproach
oneself, and avoids much inconvenience. The Herr Commerzienrath is
lying precisely as Louis found him; and there lies the tray with coffee
where Louis put it down."
There lay the tray with coffee where Louis had put it down, and there
lay the commerzienrath as Louis had found him. The light from the two
candles, their long wicks unsnuffed, fell brightly enough upon his face
into which I now gazed. It was the third time in my life that I had
looked closely into the face of the dead. And naturally the other two
faces rose in my memory; that of the Wild Zehren, that of my dear and
fatherly friend, and now here was this. In the sombre features of the
Wild Zehren had lain gloomy defiance, like those of an Indian chief,
who, bound fast to the death-stake, sings taunting songs at his
tormentors; upon the mild face of his noble brother had lain a sublime
calm, as upon the face of one who dies for the sake of others. How
different was the face before me! About the large mouth hovered
something like the mocking smile which he usually wore when he thought
he had overreached any one; his eyes half shut, as he used to shut them
when he wished to hide his real meaning: over all the old, wrinkled,
yellow face was spread the deceitful cloud in which he loved to hide
himself, only that the cloud was drawn now a little closer than usual,
and it was not his old cuttle-fish man[oe]uvre, but death.
"And we were so cheerful last night," whispered the host. "We sat in
the dining-room until half-past one, and drank three bottles of
champagne. The Railroad Director Schwelle was with us. I have warned
the old gentleman often enough; at his years one should be more
prudent. And such a clear head! Such a head for business! And here lies
the note that was to be sent to you this morning."
It was a leaf apparently torn from his pocket-book, with half a page of
writing on it; the pencil with which he had written, lay by it. I took
up the paper; the characters were very legible, even firmer than his
writing usually was of late:
"DEAR SON: I arrived here yesterday evening, and would like to speak
with you before you go home from the works. May I ask you to wait for
me? I must first go on 'Change, where I shall meet many envious faces
to-day. They will see to-day how soon an old hand can grind little
notches out of his blade. But more of this when we meet. If you are
engaged out, please excuse yourself, as I should like to sit at your
table once more. But no preparations for me, I beg. Only, if you can
manage it conveniently, my favorite dish, Magdeburg cabbage, and a
little----"
The bill of fare was broken off, and here lay the guest.
"Death overtook him while he was writing," said the landlord, whose
discretion had not hindered him from looking over my shoulder into the
paper. "How sudden it comes, sometimes!"
At this moment the doctor stood among us: I had not heard him enter. He
nodded to me without speaking, and leaned over the dead man. Thus he
remained sometime and then he raised himself up and said to the
landlord:
"I wish you would heat for me about a wine-glassful of pure Jamaica
rum. It must be perfectly pure rum, and must be brought to a boil. You
would probably do better to look after it yourself."
"Certainly, certainly," said the landlord. "It is my duty in such cases
to do everything that lies in my power."
"And do you go and see that I get it at once; and you, young man, tell
my driver to wait for me."
"Yes sir," said both the waiters at once, and hastened after the
landlord.
"Have you any hope?" I asked.
The doctor did not answer. He gave a hurried glance at the door, then
stepped again to the bed, threw back the coverlid which the dead man
had drawn up over breast and arms as high as the chin, and then I saw
that he took out a small phial which he had probably found under the
cover in the stiffened hand of the corpse. He smelled its contents
cautiously for a moment, then wrapped it in a piece of paper and put it
in his waistcoat pocket.
"Unless there is some especial reason for it," he said, "your wife need
not know that her father has poisoned himself."
I groaned aloud.
"Courage! courage!" said the doctor; "this is a world in which things
are often desperately dark. But this cannot be helped now, and you have
to think of your wife and children."
As I went home an hour later, the wind was howling as furious as ever
through the rainy streets, and at the same corner I met the same
hearse, now coming back in a slouching trot as before. I looked at it
without the least emotion or feeling, which seemed indeed to have
perished forever in my breast. Yes, yes, the doctor was right: it was
often desperately dark in this world; and I do not know that it would
have seemed darker to me had I known what I did not know, that in the
palace of the prince, which I had to pass on my way home, behind
the lowered curtains, the last of the male line of the princes of
Prora-Wiek, counts of Ralow, was giving up his young life under the
hands of the surgeons.