to enlarge his property by the addition of a good garden, and
especially so since Nanni was always longing for the beautiful shrubs
and trees which gave out such a luxurious abundance of sweet scents in
this very garden. Moreover, it seemed to him now as if Fortune were
graciously smiling upon him, and just at the time when poor Nanni had
experienced such bitter trouble, an opportunity for affording her
pleasure should present itself so unexpectedly. The Master at once
settled all the needful particulars with the obliging decorator, who
promised that on the following Sunday Wacht should be able to stroll
through the garden as its owner. "Come now," cried Master Wacht, "come
now, friend Leberfink, out with it--what is it that is making your
heart burst?"
Then Herr Pickard Leberfink fell to sighing in the most pitiable
manner; and he pulled the most extraordinary faces, and ran on with
such a string of gibberish that nobody could make either head or tail
of it. Master Wacht, however, knew what to make of it, for he shook his
head, saying, "Ah! that may be contrived;" and he smiled to himself at
the wonderful sympathy of their related spirits.
This meeting with Leberfink had certainly done Master Wacht good; he
believed he had conceived a plan by virtue of which he should manage
not only to stand against, but even to overcome, the severest and most
terrible misfortune which, according to his infatuated way of thinking,
had come upon him. The only thing that can declare the verdict of the
tribunal within him is the course of action he adopted; and perhaps,
kindly reader, this tribunal faltered for the first time. Here is the
place to offer a brief remark, which, perhaps, would not very well lend
itself for insertion later. As so frequently happens in such cases, old
Barbara had interfered in the matter, and been very urgent in her
accusations of the loving pair to Master Wacht, making it a special
charge against them that they had always read worldly books together.
The Master caused her to bring two or three of the books which Nanni
had. One was a work of Goethe's; unfortunately it is not known which
work it was. After turning over the leaves, he gave it back to Barbara,
that she might restore it to the place whence she had secretly taken
it. Not a single word about Nanni's reading ever escaped him; once
only, when some seasonable occasion presented at dinner, did he say,
"There is a remarkable mind rising up amongst us Germans; God grant him
success! My days are over; such things are not for my age, nor yet for
my calling; but you--Jonathan? I envy you many things that will come to
light in the days to come." Jonathan understood Wacht's oracular words
the more easily, since some days previously he had discovered by chance
_ Götz von Berlichingen_15 lying on the Master's work-table, half
covered by other papers. Wacht's great mind, whilst acknowledging the
uncommon genius of the new writer, had also perceived the impossibility
of beginning a new flight himself.
Next day poor Nanni hung her head like a sick dove. "What's the matter
with my dear child?" asked Master Wacht in the tender sympathetic tone
that was so peculiarly his own, and with which he knew how to stir
everybody's heart, "what's the matter with my dear child? are you ill?
I can't believe it. You don't get out into the fresh air sufficiently.
See here now; I have a long time been wishing you would for once in a
way bring me my tea out to the workshop. Do so to-day; we may expect a
most beautiful evening. You will come, won't you, Nanni, my darling?
You will butter me some rolls yourself--that will make them ever so
good." Therewith Master Wacht took the dear girl in his arms and
stroked her brown curls back from her forehead, and he kissed her and
pressed her to his heart, and tenderly caressed her,--treating her, in
fact, in the most affectionate way that he knew how; and he was well
aware of the irresistible charm of his manner at such times. A flood of
tears gushed from Nanni's eyes, and with some difficulty all she could
get out was, "Father! father!" "Well, well!" said Wacht, and a strain
of embarrassment might have been detected in his voice, "all may yet
turn out well."
A week passed; naturally enough Jonathan had not shown himself, and the
Master had not mentioned him with a single syllable. On Sunday, when
the soup was standing smoking on the table, and the family were about
to take their seats for dinner. Master Wacht asked gaily, "And where is
our Jonathan?" Rettel, with a view to sparing poor Nanni, replied in an
undertone, "Father, don't you know then what's taken place? Wouldn't
Jonathan of course be shy of showing himself here in your presence?"
"Oh the monkey!" said Wacht, laughing; "let Christian run over at once
and fetch him."
It need hardly be said that the young advocate failed not to put in an
appearance immediately, nor that during the first moments after his
arrival a dark oppressive thunder-cloud, as it were, hovered over them
all. At length, however, Master Wacht's unconstrained good spirits,
seconded by Leberfink's droll sallies, succeeded in calling forth a
tone of conversation which, if it could not be called exactly merry,
yet managed to maintain the balance of concord pretty evenly. After
dinner Master Wacht said, "Let us get a little fresh air and stroll out
to my workyard." And they did so.
Monsieur Pickard Leberfink deliberately kept close to Rettelchen's
side, who was a pattern of friendliness towards him, since the polite
decorator had exhausted himself in praising her dishes, and had
confessed that never so long as he had lived, not even when dining with
the ecclesiastics in Banz,16 had he enjoyed a more delicious meal. As
Master Wacht now hurried on at a quick pace right across the middle of
the workyard, with a large bundle of keys in his hand, the young lawyer
was unintentionally brought close to Nanni. But all that the lovers
ventured upon were stolen sighs and low soft-breathed love-plaints.
Master Wacht came to a halt in front of a fine newly-made door, which
had been constructed in the wall parting his workyard from the
merchant's garden. He unlocked the door and stepped in, inviting his
family to follow him. They, none of them, knew exactly what to make of
the old gentleman, except Herr Pickard Leberfink, who never laid aside
his sly smile, or ceased his soft giggle. In the midst of the beautiful
garden there was a very spacious pavilion; this too Master Wacht
opened, and stepping in remained standing in its centre; from every one
of its windows one obtained a different romantic view. "Yes," said
Master Wacht in a voice that bore witness to a heart well pleased with
itself, "here I am in my own property; this beautiful garden is mine. I
was obliged to buy it, not so much to augment my own place or increase
the value of my property, no! but because I knew that a certain darling
little thing longed so for these shrubs and trees, and for these
beautiful sweet-smelling flower-beds."
Then Nanni threw herself upon the old gentleman's breast and cried, "O
father! father! You will break my heart with your kindness, with your
goodness; do have pity"---- "There, there, say no more," Master Wacht
interrupted his suffering child, "be a good girl, and all may be
brought right in some marvellous way. You can find a great deal of
comfort in this little paradise"---- "Oh! yes, yes, yes," exclaimed
Nanni in a burst of enthusiasm, "O ye trees, ye shrubs, ye flowers, ye
distant hills, you beautiful fleeting evening clouds--my spirit lives
wholly in you all; I shall come to myself again when your sweet voices
comfort me." Therewith Nanni ran out of the open door of the pavilion
into the garden like a startled young roe; and Jonathan, the lawyer,
delayed not to follow her at his fastest speed, for no power would then
have been able to keep him back. Monsieur Pickard Leberfink requested
permission to show Rettelchen round the new property.
Meanwhile old Wacht had beer and tobacco brought to a spot under the
trees, close at the brow of the hill, whence he could look down into
the valley; and there he sat in a right glad and comfortable humour,
puffing the blue clouds of genuine Holland into the air. No doubt my
kindly reader is wondering greatly at this frame of mind in Master
Wacht, and is at a loss to explain to himself how a mood like this was
at all possible to a temperament like Wacht's. He had arrived, not so
much at any determined plan as at the conviction that the Eternal Power
could not possibly let him live to experience such a very terrible
misfortune as that of seeing his favourite child united to a lawyer;
that is, to Satan himself. "Something will happen," he said to himself;
"something must happen, by which either this unhappy affair will be
broken off or Jonathan snatched from the pit of destruction. It would
be rash temerity, nay, perhaps a ruinous piece of mischief, producing
the exact contrary of what was wished, if with my feeble hand I were to
attempt to control the fly-wheel of Destiny."
It is hard to credit what miserable, nay, often what absurd reasons a
man will hunt up in order to represent the approaching misfortune as
avertable. So there were moments in which Wacht built his hopes upon
the arrival of wild Sebastian, whom he pictured to himself as a
stalwart young fellow in the full flush and pride of youth, just on the
point of attaining to manhood, and that he would bring about a change
of direction in the drifting of circumstances, and make things
different from what they then were. The very common, and alas! often
too true idea came into his head, that woman is too greatly impressed
by strong and striking manliness not to be conquered by it at last.
When the sun began to go down, Monsieur Pickard Leberfink invited the
family to go into his garden, which adjoined their own, and take a
little refreshment. Beside Wacht's new possession the noble decorator
and gilder's garden formed a most ridiculous and extraordinary
contrast. Whilst almost too small in size, so that the only thing it
could perhaps boast in its favour was the good height at which it was
situated, it was laid out in Dutch style, the trees and hedges clipped
with the shears in the most scrupulous and pedantic fashion. The
slender stems of the fruit-trees standing in the flower-beds looked
very pretty in their coats of light blue and rose tints, and pale
yellow, and other colours. Leberfink had varnished them, and so
beautified Nature. Moreover they saw in the trees the apples of the
Hesperides.17
But yet several further surprises were in store. Leberfink bade the
girls pluck themselves a nosegay each; but on gathering the flowers
they perceived to their amazement that both stalks and leaves were
gilded. It was also very remarkable that all the leaves which Rettel
took into her hands were shaped like hearts.
The refreshment upon which Leberfink regaled his guests consisted of
the choicest confectionery, the finest sweetmeats, and old Rhine wine
and Muscatel. Rettel was quite beside herself over the confectionery,
observing with special emphasis that such sweetmeats, which were for
the most part splendidly silvered and gilded, were not, she knew made
in Bamberg. Then Monsieur Pickard Leberfink assured her privately, with
a most amorous smirk, that he himself knew a little about baking cakes
and sweets, and that he was the happy maker of all these delicious
dainties. Rettel almost fell upon her knees before him in reverence and
astonishment; and yet the greatest surprise, was still in store for
her.
In the deepening dusk Monsieur Pickard Leberfink very cleverly
contrived to entice little Rettel into a small arbour. No sooner was he
alone with her than he recklessly plumped himself down upon both knees
in the wet grass, notwithstanding that he was wearing his brilliant
green satin hose; and, amidst many strange and unintelligible sounds of
distress--not very dissimilar to the midnight elegies of the tom-cat
Hinz18--he presented her with an immense nosegay of flowers, in the
middle of which was the finest full-blown rose that could be found
anywhere. Rettel did what everybody does who has a nosegay given to
him; she raised it to her nose; but in the selfsame moment she felt a
sharp prick. In her alarm she was about to throw the nosegay away. But
see what charming wonder had revealed itself in the meantime! A
beautifully varnished little cupid had leapt up out of the heart of the
rose and was holding out a burning heart with both hands towards
Rettel. From his mouth depended a small strip of paper on which were
written the words, "Voilà le cœur de Monsieur Pickard Leberfink, que je
vous offre" (Here I offer you the heart of Monsieur Pickard Leberfink).
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Rettel, very much alarmed. "Good gracious!
what are you doing, my good Herr Leberfink? Don't kneel down in front
of me as if I were a princess. You will make marks on your beautiful
satin--in the wet grass, and you will catch cold yourself; but elder
tea and white sugar candy are good remedies."
"No!" exclaimed the desperate lover--"No, O Margaret, Pickard
Leberfink, who loves you with all his heart, will not rise from the wet
grass until you promise to be his"---- "You want to marry me?" asked
Rettel. "Well then, up you get at once. Speak to my father, darling
Leberfink, and drink one or two cups of elder tea this evening."
Why should the reader be longer wearied with Leberfink's and Rettel's
folly? They were made for each other, and were betrothed, at which
Father Wacht was right glad in his own teasing, humorous way.
A certain degree of life was introduced into Wacht's house by Rettel's
betrothal; and even the disconsolate lovers had more freedom, since
they were less observed. But something of a quite special character was
to happen to put an abrupt end to this quiet and comfortable condition
in which they were all living. The young lawyer seemed particularly
preoccupied, and his thoughts busy with some affair or another that
absorbed all his energies; his visits at Wacht's house even began to be
less frequent, and he often stayed away in the evening--a thing he had
never been wont to do previously. "What can be the matter with our
Jonathan? He is completely preoccupied; he's quite another fellow from
what he used to be," said Master Wacht, although he knew very well what
was the cause, or rather the event, which was exercising such a visible
influence upon the young lawyer, at least to all outward appearance. To
tell the truth, he looked upon this event as the dispensation of
Providence through which he should perhaps escape the great misfortune
by which he believed himself threatened, and which he felt would
completely upset all the happiness of his life.
Some few months previously a young and unknown lady had arrived in
Bamberg, and under circumstances which could only be called singular
and mysterious. She was staying at the "White Lamb." All the servants
she had with her were an old grey-haired manservant and an old lady's-
maid. Very various were the opinions current about her. Many maintained
she was a distinguished and immensely rich Hungarian countess, who,
owing to matrimonial dissensions, was compelled to take up her
residence in solitary retirement in Bamberg for a time. Others, on the
contrary, set her down as an ordinary forsaken Dido, and yet others as
an itinerant singer, who would soon throw off her veil of nobility and
announce herself as about to give a concert,--possibly she had no
recommendations to the Prince-bishop. At any rate the majority were
unanimous in making up their minds to regard the stranger, who,
according to the statements of the few persons who had seen her, was of
exceptional beauty, as an extremely ambiguous person.
It had been noticed that the stranger lady's old man-servant had
followed the young lawyer about a long time, until one day he caught
him at the spring in the market-place, which is ornamented with an
image of Neptune (whom the honest folk of Bamberg are generally in the
habit of calling the Fork-man); and there the old man stood talking to
Jonathan a long, long time. Spirits alive to all that goes forward, who
can never meet anybody without asking eagerly, "Wherever has he been?
Wherever is he going? Whatever is he doing?" and so on, had made out
that the young advocate very often visited the beautiful unknown, in
fact almost every day and at night-time, when he spent several hours
with her. It was soon the talk of the town that the lawyer Jonathan
Engelbrecht had got entangled in the dangerous toils of the young
unknown adventuress.
It would have been, both then and always, entirely contrary to Master
Wacht's character to make use of this apparent erring conduct of the
young advocate as a weapon against poor Nanni. He left it to Dame
Barbara and her whole following of gossips to keep Nanni informed of
all particulars; from them she would learn every item of intelligence,
and that, he made no doubt, with a due amplification of all the
details. The crisis of the whole affair was reached when one day the
young lawyer suddenly set off on a journey along with the lady, nobody
knew whither. "That's the way frivolity goes on; the forward young
gentleman will lose his business," said the knowing ones. But this was
not the case; for not a little to the astonishment of the public, old
Eichheimer himself attended to his foster-son's business with the most
painstaking care; he seemed to be initiated into the secret about the
lady and to approve of all the steps taken by his foster-son.
Master Wacht never spoke a word about the matter, and once when poor
Nanni could no longer hide her trouble, but moaned in a low tone, her
voice half-choked with tears, "Why has Jonathan left us?" Master Wacht
replied in an off-handed way, "Ay, that's just what lawyers do. Who
knows what sort of an intrigue Jonathan has got entangled in with the
stranger, thinking it will bring him money, and be to his advantage?"
Then, however, Herr Pickard Leberfink was wont to take Jonathan's side,
and to assert that he for his part was convinced the stranger could be
nothing less than a princess, who had had recourse to the already
world-renowned young advocate in an extremely delicate law-suit And
therewith he also unearthed so many stories about lawyers who, through
especial sagacity and especial penetration and skill, had unravelled
the most complicated difficulties, and brought to light the most
closely hidden things, till Master Wacht begged him for goodness' sake
to hold his tongue, since he was feeling quite ill and sick; Nanni, on
the contrary, derived inward comfort from all Leberfink's remarkable
stories, and she plucked up her hopes again. With her trouble, however,
there was united a perceptible mixture of annoyance and anger, and
particularly at the moments when it seemed to her utterly impossible
that Jonathan could have been untrue to her. From this it might be
inferred that Jonathan had not sought to exculpate himself, but had
obstinately maintained silence about his adventure.
After some months had elapsed the young lawyer came back to Bamberg in
the highest good spirits; and Master Wacht, on seeing the bright glad
light in Nanni's eyes when she looked at him, could not well do
otherwise than conclude that Jonathan had fully justified his conduct
to her. Doubtless it would not be disagreeable to the indulgent reader
to have the history of what had taken place between the stranger lady
and the young lawyer inserted here as an episodical _novella_.
Count Z----, a Hungarian, owner of more than a million, married from
pure affection a miserably poor girl, who drew down upon her head the
hatred of his family, not only because her own family was enshrouded in
complete obscurity, but also because the only valuable treasures she
possessed were her divine virtue, beauty, and grace. The Count promised
his wife that at his death he would settle all his property upon her by
will.
Once when he returned to Vienna into the arms of his wife, after having
been summoned from Paris to St. Petersburg on diplomatic business, he
related to her that he had been attacked by a severe illness in a
little town, the name of which he had quite forgotten; there he had
seized the opportunity whilst recovering from his illness to draw up a
will in her favour and deposit it with the court. Some miles farther on
the road he must have been seized with a new and doubly virulent attack
of his grave nervous complaint, so that the name of the place where he
had made his will and that of the court where he had deposited it had
completely slipped his memory; moreover, he had lost the document of
receipt from the court acknowledging the deposition of the testament.
As so often happens in similar cases the Count postponed the making of
a new will from day to day, until he was overtaken by death. Then his
relatives did not neglect to lay claim to all the property he left
behind him, so that the poor Countess saw her too rich inheritance
melted down to the insignificant sum represented by certain valuable
presents she had received from the Count, and which his relatives could
not deprive her of. Many different notifications bearing upon the
features of the case were found amongst the Count's papers; but since
such statements, that a will was in existence, could not take the place
of the will itself, they proved not to be of the slightest advantage to
the Countess. She had consulted many learned lawyers about her
unfortunate situation, and had finally come to Bamberg to have recourse
to old Eichheimer; but he had directed her to young Engelbrecht, who,
being less busy and equipped with excellent intellectual acuteness and
great love for his profession, would perhaps be able to get a clue to
the unfortunate will or furnish some other circumstantial proof of its
actual existence.
The young advocate set to work by requesting permission of the
competent authorities to submit the Count's papers in the castle to
another searching investigation. He himself went thither along with the
Countess; and in the presence of the officials of the court he found in
a cupboard of nut-wood, that had hitherto escaped observation, an old
portfolio, in which, though they did not find the Count's document of
receipt relating to the deposition of the will, they yet discovered a
paper which could not fail to be of the utmost importance for the young
advocate's purpose. For this paper contained an accurate description of
all the circumstances, even the minutest details, under which the Count
had made a will in favour of his wife and deposited it in the keeping
of a court. The Count's diplomatic journey from Paris to Petersburg had
brought him to Königsberg in Prussia. Here he chanced to come across
some East Prussian noblemen, whom he had previously met with whilst on
a visit to Italy. In spite of the express rate at which the Count was
travelling, he nevertheless suffered himself to be persuaded to make a
short excursion into East Prussia, particularly as the big hunts had
begun, and the Count was a passionate sportsman. He named the towns
Wehlau, Allenburg, Friedland, &c., as places where he had been. Then he
set out to go straight forwards directly to the Russian frontier,
without returning to Königsberg.