It was close upon midnight when Rosenbusch, with a heavy sigh, shut the
little sketch-book in which he had been scribbling verses on the empty
leaves between portraits of horses' heads and studies of costumes and
armor, and proceeded to drink off the last drops of his red Wuertemberg
wine. For more than three hours he had been sitting in the same place
in the corner of a quiet little beer-house, where few of the regular
guests were to be found to-day on account of the beautiful weather
outside, and where those who were present were fully occupied with
their customary drink. It would not be very hard to divine what had led
our friend hither. First of all, the certainty of not meeting any one
whom he knew. Then, probably, an unconscious attraction in the name.
The landlord of this little wine-room bore the name of the first man,
and it is probable that one who had just been driven from Paradise felt
a strong inclination to go and console himself with another Adam over
the common fate of the race. In this object he seemed to have been
wonderfully successful, partly because of the innocent power of the red
Wuertemberger, of which this desperate man had managed to empty four
Schoppen; partly because of the soothing influence of the muses.
What Rosenbusch had written in his sketch-book had been a melancholy
strain; a sad lament over the misappreciation of the world, its
hardhearted realism, its effect upon his own fate, and, finally, over
his own desperate love affair.
Any one who knew how to read poems might easily have derived from this
one the consolation that the author's life was in no immediate danger
from the stunning blows which had fallen upon it. The truth is he
belonged to those delicately-strung, romantic souls, who consider it
almost a moral duty to suffer continually from some gentle inflammation
of the heart or fantasy. But the more chronic their state becomes, the
less dangerous it is, as a general rule. Unfortunately, in the case of
our lyric poet, there was another circumstance which tended greatly to
increase the unpleasantness of his situation. Though, by temperament,
he was little inclined to passionate catastrophes, he felt, on the
other hand, a certain abstract craving for action, which made it
impossible for him to be content with looking on at life from a
distance. A certain lack of physical courage--for he was of a slender,
nervous build--made him feel it incumbent on him to exercise so much
the more moral boldness, and to carry a fancy, which another would have
quickly put aside--for it had not really taken a very strong hold on
him--to some romantic end, or to illustrate it by some adventurous
enterprise. This love of _denouements_ had generally turned out so
badly for him that he might well have been discouraged; his friends
told the most comical stories of what he had suffered in this way. But
in spite of all this, he had just taken the most audacious step of his
life, with the deliberate intention of doing something at the same time
chivalrous and practical. He, who barely lived from hand to mouth, had
seriously appeared as a suitor in the house of a worthy citizen of the
good old Munich type, entirely incapable of taking a joke in such a
matter. Why matters had been pushed to such an extreme in this
particular case, he himself would have found it hard to say. For a long
time the affair had run the usual course; first, stolen glances were
interchanged from window to window, across the narrow alley; then came
the first tributes of homage in the shape of little notes in verse,
surreptitiously delivered, and flowery contributions to the Munich
daily paper, the _Latest News_. These effusions were accompanied by
much lurking about the streets, which eventually resulted in the
formation of the desired acquaintance, and ended in a bold confession
of love under the "dark arches" of the Marienplatz. With all her
blushing and laughing, and nods and glances, the dear child had managed
to draw the line so skillfully that she appeared to refuse his
attentions as little as she appeared to encourage them. She treated the
whole matter as a joke, as something to be laughed over, but never for
one moment to be regarded in a serious light. That the good-looking,
dashing, gallant painter found favor in the eyes of his pretty neighbor
could not be exactly denied. She even went so far once as to entreat
him to keep up his flute practice diligently. She never fell asleep so
comfortably as when he was sending forth some really heartrending
melody. For the rest she knew very well what to expect of artists, and
she had no doubt but what he had copied the beautiful poems he had
addressed to her from some book or other.
Rosenbusch felt himself rather flattered than hurt by these doubts; but
still this did not advance matters at all, and his dramatic instinct
for fresh excitement and change of action was almost in danger of
lagging a little, when it received an unexpected impulse from another
quarter. He discovered a secret that heretofore had been guarded more
carefully than his own; this was the hopeless love that his next-door
neighbor, Elfinger, entertained for the sister of his sweetheart.
He felt at once that it was incumbent upon his honor for him to do
something which should release them both from this state of unmanly
submission to their fate, and of base yearning toward the house of a
Philistine, and at the same time push the fortunes of his friend. If he
himself could once obtain free access to the house in the character of
_fiance_ to the worldly daughter, Elfinger would have no difficulty in
becoming more intimate with her spiritually-inclined elder sister, and
would undoubtedly be able to overcome those scruples that had
heretofore prevented this singular girl from accepting any of his
letters, or even from consenting to strike up an acquaintance with him
in the open street.
Confident in this belief, he determined upon the desperate step; and,
if he could not muster up sufficient courage, after the miserable
termination of his undertaking, to return to his friend with the bad
news, let us not think any the worse of his good heart.
Yet we must confess that, as far as he himself was concerned, he
regarded this crushing conclusion to the novel as beneficial rather
than lamentable. He had done his best, had displayed uncommon courage,
and had shown the beautiful being how serious he was in his intentions;
but now he felt that he had a right to rejoice in peace over an
honorable defeat that permitted him to go on setting his heart on
everything that was lovable and unattainable. When at last he stepped
out of the wine-room into the square, where the moonlight shone full
upon the five bronze statues standing rigidly in their regular rank and
file, a feeling of infinite satisfaction stole over him; a malicious
joy that he could wander here in flesh and blood beneath the changing
moon and have as many love affairs as he liked, while these celebrated
dignitaries stood on their pedestals unable to move a muscle. He even
caught himself beginning to sing in a loud voice; but a moment after he
came to a sudden stop. He felt that it was not at all the proper thing
for him to go about bawling merry songs, considering the mournful mood
he ought by good rights to be in.
So he composed his feelings, and wended his way home in a much more
subdued manner. But when he reached his street, and saw the lights in
Elfinger's windows blinking down at him, his heart quickly sunk into
his boots again. He could not bring himself to go up at this dead hour
of the night and confess to his friend how badly the affair had turned
out. So he turned swiftly upon his heel, and, taking a roundabout way,
finally reached his studio, where he knew he could find tolerable
sleeping quarters.
The janitor opened his eyes wide when he was knocked up to open the
back-door for Herr Rosenbusch. The white mice, too, quickly sprang up
from their pleasant dreams of biscuit and Swiss cheese, and rubbed
their snouts against the wire-netting in nervous excitement; for they
recognized their master. There he stood in the moonlight, paying no
attention to them, firmly planted before the battle of Luetzen. He gazed
at it for a while in silence; then he felt for the place where his
beard was usually to be found.
"You are no fool, after all!" he muttered to himself. "If you had never
painted anything but that black charger there, rearing because he has
received a bullet in his neck--_Basta! Anch' io sono pittore!_"
Then he took his flute out of its case, and marched up and down for a
while blowing an _adagio_, in order to dissipate the fumes of the red
Wuertemberger. At length, when he felt tired enough, he rigged up a bed
on the floor out of a Swedish saddle, that he took for a pillow, a
saddle-blanket, said to have been used by Count Piccolomini, and a
tiger-skin which the moths had eaten until it looked like a variegated
geographical chart, but which was popularly supposed to have belonged
to Froben, the Master of the Horse. However this might be, it served to
make a softer bed for the tired body of the last of the romantic
battle-painters; and he stretched himself upon it with a sigh, looked
out once more on the moonlight night, and then fell into a deep and
dreamless sleep, such as is rarely granted to a disappointed lover.