Poor Reinhart! He certainly was a brilliant fellow. Even the German
Professors overlooked his English origin, and felt proud of him.
Probably they argued that if he was born in Yorkshire, it was not his
fault. And, besides, as the name showed, his family, no matter where
they had since strayed, must have been, at some period of the past, true
children of the Fatherland.
As far as he was concerned, he seemed to have very little attachment for
his native country. Indeed, he never evinced very much of an attachment
for any place or any body. We had been together the greater part of ten
years. He possessed a singular influence over me. I hardly know what I
would not have done for Reinhart. But he was in disposition not the
least demonstrative; and whether he ever saw any attraction in me, I can
not tell. I simply imagined so, because time wore away without drifting
us apart.
A profound interest in metaphysics absorbed his whole being; and through
this channel he had crept into the good graces of the college
authorities. During his long study upon this subject, he had woven about
himself all the labyrinthine meshes of the subtile German philosophy.
Though only a tutor of twenty-five, the doctors of metaphysics touched
their hats to him; all the students bowed before him; and I—I felt sorry
for him.
Why? I can hardly tell. But he had grown thin and pale and nervous
within the last year; and I could not help wishing that all Germany was
as ignorant of psychology as in the days when the Suabians danced their
dryad dances upon the very spot where now the great University lifted up
its towers—this great University whose walls were built not of stone
from the quarry, but of the labors of many lives, some of whose proudest
pinnacles, reaching into a light of dazzling splendor, had been reared
only by the everlasting sacrifice of reason.
A vague idea had floated into my mind, but so very terrible it was that
I had never dared acknowledge its existence even to myself;
nevertheless, it oppressed me constantly. Finally, it grew into such a
burden that I could bear it no longer, and so made up my mind to do what
little I could to relieve myself at any rate. A plan occurred to me
whereby I might accomplish my chief design, which was to draw him away
from this study that was consuming him; to draw him away from his myriad
theories into life. But before I had said a word, while I was still
meditating how it could best be done, Reinhart settled the trouble
himself.
I never was more astonished or more pleased than when he proposed the
very thing I had been trying to broach, that the two of us should spend
the next six months in traveling. What had suggested it to him, or what
his reasons were, I never asked. Had _he_ any suspicions of this strange
fancy that I would not admit to myself, and yet had been vainly striving
to drive from my mind? Since then I have sometimes thought so, and
sometimes thought not. To the proposition I consented eagerly, and did
my best in hastening all the arrangements; therefore no time was lost
before we found ourselves _en route_ for the south of Europe.
As I have said, Reinhart was not in the least demonstrative. Very likely
his natural reserve had been greatly increased by his sedentary life.
But I noticed, early in our trip, that he seemed laboring to throw off
his abstracted manner. I felt encouraged, notwithstanding I knew it was
an effort to him, and determined, not only that he should see something
of the world, but, what would be of much more benefit, that he should
see something of society.
In the beautiful Italian scenery my own spirits rose perceptibly. The
great load which had been burdening me lessened and finally raised
itself altogether, as I saw this shadow of the German University that
had been resting on my companion break. But I know now I was mistaken.
It was only the battalion preparing for action; the marshalling of the
forces before the conflict.
It had been almost a month since we left Germany. Many of the English
and American gentlemen residing in Florence had shown us not only
attention but hospitality. One thing I noticed quickly that Reinhart
cared almost nothing for the society of ladies. He endured it; never
sought it. The most beautiful faces he would pass without any notice, or
with merely an indifferent glance. I was sorry for this, because here
was a channel, I had thought, wherein might be turned the current of his
existence.
With this subject still uppermost in my mind, I determined one morning I
would bring my sounding-line into play, if it were only on account of my
own satisfaction. We were sitting upon the deep sill of the open window,
smoking our cigars and enjoying the utter tranquillity of the southern
day, when I asked, indifferently, as if the question had been wholly
unpremeditated,—
“Reinhart, were you ever in love?”
He looked up quickly, waited a moment, as though at first he had not
exactly understood, then answered,—
“No.”
Now, I knew very well he never had been; for, as I have said, the last
ten years we had spent together; but at present I was bent upon the
intent of discovering what probability there was that such a catastrophe
could ever be brought about; so I said again,—
“Reinhart, do you think you _ever will_ be in love?”
I expected a repetition of my former answer, but, to my surprise,
without any hesitation, he replied,—
“Yes.”
“Indeed!” I gasped, with my breath almost gone,—“and when may it come to
pass?”
Looking up, I dropped the tone of raillery I had been using immediately,
for I saw it was a serious matter to him; and overcome by astonishment,
I subsided into complete silence.
The perfume of roses came in on the breeze, and a scarlet-cloaked
flower-girl carrying her wares, the only person on the street, turned
out of sight. A small bird, with red plumes in its wings, lighted nearly
within reach, upon the tree, and broke into song, but, checking the
strain almost in the first note, it flew away, settling, a mere speck,
upon the northern spire of the Cathedral. Then Reinhart said, as though
there had been no pause in the conversation,—
“I do not know; it may never come in this life.”
I looked at him, thoroughly puzzled, almost frightened. Then, thinking
perhaps I had not heard aright, said,—“What?” But, without heeding my
interrogation, he continued,—
“Perhaps it never will come in this life.”
Yes, I had heard aright. Possibly we were each talking of different
things; and as a last resource, I said,—
“Perhaps _what_ will never come in this life?”
“Why, love,” he replied, making a slight gesture of impatience, as
though I had been unpardonably dull.
“But,” I persisted, determined to understand, “then it will never be at
all, for they neither marry nor are given in marriage in the next
world.”
“No,” he repeated, “they ‘neither marry nor are given in marriage.’” He
said the words over slowly but mechanically, exactly as if he might have
said, or thought, the same words over a hundred times before.
That he believed in the immortality of the soul, I quite well knew, for
it was the one shoot of his English education, which, springing in early
boyhood, had survived, like a foreign plant, amid all the German
sophisms. I did not like the strange aspect of his face, and, somewhat
ill at ease, I said,—
“Then, what do you mean?” I waited a moment for the answer.
“I can hardly tell you. I have always had a theory of my own—no, not a
theory, a belief. I have never undertaken to express it in language, and
do not know whether I can render myself intelligible. I think every soul
has somewhere in the universe an affinity—I am obliged to use the word
for lack of a better one—and I believe that before complete happiness
can be attained the two are merged into one. It is not marriage: that is
purely earthly. These affinities may possibly meet in this life, though
it is hardly probable; but in the ages to come it will occur just as
certainly as there is an eternity. Mind, I do not call it marriage. It
is the fusing together of two souls, a masculine and feminine, just as
they combine chemicals, producing a new substance. I believe, as I said,
these two souls may sometimes meet in this life; but it is a destiny
that comes to few in centuries, and those few should kneel in
everlasting gratitude before their Creator.”
When Reinhart ceased speaking, I could see that he had worked himself
almost into a fever, for his eyes were bright and restless, and the
blood surged in waves across his usually colorless face. With a rough
hand, I had struck the chord whose undecided vibrations had, a month
ago, appalled me. The great burden which had so oppressed me settled
down again heavier than before. It was not so much what he had said as
the expression of his face that filled me anew with anxiety. And
struggling under this burden, I made a poor attempt to laugh the matter
off.
“Reinhart, this is some of your German metaphysics.”
“No; though you are at liberty to call it what you please; but I have
never read such a theory in any place.”
“Well, it is an absurd idea,” I retorted, “and sounds exactly like some
of your humbug philosophers, who never believe in any thing but
fantasies; and I would advise you to let them alone.”
This was hardly wise on my part. I should not have allowed myself to
express any impatience when I saw it excited him, and only augmented
what I was striving to allay. The blood rushed again over his face, but
he said nothing; only, rising from his seat, he walked several times
across the room.
In the silence that followed, a strain of joyful music broke suddenly
upon us. It was the swell of the Cathedral organ, sounding a prelude for
some wedding. But if the strain was ever finished, we did not hear it,
for the next moment a crash of terrific discord drowned the music,
shaking the very ground. Some object flew swiftly past my face, struck
the wall and fell upon the floor. I sprang up and shut the window
quickly. Half the sky was covered with a black cloud, and from the
carpet at my feet I picked up a dead bird, a small bird with red plumes
in its wings.
The storm passed over in less than half an hour, leaving the sky
perfectly clear again; but for the remainder of the day I could not
recover my spirits. Whether Reinhart suffered from a like oppression, I
know not; but he seemed possessed by the very demon of unrest. He was
not still a moment. He had little to say; and quite late in the evening
proposed a walk. Without any remark upon the unusual hour, I acquiesced.
The night was quiet and beautiful, beautiful even for that southern
clime. There was no moon, and still the sky was filled with a soft
light, brighter than the trembling rays of the stars alone. I remember
it because it was a peculiar luminous haze, that I had seen only in
Italy, and because, though no clouds swept over the sky, and the haze
never paled until lost in the crimson glow of morning, that night, to
me, was the blackest night of my life, whose vision sometimes yet rises
before me, even at noon-day, with appalling reality. Ah! why were the
sky and stars beautiful? O, cruel sky! O, cruel stars! Was the sorrow on
earth nothing to you, that you gave no warning?
We had walked perhaps two squares, when Reinhart stopped just as
suddenly as if he might have come in contact with a stone wall,
invisible to me. Alarmed, I said, quickly, “What is the matter? Are you
ill?”
“No,” he replied, still standing motionless. Then, in a moment, without
another word, he turned and began retracing his steps.
“Are you going home already?” I inquired, puzzled by his strange
conduct.
“No; I am going to the Cathedral.”
We had just passed the Cathedral, when he had made no motion to enter;
but now I tried in vain to dissuade him from it. I told him that there
was no service at this hour; that we might as well not have left home as
to go inside of any house. All to no purpose; he was just as determined
as at first, until finally he turned fiercely upon me and said, with a
strange emphasis in his tone,—
“I will go; I must go; I feel something within me that _compels_ me to
go!”
Was this again the vibration of that terrible chord in his nature—that
terrible chord that threatened to destroy forever the harmony of his
life?
Powerless to turn him from his intent, together we crossed the northern
portal and entered the nave. It was so dim that the heavy shadows
clustered in a rayless cloud among the arches, and at the end, far
off—they looked like stars in the gloom—flickered a few tapers at the
altar, while higher up swung the sacred but sickly flame that had been
burning for centuries. There was not a stir, not a sound. I trembled all
over with a singular sensation of weakness that came upon me as I
followed Reinhart, who went steadily down the long aisle to where the
transepts met, then stopped as abruptly as he had stopped a few moments
before in the street.
It was, as I have said, just where the transepts met. There, upon a low
platform or dais, stood a bier covered by a velvet pall, whose heavy
border fell in waveless folds. And upon it rested a casket with silver
mountings. Beside it two tapers burned, one at the head and one at the
foot; and two monks kneeled, motionless. Beyond the choir I saw the
gleam of the organ-pipes, wavering, come and go. The altar lights
circled about each other, and they, too, receded in infinite space; they
grew dim; they vanished; they sprang again; they fled again. The great
tombs loomed out and faded; the figure on an ebon crucifix, inspired
with life, writhed in fearful agony, then once more became transfixed,
and the weak, trembling sensation under which I had been laboring was
gone.
I saw that we were standing by the dead of some noble family, for the
repose of whose soul the monks were offering up their prayers. I drew a
little nearer. Upon the snow-like cushions within the casket a young
girl lay sleeping the last deep and solemn sleep. Or was it a
vision?—one of that mystical land, whose white portals are beyond the
sun; that land where there is no shadow, no stain; where there is beauty
celestial, peace everlasting? No, it was all the future we ever see; it
was still this side the gates of eternity; it was death.
A chaplet of flowers crowned her brow, all colorless as marble, and
garlands of flowers wreathed her robe, that was purer than fleece; but
her hands held no lilies, no jasmine; more sacred than these, they held
a small golden crucifix, an emblem imperishable, holy. The burning
tapers threw not over the face, turned slightly toward the altar, that
beautiful dream-light; it was the last inscription written by the
spirit, even after it had seen down the radiant vista of immortal
happiness.
Ah! why offer prayers for a soul beyond the troubled sea, beyond the
dread valley? O, frail humanity! Even then beside the pall, where rested
the solemn silence no voice could break, stood one for whom the kneeling
monks might have told a thousand _aves_.
Reinhart raised his face suddenly. Straightening himself, he extended
his arm with a wild gesture, uttering a laugh that grated clear up to
the dome.
“Did I not tell you?” he cried. “Did I not feel the mysterious summons
that brought me to this spot? Do you see her? _It is she!_ It is her
soul and mine that will abide together through all eternity.”
The startled monks rose to their feet. The great arches of the Cathedral
threw back his voice in terrible groans. Quick as thought I sprang
toward him, but was hurled off with the ease of a giant. He stooped for
a moment and put one hand to his head, as if a sudden faintness might
have swept over him; but he did not touch the casket. Then, dropping on
one knee beside it, he raised his face and said softly, so softly that
the last word seemed to come to us from a great distance,—
“O, beautiful soul, part of my spirit, I will not keep you waiting!”
We gathered around and raised him up. It needed no force now; and when
they laid him down again, with a great throbbing in my breast, I folded
his hands. He had taken his life.
O, Germany! like this fair day you lured a bird high up into your
sunshine, a bird with brilliant plumes in its wings; then, before it had
sung one song from the pinnacle where it rested, blackening suddenly
into a storm, you killed it. Reinhart, poor Reinhart! you lured high up
into the fantastic light of psychology; then before he had reared one
minaret upon the temple where he climbed, you darkened suddenly into a
gigantic gloom that, rising up like a storm, overwhelmed him.
Yes, better had it been for Reinhart were the Suabians still dancing
their dryad dances.
[Illustration]