Two years passed, during which I completely lost sight of Dannevig. I
learned that he had been dismissed from the service of the Immigration
Company; that he played second violin for a few months at one of the
lowest city theatres, and finally made a bold stroke for fame by
obtaining the Democratic nomination for County Clerk. I was faithless
enough, however, to call attention to the fact that he had never been
naturalized, whereupon, a new caucus was called, and another candidate
was put into the field.
The Pfeifers I continued to see frequently, and, at last, at
Hildegard's own suggestion, told her the story I had so long withheld
from her. She showed very little emotion, but sat pale and still with
her hands folded in her lap, gazing gravely at me. When I had
finished, she arose, walked the length of the room, then returned, and
stopped in front of me.
"Human life seems at times a very flimsy affair, doesn't it?" she
said, appealing to me again with her direct gaze.
"Yes, if one takes a cynical view of it," I answered.
She stood for a while pondering.
"Did I ever know that man?" she asked, looking up abruptly.
"You know best."
"Then it must have been very, very long ago."
A slight shiver ran through her frame. She shook my hand silently, and
left the room.
One evening in the summer of 1870, just as the news from the
Franco-Prussian war was arousing the enthusiasm of our Teutonic
fellow-citizens, I was sauntering leisurely homeward, pondering with
much satisfaction on the course history was taking. About half a mile
from the Clark street bridge I found my progress checked by a crowd of
men who had gathered on the sidewalk outside of a German saloon, and
were evidently discussing some exciting topic. My journalistic
instincts prompted me to stop and listen to the discussion.
"Poor fellow, I guess he is done for," some one was saying. "But they
were both drunk; you couldn't expect anything else."
"Is any one hurt?" I asked, addressing my next neighbor in the crowd.
"Yes. It was a poor fool of a Dane. He got into a row with somebody
about the war. Said he would undertake to whip ten Deutschers
single-handed; that he had done so many a time in the Schleswig-Holstein
war. Then there was some fighting, and he was shot."
I spoke a few words to the policeman at the door, and was admitted. The
saloon was empty but in the billiard-room at its rear I saw a doctor
in his shirt-sleeves, bending over a man who lay outstretched on a
billiard-table. A bartender was standing by with a basin of water and
a bloody towel.
"Do you know his name?" I inquired of the police officer.
"They used to call him Danish Bill," he answered. "Have known him for
a good while. Believe his real name was Danborg, or Dan--something."
"Not Dannevig?" I cried.
"Dannevig? Yes, I guess you have got it."
I hastily approached the table. There lay Dannevig--but I would rather
not describe him. It was hard to believe it, but this heavy-lidded,
coarse-skinned, red-veined countenance bore a cruel, caricatured
resemblance to the clean-cut, exquisitely modelled face of the man I
had once called my friend. A death-like stupor rested upon his
features; his eyes were closed, but his mouth half open.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the physician, in a burst of professional
enthusiasm, "what a splendid animal he must have been! Hardly saw a
better made man in all my life."
"But he is not dead!" I protested, somewhat anxiously.
"No; but he has no chance, that I can see. May last over to-morrow,
but hardly longer. Does any one know where he lodges?"
No one answered.
"But, _Himmel_! he cannot stay here." The voice was the bartender's,
but it seemed to be addressed to no one in particular.
"I have known him for years," I said. "Take him to my rooms; they are
only a dozen blocks away."
A carriage was sent for, and away we drove, the doctor and I, slowly,
cautiously, holding the still unconscious man between us. We laid him
on my bed, and the doctor departed, promising to return before
morning.
A little after midnight Dannevig became restless, and as I went to his
side, opened his eyes with a look of full, startled consciousness.
"I'm about played out, old fellow, aint I?" he groaned.