CUI BONO?
Christmas morning. And how cheerfully I spent it! I tried first of all
to forget that it was Christmas, and only succeeded in impressing the
fact more forcibly and vividly upon my mind, and with it others; the
fact that I was alone especially predominating. And a German Christmas
is not the kind of thing to let a lonely person forget his loneliness
in; its very bustle and union serves to emphasize their solitude to
solitary people.
I had seen such quantities of Christmas-trees go past the day before.
One to every house in the neighborhood. One had even come here, and the
widow of the piano-tuner had hung it with lights and invited some
children to make merry for the feast of Weihnachten Abend.
Every one had a present except me. Every one had some one with whom to
spend their Christmas--except me. A little tiny Christmas-tree had gone
to the rooms whose windows faced mine. I had watched its arrival; for
once I had broken through my rule of not deliberately watching my
neighbors, and had done so. The tree arrived in the morning. It was kept
a profound mystery from Sigmund, who was relegated, much to his disgust,
to the society of Frau Schmidt down-stairs, who kept a vigilant watch
upon him and would not let him go upstairs on any account.
The afternoon gradually darkened down. My landlady invited me to join
her party down-stairs; I declined. The rapturous, untutored joy of half
a dozen children had no attraction for me; the hermit-like watching of
the scene over the way had. I did not light my lamp. I was secure of
not being disturbed; for Frau Lutzler, when I would not come to her, had
sent my supper upstairs, and said she would not be able to come to me
again that evening.
"So much the better!" I murmured, and put myself in a window corner.
The lights over the way were presently lighted. For a moment I trembled
lest the blinds were going to be put down, and all my chance of spying
spoiled. But no; my neighbors were careless fellows--not given to
watching their neighbors themselves nor to suspecting other people of
it. The blinds were left up, and I was free to observe all that passed.
Toward half past five I saw by the light of the street-lamp, which
was just opposite, two people come into the house; a young man who
held the hand of a little girl. The young man was Karl Linders, the
violoncellist; the little girl, I supposed, must be his sister. They
went upstairs, or rather Karl went upstairs; his little sister remained
below.
There was a great shaking of hands and some laughing when Karl came into
the room. He produced various packages which were opened, their contents
criticised, and hung upon the tree. Then the three men surveyed their
handiwork with much satisfaction. I could see the whole scene. They
could not see my watching face pressed against the window, for they were
in light and I was in darkness.
Friedhelm went out of the room, and, I suppose, exerted his lungs from
the top of the stairs, for he came back, flushed and laughing, and
presently the door opened, and Frau Schmidt, looking like the mother
of the Gracchi, entered, holding a child by each hand. She never
moved a muscle. She held a hand of each, and looked alternately
at them. Breathless, I watched. It was almost as exciting as if I
had been joining in the play--more so, for to me everything was
_sur l'imprévu_--revealed piecemeal, while to them some degree of
foreknowledge must exist, to deprive the ceremony of some of its charms.
There was awed silence for a time. It was a pretty scene. In the middle
of the room a wooden table; upon it the small green fir, covered with
little twinkling tapers; the orthodox waxen angels, and strings of balls
and bonbons hanging about--the white _Christ-kind_ at the top in the
arms of Father Christmas. The three men standing in a semi-circle at one
side; how well I could see them! A suppressed smile upon Eugen's face,
such as it always wore when pleasing other people. Friedhelm not
allowing the smile to fully appear upon his countenance, but with a
grave delight upon his face, and with great satisfaction beaming from
his luminous brown eyes. Karl with his hands in his pockets, and an
attitude by which I knew he said, "There! what do you think of that?"
Frau Schmidt and the two children on the other side.
The tree was not a big one. The wax-lights were probably cheap ones; the
gifts that hung upon the boughs or lay on the table must have been
measured by the available funds of three poor musicians. But the whole
affair did its mission admirably--even more effectively than an official
commission to (let us say) inquire into the cause of the loss of an
ironclad. It--the tree I mean, not the commission--was intended to
excite joy and delight, and it did excite them to a very high extent. It
was meant to produce astonishment in unsophisticated minds--it did that
too, and here it has a point in common with the proceedings of the
commission respectfully alluded to.
The little girl who was a head taller than Sigmund, had quantities of
flaxen hair plaited in a pigtail and tied with light blue ribbon--new;
and a sweet face which was a softened girl miniature of her brother's.
She jumped for joy, and eyed the tree and the bonbons, and everything
else with irrepressible rapture. Sigmund was not given to effusive
declaration of his emotion, but after gazing long and solemnly at the
show, his eyes turned to his father, and the two smiled in the odd
manner they had, as if at some private understanding existing between
themselves. Then the festivities were considered inaugurated.
Friedhelm Helfen took the rest of the proceedings into his own hands;
and distributed the presents exactly as if he had found them all growing
on the tree, and had not the least idea what they were nor whence they
came. A doll which fell to the share of the little Gretchen was from
Sigmund, as I found from the lively demonstrations that took place.
Gretchen kissed him, at which every one laughed, and made him kiss the
doll, or receive a kiss from it--a waxy salute which did not seem to
cause him much enthusiasm.
I could not see what the other things were, only it was evident that
every one gave every one else something, and Frau Schmidt's face relaxed
into a stern smile on one or two occasions, as the young men presented
her one after the other with some offering, accompanied with speeches
and bows and ceremony. A conspicuous parcel done up in white paper was
left to the last. Then Friedhelm took it up, and apparently made a long
harangue, for the company--especially Karl Linders--became attentive. I
saw a convulsive smile twitch Eugen's lips now and then, as the oration
proceeded. Karl by and by grew even solemn, and it was with an almost
awe-struck glance that he at last received the parcel from Friedhelm's
hands, who gave it as if he were bestowing his blessing.
Great gravity, eager attention on the part of the children, who pressed
up to him as he opened it; then the last wrapper was torn off, and to my
utter amazement and bewilderment Karl drew forth a white woolly animal
of indefinite race, on a green stand. The look which crossed his face
was indescribable; the shout of laughter which greeted the discovery
penetrated even to my ears.
With my face pressed against the window I watched; it was really too
interesting. But my spying was put an end to. A speech appeared to be
made to Frau Schmidt, to which she answered by a frosty smile and an
elaborate courtesy. She was apparently saying good-night, but, with the
instinct of a housekeeper, set a few chairs straight, pulled a
table-cloth, and pushed a footstool to its place, and in her tour round
the room her eyes fell upon the windows. She came and put the shutters
to. In one moment it had all flashed from my sight--tree and faces and
lamp-light and brightness.
I raised my chin from my hands, and found that I was cold, numb, and
stiff. I lighted the lamp, and passed my hands over my eyes; but could
not quite find myself, and instead of getting to some occupation of my
own, I sat with Richter's "Through Bass and Harmony" before me and a pen
in my hand, and wondered what they were doing now.
It was with the remembrance of this evening in my mind to emphasize my
loneliness that I woke on Christmas morning.
At post-time my landlady brought me a letter, scented, monogrammed,
with the Roman post-mark. Adelaide wrote:
"I won't wish you a merry Christmas. I think it is such nonsense.
Who does have a merry Christmas now, except children and paupers?
And, all being well--or rather ill, so far as I am concerned--we
shall meet before long. We are coming to Elberthal. I will tell you
why when we meet. It is too long to write--and too vexatious" (this
word was half erased), "troublesome. I will let you know when we
come, and our address. How are you getting on?
"ADELAIDE."
I was much puzzled with this letter, and meditated long over it.
Something lay in the background. Adelaide was not happy. It surely could
not be that Sir Peter gave her any cause for discomfort. Impossible! Did
he not dote upon her? Was not the being able to "turn him round her
finger" one of the principal advantages of her marriage? And yet, that
she should be coming to Elberthal of her own will, was an idea which my
understanding declined to accept. She must have been compelled to
it--and by nothing pleasant. This threw another shadow over my spirit.
Going to the window, I saw again how lonely I was. The people were
passing in groups and throngs; it was Christmas-time; they were glad.
They had nothing in common with me. I looked inside my room--bare,
meager chamber that it was--the piano the only thing in it that was more
than barely necessary, and a great wonder came over me.
"What is the use of it all? What is the use of working hard? Why am I
leading this life? To earn money, and perhaps applause--some time. Well,
and when I have got it--even supposing, which is extremely improbable,
that I win it while I am young and can enjoy it--what good will it do
me? I don't believe it will make me very happy. I don't know that I long
for it very much. I don't know why I am working for it, except because
Herr von Francius has a stronger will than I have, and rather compels me
to it. Otherwise--
"Well, what should I like? What do I wish for?" At the moment I seemed
to feel myself free from all prejudice and all influence, and surveying
with a calm, impartial eye possibilities and prospects, I could not
discover that there was anything I particularly wished for. Had
something within me changed during the last night?
I had been so eager before; I felt so apathetic now. I looked across the
way. I dimly saw Courvoisier snatch up his boy, hold him in the air, and
then, gathering him to him, cover him with kisses. I smiled. At the
moment I felt neutral--experienced neither pleasure nor pain from the
sight. I had loved the man so eagerly and intensely--with such warmth,
fervor, and humility. It seemed as if now a pause had come (only for a
time, I knew, but still a pause) in the warm current of delusion, and I
contemplated facts with a dry, unmoved eye. After all--what was he? A
man who seemed quite content with his station--not a particularly good
or noble man that I could see; with some musical talent which he turned
to account to earn his bread. He had a fine figure, a handsome face, a
winning smile, plenty of presence of mind, and an excellent opinion of
himself.
Stay! Let me be fair--he had only asserted his right to be treated as a
gentleman by one whom he had treated in every respect as a lady. He did
not want me--nor to know anything about me--else, why could he laugh for
very glee as his boy's eyes met his? Want me? No! he was rich already.
What he had was sufficient for him, and no wonder, I thought, with a
jealous pang.
Who would want to have anything to do with grown-up people, with their
larger selfishnesses, more developed self-seeking--robust jealousies and
full-grown exactions and sophistications, when they had a beautiful
little one like that? A child of one's own--not any child, but that very
child to love in that ideal way. It was a relation that one scarcely
sees out of a romance; it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
His life was sufficient to him. He did not suffer as I had been
suffering. Suppose some one were to offer him a better post than that he
now had. He would be glad, and would take it without a scruple. Perhaps,
for a little while some casual thought of me might now and then cross
his mind--but not for long; certainly in no importunate or troublesome
manner. While I--why was I there, if not for his sake? What, when I
accepted the proposal of von Francius, had been my chief thought? It
had been, though all unspoken, scarcely acknowledged--yet a whispered
force--"I shall not lose sight of him--of Eugen Courvoisier." I was
rightly punished.
I felt no great pain just now in thinking of this. I saw myself, and
judged myself, and remembered how Faust had said once, in an immortal
passage, half to himself, half to Mephisto:
"Entbehren sollst du; sollst entbehren."
And that read both ways, it comes to the same thing.
"Entbehren sollst du; sollst entbehren."
It flitted rhythmically through my mind on this dreamful morning, when I
seemed a stranger to myself; or rather, when I seemed to stand outside
myself, and contemplate, calmly and judicially, the heart which had of
late beaten and throbbed with such vivid, and such unreasoning,
unconnected pangs. It is as painful and as humiliating a description of
self-vivisection as there is, and one not without its peculiar merits.
The end of my reflections was the same as that which is, I believe,
often arrived at by the talented class called philosophers, who spend
much learning and science in going into the questions about whose skirts
I skimmed; many of them, like me, after summing up, say, _Cui bono?_
So passed the morning, and the gray cloud still hung over my spirits. My
landlady brought me a slice of _kuchen_ at dinner-time, for Christmas,
and wished me _guten appetit_ to it, for which I thanked her with
gravity.
In the afternoon I turned to the piano. After all it was Christmas-day.
After beginning a bravura singing exercise, I suddenly stopped myself,
and found myself, before I knew what I was about, singing the "Adeste
Fidelis"--till I could not sing any more. Something rose in my
throat--ceasing abruptly, I burst into tears, and cried plentifully over
the piano keys.
"In tears, Fräulein May! _Aber_--what does that mean?"
I looked up. Von Francius stood in the door-way, looking not unkindly at
me, with a bouquet in his hand of Christmas roses and ferns.
"It is only because it is Christmas," said I.
"Are you quite alone?"
"Yes."
"So am I."
"You! But you have so many friends."
"Have I? It is true, that if friends count by the number of invitations
that one has, I have many. Unfortunately I could not make up my mind to
accept any. As I passed through the flower-market this morning I thought
of you--naturally. It struck me that perhaps you had no one to come and
wish you the Merry Christmas and Happy New-year which belongs to you of
right, so I came, and have the pleasure to wish it you now, with these
flowers, though truly they are not _Maiblümchen_."
He raised my hand to his lips, and I was quite amazed at the sense of
strength, healthiness, and new life which his presence brought.
"I am very foolish," I remarked; "I ought to know better. But I am
unhappy about my sister, and also I have been foolishly thinking of old
times, when she and I were at home together."
"_Ei!_ That is foolish. Those things--old times and all that--are the
very deuce for making one miserable. Strauss--he who writes dance
music--has made a waltz, and called it 'The Good Old times.' _Lieber
Himmel!_ Fancy waltzing to the memory of old times. A requiem or a
funeral march would have been intelligible."
"Yes."
"Well, you must not sit here and let these old times say what they like
to you. Will you come out with me?"
"Go out!" I echoed, with an unwilling shrinking from it. My soul
preferred rather to shut herself up in her case and turn surlily away
from the light outside. But, as usual, he had his way.
"Yes--out. The two loneliest people in Elberthal will make a little
zauberfest for themselves. I will show you some pictures. There are some
new ones at the exhibition. Make haste."
So calm, so matter-of-fact was his manner, so indisputable did he seem
to think his proposition, that I half rose; then I sat down again.
"I don't want to go out, Herr von Francius."
"That is foolish. Quick! before the daylight fades and it grows too dark
for the pictures."
Scarcely knowing why I complied, I went to my room and put on my
things. What a shabby sight I looked! I felt it keenly; so much, that
when I came back and found him seated at the piano, and playing a
wonderful in-and-out fugue of immense learning and immense difficulty,
and quite without pathos or tenderness, I interrupted him incontinently.
"Here I am, Herr von Francius. You have asked the most shabbily dressed
person in Elberthal to be your companion. I have a mind to make you hold
to your bargain, whether you like it or not."
Von Francius turned, surveying me from head to foot, with a smile. All
the pedagogue was put off. It was holiday-time. I was half vexed at
myself for beginning to feel as if it were holiday-time with me too.
We went out together. The wind was raw and cold, the day dreary, the
streets not so full as they had been. We went along the street past
the Tonhalle, and there we met Courvoisier alone. He looked at us,
but though von Francius raised his hat, he did not notice us. There
was a pallid change upon his face, a fixed look in his eyes, a strange,
drawn, subdued expression upon his whole countenance. My heart leaped
with an answering pang. That mood of the morning had fled. I had
"found myself again," but again not "happily."
I followed von Francius up the stairs of the picture exhibition. No one
was in the room. All the world had other occupations on Christmas
afternoon, or preferred the stove-side and the family circle.
Von Francius showed me a picture which he said every one was talking
about.
"Why?" I inquired when I had contemplated it, and failed to find it
lovely.
"The drawing, the grouping, are admirable, as you must see. The art
displayed is wonderful. I find the picture excellent."
"But the subject?" said I.
It was not a large picture, and represented the interior of an artist's
atelier. In the foreground a dissipated-looking young man tilted his
chair backward as he held his gloves in one hand, and with the other
stroked his mustache, while he contemplated a picture standing on an
easel before him. The face was hard, worn, _blasé_; the features,
originally good, and even beautiful, had had all the latent loveliness
worn out of them by a wrong, unbeautiful life. He wore a tall hat, very
much to one side, as if to accent the fact that the rest of the company,
upon whom he had turned his back, certainly did not merit that he should
be at the trouble of baring his head to them. And the rest of the
company--a girl, a model, seated on a chair upon a raised dais, dressed
in a long, flounced white skirt, not of the freshest, some kind
of Oriental wrap falling negligently about it--arms, models of
shapeliness, folded, and she crouching herself together as if
wearied, or contemptuous, or perhaps a little chilly. Upon a divan
near her a man--presumably the artist to whom the establishment
pertained--stretched at full length, looking up carelessly into
her face, a pipe in his mouth, with indifference and--scarcely
impertinence--it did not take the trouble to be a fully developed
impertinence--in every gesture. This was the picture; faithful to life,
significant in its very insignificance, before which von Francius sat,
and declared that the drawing, coloring, and grouping were perfect.[B]
[Footnote B: The original is by Charles Herman, of Brussels.]
"The subject?" he echoed, after a pause. "It is only a scrap of
artist-life."
"Is that artist-life?" said I, shrugging my shoulders. "I do not like it
at all; it is common, low, vulgar. There is no romance about it; it only
reminds one of stale tobacco and flat champagne."
"You are too particular," said von Francius, after a pause, and with a
flavor of some feeling which I did not quite understand tincturing his
voice.
For my part, I was looking at the picture and thinking of what
Courvoisier had said: "Beauty, impudence, assurance, and an admiring
public." That the girl was beautiful--at least, she had the battered
remains of a decided beauty; she had impudence certainly, and assurance
too, and an admiring public, I supposed, which testified its admiration
by lolling on a couch and staring at her, or keeping its hat on and
turning its back to her.
"Do you really admire the picture, Herr von Francius?" I inquired.
"Indeed I do. It is so admirably true. That is the kind of life into
which I was born, and in which I was for a long time brought up; but I
escaped from it."
I looked at him in astonishment. It seemed so extraordinary that
that model of reticence should speak to me, above all, about himself.
It struck me for the very first time that no one ever spoke of von
Francius as if he had any one belonging to him. Calm, cold, lonely,
self-sufficing--and self-sufficing, too, because he must be so, because
he had none other to whom to turn--that was his character, and viewing
him in that manner I had always judged him. But what might the truth be?
"Were you not happy when you were young?" I asked, on a quick impulse.
"Happy! Who expects to be happy? If I had been simply not miserable, I
should have counted my childhood a good one; but--"
He paused a moment, then went on:
"Your great novelist, Dickens, had a poor, sordid kind of childhood
in outward circumstances. But mine was spiritually sordid--hideous,
repulsive. There are some plants which spring from and flourish in mud
and slime; they are but a flabby, pestiferous growth, as you may
suppose. I was, to begin with, a human specimen of that kind; I was in
an atmosphere of moral mud, an intellectual hot-bed. I don't know what
there was in me that set me against the life; that I never can tell. It
was a sort of hell on earth that I was living in. One day something
happened--I was twelve years old then--something happened, and it seemed
as if all my nature--its good and its evil, its energies and indolence,
its pride and humility--all ran together, welded by the furnace of
passion into one furious, white-hot rage of anger, rebellion. In an
instant I had decided my course; in an hour I had acted upon it. I am an
odd kind of fellow, I believe. I quitted that scene and have never
visited it since. I can not describe to you the anger I then felt, and
to which I yielded. Twelve years old I was then. I fought hard for
many years; but, _mein Fräulein_"--(he looked at me, and paused a
moment)--"that was the first occasion upon which I ever was really
angry; it has been the last. I have never felt the sensation of anger
since--I mean personal anger. Artistic anger I have known; the anger at
bad work, at false interpretations, at charlatanry in art; but I have
never been angry with the anger that resents. I tell you this as a
curiosity of character. With that brief flash all resentment seemed to
evaporate from me--to exhaust itself in one brief, resolute, effective
attempt at self-cleansing, self-government."
He paused.
"Tell me more, Herr von Francius," I besought. "Do not leave off there.
Afterward?"
"You really care to hear? Afterward I lived through hardships in plenty;
but I had effectually severed the whole connection with that which
dragged me down. I used all my will to rise. I am not boasting, but
simply stating a peculiarity of my temperament when I tell you that what
I determine upon I always accomplish. I determined upon rising, and I
have risen to what I am. I set it, or something like it, before me as my
goal, and I have attained it."
"Well?" I asked, with some eagerness; for I, after all my unfulfilled
strivings, had asked myself _Cui bono?_ "And what is the end of it? Are
you satisfied?"
"How quickly and how easily you see!" said he, with a smile. "I value
the position I have, in a certain way--that is, I see the advantage it
gives me, and the influence. But that deep inner happiness, which lies
outside of condition and circumstances--that feeling of the poet in
'Faust'--don't you remember?--
"'I nothing had, and yet enough'--
all that is unknown to me. For I ask myself, _Cui bono?_"
"Like me," I could not help saying.
He added:
"Fräulein May, the nearest feeling I have had to happiness has been the
knowing you. Do you know that you are a person who makes joy?"
"No, indeed I did not."
"It is true, though. I should like, if you do not mind--if you can say
it truly--to hear from your lips that you look upon me as your friend."
"Indeed, Herr von Francius, I feel you my very best friend, and I would
not lose your regard for anything," I was able to assure him.
And then, as it was growing dark, the woman from the receipt of custom
by the door came in and told us that she must close the rooms.
We got up and went out. In the street the lamps were lighted, and the
people going up and down.
Von Francius left me at the door of my lodgings.
"Good-evening, _liebes Fräulein_; and thank you for your company this
afternoon."
* * * * *
A light burned steadily all evening in the sitting-room of my opposite
neighbors; but the shutters were closed. I only saw a thin stream coming
through a chink.