"Through the forest, and in the vale,
Sweetly warbles the nightingale.
This song was often in his mouth, and he sung or whistled it on
a moonlight night, when he rode on horseback along the deep, hollow
way, on his road to Weimar, to visit Molly. He wished to arrive
unexpectedly, and so indeed he did. He was received with a hearty
welcome, and introduced to plenty of grand and pleasant company, where
overflowing winecups were passed about. A pretty room and a good bed
were provided for him, and yet his reception was not what he had
expected and dreamed it would be. He could not comprehend his own
feelings nor the feelings of others; but it is easily understood how a
person can be admitted into a house or a family without becoming one
of them. We converse in company with those we meet, as we converse
with our fellow-travellers in a stage-coach, on a journey; we know
nothing of them, and perhaps all the while we are incommoding one
another, and each is wishing himself or his neighbor away. Something
of this kind Anthony felt when Molly talked to him of old times.
"I am a straightforward girl," she said, "and I will tell you
myself how it is. There have been great changes since we were children
together; everything is different, both inwardly and outwardly. We
cannot control our wills, nor the feelings of our hearts, by the force
of custom. Anthony, I would not, for the world, make an enemy of you
when I am far away. Believe me, I entertain for you the kindest wishes
in my heart; but to feel for you what I now know can be felt for
another man, can never be. You must try and reconcile yourself to
this. Farewell, Anthony."
Anthony also said, "Farewell." Not a tear came into his eye; he
felt he was no longer Molly's friend. Hot iron and cold iron alike
take the skin from our lips, and we feel the same sensation if we kiss
either; and Anthony's kiss was now the kiss of hatred, as it had
once been the kiss of love. Within four-and-twenty hours Anthony was
back again to Eisenach, though the horse that he rode was entirely
ruined.
"What matters it?" said he; "I am ruined also. I will destroy
everything that can remind me of her, or of Lady Halle, or Lady Venus,
the heathen woman. I will break down the apple-tree, and tear it up by
the roots; never more shall it blossom or bear fruit."
The apple-tree was not broken down; for Anthony himself was struck
with a fever, which caused him to break down, and confined him to
his bed. But something occurred to raise him up again. What was it?
A medicine was offered to him, which he was obliged to take: a
bitter remedy, at which the sick body and the oppressed spirit alike
shuddered. Anthony's father lost all his property, and, from being
known as one of the richest merchants, he became very poor. Dark days,
heavy trials, with poverty at the door, came rolling into the house
upon them like the waves of the sea. Sorrow and suffering deprived
Anthony's father of his strength, so that he had something else to
think of besides nursing his love-sorrows and his anger against Molly.
He had to take his father's place, to give orders, to act with energy,
to help, and, at last, to go out into the world and earn his bread.
Anthony went to Bremen, and there he learnt what poverty and hard
living really were. These things often harden the character, but
sometimes soften the heart, even too much.
How different the world, and the people in it, appeared to Anthony
now, to what he had thought in his childhood! What to him were the
minstrel's songs? An echo of the past, sounds long vanished. At
times he would think in this way; yet again and again the songs
would sound in his soul, and his heart become gentle and pious.
"God's will is the best," he would then say. "It was well that I
was not allowed to keep my power over Molly's heart, and that she
did not remain true to me. How I should have felt it now, when fortune
has deserted me! She left me before she knew of the change in my
circumstances, or had a thought of what was before me. That is a
merciful providence for me. All has happened for the best. She could
not help it, and yet I have been so bitter, and in such enmity against
her."
Years passed by: Anthony's father died, and strangers lived in the
old house. He had seen it once again since then. His rich master
sent him journeys on business, and on one occasion his way led him
to his native town of Eisenach. The old Wartburg castle stood
unchanged on the rock where the monk and the nun were hewn out of
the stone. The great oaks formed an outline to the scene which he so
well remembered in his childhood. The Venus mountain stood out gray
and bare, overshadowing the valley beneath. He would have been glad to
call out "Lady Halle, Lady Halle, unlock the mountain. I would fain
remain here always in my native soil." That was a sinful thought,
and he offered a prayer to drive it away. Then a little bird in the
thicket sang out clearly, and old Anthony thought of the minstrel's
song. How much came back to his remembrance as he looked through the
tears once more on his native town! The old house was still standing
as in olden times, but the garden had been greatly altered; a
pathway led through a portion of the ground, and outside the garden,
and beyond the path, stood the old apple-tree, which he had not broken
down, although he talked of doing so in his trouble. The sun still
threw its rays upon the tree, and the refreshing dew fell upon it as
of old; and it was so overloaded with fruit that the branches bent
towards the earth with the weight. "That flourishes still," said he,
as he gazed. One of the branches of the tree had, however, been
broken: mischievous hands must have done this in passing, for the tree
now stood in a public thoroughfare. "The blossoms are often
plucked," said Anthony; "the fruit is stolen and the branches broken
without a thankful thought of their profusion and beauty. It might
be said of a tree, as it has been said of some men--it was not
predicted at his cradle that he should come to this. How brightly
began the history of this tree, and what is it now? Forsaken and
forgotten, in a garden by a hedge in a field, and close to a public
road. There it stands, unsheltered, plundered, and broken. It
certainly has not yet withered; but in the course of years the
number of blossoms from time to time will grow less, and at last it
was cease altogether to bear fruit; and then its history will be
over."
Such were Anthony's thoughts as he stood under the tree, and
during many a long night as he lay in his lonely chamber in the wooden
house in Hauschen Street, Copenhagen, in the foreign land to which the
rich merchant of Bremen, his employer, had sent him on condition
that he should never marry. "Marry! ha, ha!" and he laughed bitterly
to himself at the thought.
Winter one year set in early, and it was freezing hard. Without, a
snowstorm made every one remain at home who could do so. Thus it
happened that Anthony's neighbors, who lived opposite to him, did
not notice that his house remained unopened for two days, and that
he had not showed himself during that time, for who would go out in
such weather unless he were obliged to do so. They were gray, gloomy
days, and in the house whose windows were not glass, twilight and dark
nights reigned in turns. During these two days old Anthony had not
left his bed, he had not the strength to do so. The bitter weather had
for some time affected his limbs. There lay the old bachelor, forsaken
by all, and unable to help himself. He could scarcely reach the
water jug that he had placed by his bed, and the last drop was gone.
It was not fever, nor sickness, but old age, that had laid him low. In
the little corner, where his bed lay, he was over-shadowed as it
were by perpetual night. A little spider, which he could however not
see, busily and cheerfully spun its web above him, so that there
should be a kind of little banner waving over the old man, when his
eyes closed. The time passed slowly and painfully. He had no tears
to shed, and he felt no pain; no thought of Molly came into his
mind. He felt as if the world was now nothing to him, as if he were
lying beyond it, with no one to think of him. Now and then he felt
slight sensations of hunger and thirst; but no one came to him, no one
tended him. He thought of all those who had once suffered from
starvation, of Saint Elizabeth, who once wandered on the earth, the
saint of his home and his childhood, the noble Duchess of Thuringia,
that highly esteemed lady who visited the poorest villages, bringing
hope and relief to the sick inmates. The recollection of her pious
deeds was as light to the soul of poor Anthony. He thought of her as
she went about speaking words of comfort, binding up the wounds of the
afflicted and feeding the hungry, although often blamed for it by
her stern husband. He remembered a story told of her, that on one
occasion, when she was carrying a basket full of wine and
provisions, her husband, who had watched her footsteps, stepped
forward and asked her angrily what she carried in her basket,
whereupon, with fear and trembling, she answered, "Roses, which I have
plucked from the garden." Then he tore away the cloth which covered
the basket, and what could equal the surprise of the pious woman, to
find that by a miracle, everything in her basket--the wine, the
bread--had all been changed into roses.
In this way the memory of the kind lady dwelt in the calm mind
of Anthony. She was as a living reality in his little dwelling in
the Danish land. He uncovered his face that he might look into her
gentle eyes, while everything around him changed from its look of
poverty and want, to a bright rose tint. The fragrance of roses spread
through the room, mingled with the sweet smell of apples. He saw the
branches of an apple-tree spreading above him. It was the tree which
he and Molly had planted together. The fragrant leaves of the tree
fell upon him and cooled his burning brow; upon his parched lips
they seemed like refreshing bread and wine; and as they rested on
his breast, a peaceful calm stole over him, and he felt inclined to
sleep. "I shall sleep now," he whispered to himself. "Sleep will do me
good. In the morning I shall be upon my feet again, strong and well.
Glorious! wonderful! That apple-tree, planted in love, now appears
before me in heavenly beauty." And he slept.
The following day, the third day during which his house had been
closed, the snow-storm ceased. Then his opposite neighbor stepped over
to the house in which old Anthony lived, for he had not yet showed
himself. There he lay stretched on his bed, dead, with his old
nightcap tightly clasped in his two hands. The nightcap, however,
was not placed on his head in his coffin; he had a clean white one
on then. Where now were the tears he had shed? What had become of
those wonderful pearls? They were in the nightcap still. Such tears as
these cannot be washed out, even when the nightcap is forgotten. The
old thoughts and dreams of a bachelor's nightcap still remain. Never
wish for such a nightcap. It would make your forehead hot, cause
your pulse to beat with agitation, and conjure up dreams which would
appear realities.
The first who wore old Anthony's cap felt the truth of this,
though it was half a century afterwards. That man was the mayor
himself, who had already made a comfortable home for his wife and
eleven children, by his industry. The moment he put the cap on he
dreamed of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy, and of dark days.
"Hallo! how the nightcap burns!" he exclaimed, as he tore it from
his bead. Then a pearl rolled out, and then another, and another,
and they glittered and sounded as they fell. "What can this be? Is
it paralysis, or something dazzling my eyes?" They were the tears
which old Anthony had shed half a century before.
To every one who afterwards put this cap on his head, came visions
and dreams which agitated him not a little. His own history was
changed into that of Anthony till it became quite a story, and many
stories might be made by others, so we will leave them to relate their
own. We have told the first; and our last word is, don't wish for a
"bachelor's nightcap."