he believed he had now clear proofs of what he had for a long time
feared. He no longer had any doubt that Rose loved Reinhold. Not only
had she formerly shown many a kindness to Reinhold alone, and to him
alone given many a sweet word, but now--it was as plain as noonday--
since Reinhold could no longer come to work. Rose too no longer thought
of going out, but preferred to stay indoors, no doubt to wait upon and
take good care of her lover. On Sundays, when all the rest set out
gaily, and Master Martin, who had recovered to some extent of his
wound, invited him to walk with him and Rose to the Allerwiese, he
refused the invitation; but, burdened with trouble and the bitter pain
of disappointed love, he hastened off alone to the village and the hill
where he had first met with Reinhold. He threw himself down in the tall
grass where the flowers grew, and as he thought how that the beautiful
star of hope which had shone before him all along his homeward path had
now suddenly set in the blackness of night after he had reached his
goal, and as he thought how that this step which he had taken was like
the vain efforts of a dreamer stretching out his yearning arms after an
empty vision of air,--the tears fell from his eyes and dropped upon the
flowers, which bent their little heads as if sorrowing for the young
journeyman's great unhappiness. Without his being exactly conscious of
it, the painful sighs which escaped his labouring breast assumed the
form of words, of musical notes, and he sang this song:--
My star of hope,
Where hast thou gone?
Alas! thy glory rises up--
Thy glory sweet, far from me now--
And pours its light on others down.
Ye rustling evening breezes, rouse you,
Blow on my breast,
Awake all joy that kills,
Awake all pain that brings to death,
So that my sore and bleeding heart,
Steeped to the core in bitter tears,
May break in yearning comfortless.
Why whisper ye, ye darksome trees?
So softly and like friends together?
And why, O golden skirts of sky,
Look ye so kindly down on me?
Show me my grave;
For that is now my haven of hope,
Where I shall calmly, softly sleep.
And as it often happens that the very greatest trouble, if only it can
find vent in tears and words, softens down into a gentle melancholy,
mild and painless, and that often a faint glimmer of hope appears then
in the soul, so it was with Frederick; when he had sung this song he
felt wonderfully strengthened and comforted The evening breezes and the
darksome trees that he had called upon in his song rustled and
whispered words of consolation; and like the sweet dreams of distant
glory or of distant happiness, golden streaks of light worked their way
up across the dusky sky. Frederick rose to his feet, and went down the
hill into the village. He almost fancied that Reinhold was walking
beside him as he did on the day they first found each other; and all
the words which Reinhold had spoken again recurred to his mind. And as
his thoughts dwelt upon Reinhold's story about the contest between the
two painters who were friends, then the scales fell from his eyes.
There was no doubt about it; Reinhold must have seen Rose before and
loved her. It was only his love for her which had brought him to
Nuremberg to Master Martin's, and by the contest between the two
painters he meant simply and solely their own--Reinhold's and
Frederick's--rival wooing of beautiful Rose. The words that Reinhold
had then spoken rang again in his ears,--"Honest contention for the
same prize, without any malicious reserve, ought to unite true friends
and knit their hearts still closer together, instead of setting them at
variance. There should never be any place in noble minds for petty envy
or malicious hatred." "Yes," exclaimed Frederick aloud, "yes, friend of
my heart, I will appeal to you without any reserve, you yourself shall
tell me if all hope for me is lost."
It was approaching noon when Frederick tapped at Reinhold's door. As
all remained still within, he pushed open the door, which was not
locked as usual, and went in. But the moment he did so he stood rooted
to the spot. Upon an easel, the glorious rays of the morning sun
falling upon it, was a splendid picture, Rose in all the pride of her
beauty and charms, and life size. The maul-stick lying on the table,
and the wet colours of the palette, showed that some one had been at
work on the picture quite recently. "O Rose, Rose!--By Heaven!" sighed
Frederick. Reinhold, who had entered behind him unperceived, clapped
him on the shoulder and asked, smiling, "Well, now, Frederick, what do
you say to my picture!" Then Frederick pressed him to his heart and
cried, "Oh you splendid fellow--you are indeed a noble artist. Yes,
it's all clear to me now. You have won the prize--for which I--poor
me!--had the hardihood to struggle. Oh! what am I in comparison with
you? And what is my art against yours? And yet I too had some fine
ideas in my head. Don't laugh at me, dear Reinhold; but, look you, I
thought what a grand thing it would be to model Rose's lovely figure
and cast it in the finest silver. But that's all childishness, whilst
you--you--Oh! how sweetly she smiles upon you, and how delightfully you
have brought out all her beauty. O Reinhold! Reinhold! you happy, happy
fellow! Ay, and it has all come about as you said long ago. We have
both striven for the prize and you have won it: you could not help but
win it, and I shall still continue to be your friend with all my heart
But I must leave this house--my home: I cannot bear it, I should die if
I were to see Rose again. Please forgive me, my dear, dear, noble
friend. To-day, this very moment, I will go--go away into the wide
world, where my trouble, my unbearable misery, is sending me." And thus
speaking, Frederick was hastening out of the apartment, but Reinhold
held him fast, saying gently, "You shall not go; for things may turn
out quite different from what you think. It is now time for me to tell
you all that I have hitherto kept silence about. That I am not a cooper
but a painter you are now well aware, and I hope a glance at this
picture will convince you that I am not to be ranked amongst the
inferior artists. Whilst still young I went to Italy, the land of art;
there I had the good fortune to be accepted as a pupil by renowned
masters, who fostered into living fire the spark which glowed within
me. Thus it came to pass that I rapidly rose into fame, that my
pictures became celebrated throughout all Italy, and the powerful Duke
of Florence35 summoned me to his court. At that time I would not hear a
word about German art, and without having seen any of your pictures, I
talked a good deal of nonsense about the coldness, the bad drawing, and
the hardness of your Dürer and your Cranach.36 But one day a
picture-dealer brought a small picture of the Madonna by old Albrecht
to the Duke's gallery, and it made a powerful and wonderful impression
upon me, so that I turned away completely from the voluptuousness of
Italian art, and from that very hour determined to go back to my native
Germany and study there the masterpieces upon which my heart was now
set I came to Nuremberg here, and when I beheld Rose I seemed to see
the Madonna who had so wonderfully stirred my heart, walking in bodily
form on earth. I had the same experiences as you, dear Frederick; the
bright flames of love flashed up and consumed me, mind and heart and
soul. I saw nothing, I thought of nothing, but Rose; all else had
vanished from my mind; and even art itself only retained its hold upon
me in so far as it enabled me to draw and paint Rose again and again--
hundreds of times. I would have approached the maiden in the free
Italian way; but all my attempts proved fruitless. There was no means
of securing a footing of intimacy in Master Martin's house in any
insidious way. At last I made up my mind to sue for Rose directly, when
I learned that Master Martin had determined to give his daughter only
to a good master-cooper. Straightway I formed the adventurous resolve
to go and learn the trade of cooperage in Strasburg, and then to come
and work in Master Martin's work-shop. I left all the rest to the
ordering of Providence. You know in what way I carried out my resolve;
but I must now also tell you what Master Martin said to me some days
ago. He said I should make a skilful cooper and should be a right dear
and worthy son-in-law, for he saw plainly that I was seeking to gain
Rose's favour, and that she liked me right well." "Can it then indeed
well be otherwise?" cried Frederick, painfully agitated "Yes, yes, Rose
will be _yours_; how came I, unhappy wretch that I am, ever to hope for
such happiness?" "You are forgetting, my brother," Reinhold went on to
say; "you are forgetting that Rose herself has not confirmed this,
which our cunning Master Martin no doubt is well aware of. True it is
that Rose has always shown herself kind and charming towards me, but a
loving heart betrays itself in other ways. Promise me, brother, to
remain quiet for three days longer, and to go to your work in the shop
as usual. I also could now go to work again, but since I have been busy
with, and wrapt up in this picture, I feel an indescribable disgust at
that coarse rough work out yonder. And, what is more, I can never lay
hand upon mallet again, let come what will. On the third day I will
frankly tell you how matters stand between me and Rose. If I should
really be the lucky one to whom she has given her love, then you may go
your way and make trial of the experience that time can cure the
deepest wounds." Frederick promised to await his fate.
On the third day Frederick's heart beat with fear and anxious
expectation; he had in the meantime carefully avoided meeting Rose.
Like one in a dream he crept about the workshop, and his awkwardness
gave Master Martin, no doubt, just cause for his grumbling and
scolding, which was not by any means customary with him. Moreover, the
master seemed to have encountered something that completely spoilt all
his good spirits. He talked a great deal about base tricks and
ingratitude, without clearly expressing what he meant by it. When at
length evening came, and Frederick was returning towards the town, he
saw not far from the gate a horseman coming to meet him, whom he
recognised to be Reinhold. As soon as the latter caught sight of
Frederick he cried, "Ha! ha! I meet you just as I wanted." And leaping
from his horse, he slung the rein over his arm, and grasped his
friend's hand. "Let us walk along a space beside each other," he said.
"Now I can tell you what luck I have had with my suit." Frederick
observed that Reinhold wore the same clothes which he had worn when
they first met each other, and that the horse bore a portmanteau.
Reinhold looked pale and troubled. "Good luck to you, brother," he
began somewhat wildly; "good luck to you. You can now go and hammer
away lustily at your casks; I will yield the field to you. I have just
said adieu to pretty Rose and worthy Master Martin." "What!" exclaimed
Frederick, whilst an electric thrill, as it were, shot through all his
limbs--"what! you are going away now that Master Martin is willing to
take you for his son-in-law, and Rose loves you?" Reinhold replied,
"That was only a delusion, brother, which your jealousy has led you
into. It has now come out that Rose would have had me simply to show
her dutifulness and obedience, but there's not a spark of love glowing
in her ice-cold heart. Ha! ha! I should have made a fine cooper--that I
should. Week-days scraping hoops and planing staves, Sundays walking
beside my honest wife to St. Catherine's or St. Sebald's, and in the
evening to the Allerwiese, year after year"---- "Nay, mock not," said
Frederick, interrupting Reinhold's loud laughter, "mock not at the
excellent burgher's simple, harmless life. If Rose does not really love
you, it is not her fault; you are so passionate, so wild." "You are
right," said Reinhold; "It is only the silly way I have of making as
much noise as a spoilt child when I conceive I have been hurt. You can
easily imagine that I spoke to Rose of my love and of her father's
good-will. Then the tears started from her eyes, and her hand trembled
in mine. Turning her face away, she whispered, 'I must submit to my
father's will'--that was enough for me. My peculiar resentment, dear
Frederick, will now let you see into the depths of my heart; I must
tell you that my striving to win Rose was a deception, imposed upon me
by my wandering mind. After I had finished Rose's picture my heart grew
calm; and often, strange enough, I fancied that Rose was now the
picture, and that the picture was become the real Rose. I detested my
former coarse, rude handiwork; and when I came so intimately into
contact with the incidents of common life, getting one's 'mastership'
and getting married, I felt as if I were going to be confined in a
dungeon and chained to the stocks. How indeed can the divine being whom
I carry in my heart ever be my wife? No, she shall for ever stand forth
glorious in youth, grace, and beauty, in the pictures--the
masterpieces--which my restless spirit shall create. Oh! how I long for
such things! How came I ever to turn away from my divine art? O thou
glorious land, thou home of Art, soon again will I revel amidst thy
cool and balmy airs." The friends had reached the place where the road
which Reinhold intended to take turned to the left. "Here we will
part," cried Reinhold, pressing Frederick to his heart in a long warm
embrace; then he threw himself upon horseback and galloped away.
Frederick stood watching him without uttering a word, and then,
agitated by the most unaccountable feelings, he slowly wended his way
homewards.
_How Frederick was driven out of the workshop by Master Martin._
The next day Master Martin was working away at the great cask for the
Bishop of Bamberg in moody silence, nor could Frederick, who now felt
the full bitterness of parting from Reinhold, utter a word either,
still less break out into song. At last Master Martin threw aside his
mallet, and crossing his arms, said in a muffled voice, "Well,
Reinhold's gone. He was a distinguished painter, and has only been
making a fool of me with his pretence of being a cooper. Oh! that I had
only had an inkling of it when he came into my house along with you and
bore himself so smart and clever, wouldn't I just have shown him the
door! Such an open honest face, and so much deceit and treachery in his
mind! Well, he's gone, and now you will faithfully and honestly stick
to me and my handiwork. Who knows whether you may not become something
more to me still--when you have become a skilful master and Rose will
have you--well, you understand me, and may try to win Rose's favour."
Forthwith he took up his mallet and worked away lustily again.
Frederick did not know how to account for it, but Master Martin's words
rent his breast, and a strange feeling of anxiety arose in his mind,
obscuring every glimmer of hope. After a long interval Rose made a
first appearance again in the workshop, but was very reserved, and, as
Frederick to his mortification could see, her eyes were red with
weeping. She has been weeping for him, she does love him, thus he said
within himself, and he was quite unable to raise his eyes to her whom
he loved with such an unutterable love.
The mighty cask was finished, and now Master Martin began to be blithe
and in good humour again as he regarded this very successful piece of
work. "Yes, my son," said he, clapping Frederick on the shoulder, "yes,
my son, I will keep my word: if you succeed in winning Rose's favour
and build a good sound masterpiece, you shall be my son-in-law. And
then you can also join the noble guild of the _Meistersinger_, and so
win you great honour."
Master Martin's business now increased so very greatly that he had to
engage two other journeymen, clever workmen, but rude fellows, quite
demoralised by their long wanderings. Coarse jests now echoed in the
workshop instead of the many pleasant talks of former days, and in
place of Frederick and Reinhold's agreeable singing were now heard low
and obscene ditties. Rose shunned the workshop, so that Frederick saw
her but seldom, and only for a few moments at a time. And then when he
looked at her with melancholy longing and sighed, "Oh! if I might talk
to you again, dear Rose, if you were only as friendly again as at the
time when Reinhold was still with us!" she cast down her eyes in shy
confusion and whispered "Have you something to tell me, dear
Frederick?" And Frederick stood like a statue, unable to speak a word,
and the golden opportunity was quickly past, like a flash of lightning
that darts across the dark red glow of the evening, and is gone almost
before it is observed.
Master Martin now insisted that Frederick should begin his masterpiece.
He had himself sought out the finest, purest oak wood, without the
least vein or flaw, which had been over five years in his wood-store,
and nobody was to help Frederick except old Valentine. Not only was
Frederick put more and more out of taste with his work by the rough
journeymen, but he felt a tightness in his throat as he thought that
this masterpiece was to decide over his whole life long. The same
peculiar feeling of anxiety which he had experienced when Master Martin
was praising his faithful devotion to his handiwork now grew into a
more and more distinct shape in a quite dreadful way. He now knew that
he should fail miserably and disgracefully in his work; his mind, now
once more completely taken up with his own art, was fundamentally
averse to it. He could not forget Reinhold and Rose's picture. His own
art now put on again her full glory in his eyes. Often as he was
working, the crushing sense of the unmanliness of his conduct quite
overpowered him, and, alleging that he was unwell, he ran off to St.
Sebald's Church. There he spent hours in studying Peter Fischer's
marvellous monument, and he would exclaim, as if ravished with delight,
"Oh, good God! Is there anything on earth more glorious than to
conceive and execute such a work?" And when he had to go back again to
his staves and hoops, and remembered that in this way only was Rose to
be won, he felt as if burning talons were rending his bleeding heart,
and as if he must perish in the midst of his unspeakable agony.
Reinhold often came to him in his dreams and brought him striking
designs for artistic castings, into which Rose's form was worked in
most ingenious ways, now as a flower, now as an angel, with little
wings. But there was always something wanting; he discovered that it
was Rose's heart which Reinhold had forgotten, and that he added to the
design himself. Then he thought he saw all the flowers and leaves of
the work move, singing and diffusing their sweet fragrances, and the
precious metals showed him Rose's likeness in their glittering surface.
Then he stretched out his arms longingly after his beloved, but the
likeness vanished as if in dim mist, and Rose herself, pretty Rose,
pressed him to her loving heart in an ecstasy of passionate love.
His condition with respect to the unfortunate cooperage grew worse and
worse, and more and more unbearable, and he went to his old master
Johannes Holzschuer to seek comfort and assistance. He allowed
Frederick to begin in his shop a piece of work which he, Frederick, had
thought out and for which he had for some time been saving up his
earnings, so that he could procure the necessary gold and silver. Thus
it happened that Frederick was scarcely ever at work in Martin's shop,
and his deathly pale face gave credence to his pretext that he was
suffering from a consuming illness. Months went past, and his
masterpiece, his great two-tun cask, was not advanced any further.
Master Martin was urgent upon him that he should at least do as much as
his strength would allow, and Frederick really saw himself compelled to
go to the hated cutting block again and take the adze in hand. Whilst
he was working, Master Martin drew near and examined the staves at
which he was working; and he got quite red in the face and cried, "What
do you call this? What work is this, Frederick? Has a journeyman been
preparing these staves for his 'mastership,' or a stupid apprentice who
only put his nose into the workshop three days ago? Pull yourself
together, lad: what devil has entered into you that you are making a
bungle of things like this? My good oak wood,--and this your
masterpiece! Oh! you awkward, imprudent boy!" Overmastered by the
torture and agony which raged within him, Frederick was unable to
contain himself any longer; so, throwing the adze from him he said,
"Master, it's all over; no, even though it cost me my life, though I
perish in unutterable misery, I cannot work any longer--no, I cannot
work any longer at this coarse trade. An irresistible power is drawing
me back to my own glorious art. Your daughter Rose I love unspeakably,
more than anybody else on earth can ever love her. It is only for her
sake that I ever entered upon this hateful work. I have now lost her, I
know, and shall soon die of grief for love of her; but I can't help it,
I must go back to my own glorious art, to my excellent old master,
Johannes Holzschuer, whom I so shamefully deserted." Master Martin's
eyes blazed like flashing candles. Scarce able to speak for rage, he
stammered, "What! you too! Deceit and treachery! Dupe _me_ like this!
coarse trade--cooperage! Out of my eyes, you disgraceful fellow; begone
with you!" And therewith he laid hold of poor Frederick by the
shoulders and threw him out of the shop, which the rude journeymen and
apprentices greeted with mocking laughter. But old Valentine folded his
hands, and gazing thoughtfully before him, said, "I've noticed, that I
have, the good fellow had something higher in his mind than our casks."
Dame Martha shed many tears, and her boys cried and screamed for
Frederick, who had often played kindly with them and brought them
several lots of sweets.
_Conclusion._
However angry Master Martin might feel towards Reinhold and Frederick,
he could not but admit to himself that along with them all joy and all
pleasure had disappeared from the workshop. Every day he was annoyed
and provoked by the new journeymen. He had to look after every little
trifle, and it cost him no end of trouble and exertion to get even the
smallest amount of work done to his mind. Quite tired out with the
cares of the day, he often sighed, "O Reinhold! O Frederick! I wish you
had not so shamefully deceived me, I wish you had been good coopers."
Things at last got so bad that he often contemplated the idea of giving
up business altogether.