Apollonius had also told the councilman of his decision. It hurt him

that the good man--who usually approved of everything that Apollonius

wanted to do, in advance, as if the latter could not do anything that

he would not be obliged to approve--received his news with odd,

wondering, monosyllabic coldness. He pressed him to tell him the

reason for this change. The two good men understood each other easily.

After recovering from his surprise at finding Apollonius in ignorance

of it, the councilman told him what he knew of his brother's mode of

life and expressed the opinion that his father's house and business

could not exist without Apollonius' aid. He promised to make further

inquiries about the matter, and was soon able to enlighten Apollonius

as to the details. Here and there in the town his brother owed not

inconsiderable sums; the slate business, particularly of late, had

been so carelessly and unconscientiously carried on that some

customers of many years' standing had already withdrawn their

patronage, and others were about to do so. Apollonius was frightened.

He thought of his father, of his sister-in-law and of her children. He

thought of himself too, but it was just his own strong sense of honor

that made him first imagine what the proud, upright, blind old man

would have to suffer under the disgrace of a possible bankruptcy. He

would be able to earn his bread; but his brother's wife and children?

And they were not accustomed to hardship. He had heard that

Christiane's inheritance from her parents had been considerable. He

took heart. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. And he wanted

to save it. He would not stop at any sacrifice of time and strength

and property. If he could not hinder the decline, at least those who

were dear to him should not want.

The staunch councilman rejoiced at his favorite's view of the matter,

on which indeed he had reckoned; he had thought it odd that Apollonius

had not shown it before. He offered him his aid, saying that he had

neither wife nor child and that God had permitted him to acquire

something so that he might help a friend with it. Apollonius did not

as yet accept his offer. He wanted first to see how matters stood and

to feel sure that he could remain an honest man if he took his friend

at his word.

Hard days came for Apollonius. His old father must as yet know

nothing, and, if it were possible to uphold his honor, should never

learn that it had tottered. In his treatment of his brother Apollonius

required all his firmness and all his gentleness.

After having found out who the creditors were and what the various

sums amounted to, Apollonius examined the condition of the business

and found it even more confused than he had feared. The books were in

disorder; for some time no more entries had been made at all. Letters

from customers were found complaining of the poor quality of the

material delivered and of carelessness in the execution of their

orders; others, with bills inclosed, were from the owner of the quarry

who did not want to take any new orders on credit until the old ones

were paid. The greater part of Christiane's fortune was gone;

Apollonius had to force his brother to produce the remains of it. He

was obliged to threaten him with court proceedings. What did not

Apollonius, with his punctilious love of order, suffer in the midst of

such confusion! What did he not go through, with his intense love of

his family, in having to act thus toward his brother! And yet the

latter saw in every utterance, every act of this man who was suffering

so, only badly concealed triumph. After infinite pains Apollonius

succeeded in getting a comprehensive survey of the state of affairs.

If the creditors could be persuaded to have patience and the customers

who had transferred their business could be won back again, it would

be possible, with strict economy, industry and conscientiousness, to

save the honor of the house; and, by untiring effort, he might succeed

in assuring to his brother's children at least an unincumbered

business as their inheritance.

Apollonius wrote at once to the customers and then went to his

brother's creditors. The former agreed to give the house another

trial. Among the latter he had the pleasure of learning what

confidence he had already won in his home town. In every case if he

would stand security the creditor was willing to allow the sum owing

to remain as a loan, at low interest, to be gradually paid off. Some

of them even wanted to intrust him with cash in addition. He did not

attempt to test the sincerity of these offers by accepting them, and

thus only added to the confidence that those who made them felt in

him. Then he modestly and gently explained to his brother what he had

done and still wanted to do. Reproaches could not do any good, and he

thought that admonitions were superfluous where the necessity was so

plain. If from now on Apollonius, acting alone and independently, took

over the management of the whole, of the business and of the

household, his brother surely could not see in his conduct any

voluntary derogation. In a matter in which he had staked his honor he

must have a free hand.

Above all things the selling end of the business must once more be

brought up to its former standing. The quality of the material

delivered by the owner of the quarry had steadily deteriorated, and

his brother had been obliged to accept it in order to get any material

at all. The other creditors' offers, to let the money owing them stand

as loans, he accepted, in order to settle the quarry owner's old

account with what could at once be liquidated of the remnant of

Christiane's fortune, and to pay cash at once for a new order. Thus it

was possible to obtain good material again at a reasonable price and

to satisfy his purchasers. The owner of the quarry, who on this

occasion made Apollonius' acquaintance and saw something of his

knowledge of the material and of its treatment, made him an offer, as

he himself was old and tired of work, to lease him the quarry. The

conditions under which he was willing to do this would have allowed

Apollonius to reckon on large profits; but as long as he had only

himself to depend upon in his difficult situation, he could not divide

his strength among several enterprises.

Apollonius made his plan for the first year and fixed a certain sum

which his brother was to receive from him weekly for his household

expenses. He dismissed as many of the hands as he could possibly

spare. He put the faithful Valentine in charge during the time that he

himself was obliged to be busy about affairs outside. There was a

well-founded suspicion that the disagreeable-looking workman had been

guilty of various dishonest acts. Fritz Nettenmair, who clung to the

guardian of his honor as to its last bulwark, did everything he could

to justify him and thus to keep him in the house. He explained that he

had given the man express orders to do all the things of which he was

accused. Apollonius would have liked to have made a legal complaint

against the fellow, but he was obliged to be content with paying him

off and forbidding him the house. Apollonius was inexorable, gentle

though he was in putting his reasons before his brother. Any

unprejudiced person would have to admit that he could not do

otherwise, that the fellow must go. And with a savage laugh Fritz

Nettenmair, too, thought, when he was alone, "Of course he must go!"

Whatever Apollonius showed him, strictness and gentleness merely

strengthened him in the belief that relaxed its hold upon him the less

the longer he nourished it and that grew the thirstier for his heart's

blood the longer he fed it from that fount. He saw no further obstacle

to prevent his brother's criminal intention from succeeding.

From now on his state of mind alternated between despairing

resignation to what could no longer be prevented, what had already

probably taken place, and feverish endeavors to prevent it

notwithstanding. In accordance with these two moods his behavior

toward Apollonius took the form of unconcealed obstinacy or of

cringing and vigilant dissimulation. When the first mood governed him

he sought forgetfulness day and night. Unfortunately the discharged

workman had found employment in a quarry near by and was his companion

on many a night. The important people turned away from him, and

revenged themselves on him with unconcealed contempt for the desire

that he had awakened in them and could no longer satisfy. He avoided

them, and followed the workman into places where the latter was at

home. There he sounded his jovial condescension an octave lower. The

gin-shops now rang with his jokes; and they took on more and more the

character of the surroundings.

Roofs that are covered with metal or tiles usually require repairing

only after a number of years have elapsed; it is different with slate

roofs. While the roof is being covered damage to the slates from the

scaffolds and the workmen's feet cannot be avoided. And such damage

often does not become apparent until afterward. Often more

considerable repairs are required during the three years immediately

following the covering of the roof than for fifty years afterward. The

roof of St. George's added its testimony to the truth of this old

experience. The slate roof of the tower, on the contrary, which

Apollonius had attended to alone, bore gratifying witness to its

maker's obstinate conscientiousness. The jackdaws who inhabited it

would have been left in peace by his swinging seat for a long time if

an old master-tinsmith had not chosen to show his ecclesiastical

leanings by donating a tin ornament. This wreath of tin flowers which

Apollonius was to lay around the tower roof was now the cause of his

once more fastening his ladder to the broach-post. A little more than

six months had elapsed since he had taken it down.

In the meantime his strenuous efforts had not been without success. He

had kept his old customers and won new ones in addition. His creditors

had their interest and a small payment on the principal for the first

year; confidence in Apollonius and respect for him grew from day to

day and with them grew his hope and his strength, for which he paid by

redoubled exertions. If only the same thing could have been said of

his brother, of the understanding between him and his wife!

It was fortunate for Apollonius that he had to put his whole soul into

his purpose, that he had no time to follow his brother with his eye

and heart, to see how the man whom he was trying to save sank deeper

and deeper. When he rejoiced in his success, he did so from a feeling

of loyalty to his brother and his brother's family; Fritz saw

something quite different in his rejoicing and thought of nothing but

of how to destroy it.

In the beginning he had given his wife the greater part of the money

that he received weekly for his household expenses. Then he began to

keep back more and more and finally he carried the whole of it into

the places where the need of buying flatterers by treating them had

followed him more faithfully than had the respect of the town. The

experience he had had with the "important" people had not converted

him. His wife had been obliged to get on with less and less. Old

Valentine saw her distress, and from now on the house money went

through his, instead of her husband's, hands. Finally Valentine became

her treasurer, and never gave her more than she needed at the moment

because money was no longer safe from her husband in her hands.

She used what time she had from her housekeeping and her children in

doing different pieces of work which Valentine, as her agent, sold for

her. The money that she thus received she used partly--she herself

would rather go hungry even though she could not see her children do

so--to adorn the living-room with all kinds of things that she knew

that Apollonius loved. And yet she knew that Apollonius never came in

there, that he never saw it. But then, she would not have done it if

she had known that he would see it. Her husband saw it as often as he

came into the room. Nothing escaped his eyes that might act as an

excuse for his anger and his hatred. Then he began to abuse

Apollonius, and in such terms as if he too must now show how much it

is possible to acquire of another person's manner.

If the children were present it was his wife's first care to send them

away. They must not witness his roughness and learn to despise their

father--not for his sake but for their own. He did not betray how glad

he was to be rid of the "spies." He feared that the children would

complain of him to Apollonius. He did not think that his wife would

complain herself, although he assumed that she and Apollonius met each

other. Everything that he saw in the room was to him a fresh proof of

his shame. How could he believe that it was for any other purpose than

to be noticed by Apollonius? Then, when she told him that he might

abuse her, only not Apollonius, the keen eye of jealousy showed him

what pleasure she took in suffering for Apollonius. He reproached her

with it, and she did not deny it. She said to him: "Because he suffers

for me and for my children. He gives what he has been at great pains

to save to take the place of the weekly sum of which the father has

robbed his children."

"And he tells you that? He tells you that!" said the man, laughing

with savage joy at having trapped her into a confession that she met

him.

"Not he," returned his wife angrily, because the man she despised was

judging Apollonius by himself. "Old Valentine told me." She went on to

tell him that Valentine had sold as his own the watch that Apollonius

had brought with him from Cologne. Apollonius had forbidden him to

tell her.

"And also to tell you that he forbade him?" laughed her husband. And

there was something of contempt in his laugh. Such things might indeed

be believed of the dreamer; but now he would not believe it of him.

"Of course!" he laughed still more wildly. "Even a stupider fellow

than that dreamer knows that no woman will do it for nothing. The

worst of them thinks herself worth something. One with such hair and

such eyes and such a body!" He seized her by the hair and gazed into

her eyes with a glance before which purity must blush; only depravity

could meet it and laugh. He took her blush for a confession and

laughed still more wildly. "You want to say that I am worse than he.

Ha, Ha! You're right; I married such a woman. He wouldn't have done

that. He isn't bad enough for that!"

Old Valentine must have failed to keep his word, or else Apollonius

passed the door by chance when his brother believed him far away. He

heard his brother's savage outbreak of anger, he heard the clear tone

of the wife's voice, still clear and melodious in spite of her

excitement. He heard them both without understanding what they were

saying. He was shocked. He had not imagined that the breach between

them had gone so far. And he was the cause of this breach. He must do

what he could to improve matters.

His brother stood in his threatening attitude as if turned to stone

when he caught sight of Apollonius entering. He had the feeling of a

man suddenly surprised while doing a wrong. If Apollonius had turned

on him as he deserved he would have groveled before him. But

Apollonius wanted to reconcile them, and said so calmly and from his

heart. He might indeed have known, for he had experienced it often

enough, that his gentleness only gave his brother the courage to be

sneeringly obstinate. It was the same this time. Fritz sneered at him,

laughing savagely, and said that he was making an excuse where he was

master. Was that the reason he had made himself master of the house?

He knew that in Apollonius' place he would have behaved quite

differently. He would have let the woman feel it whom he knew to be in

his power. He was an honest fellow, and did not need to pretend to be

so sweet. It occurred to him, moreover, how often he had sneaked about

the door in vain, hoping to surprise Apollonius in the room. Now he

was in the room. He had come in because he had not expected to find

him. It was Apollonius who must be startled, Apollonius was the person

caught, not he. The reconciliation was merely the first excuse on

which Apollonius had seized. That was why he was so meek. That was why

his wife was frightened--she had been trying to make him believe that

Apollonius never came into the room. That was why she looked up at him

so pleadingly. The contemptuous gaze with which she had just measured

him had suddenly been torn from her consciously guilty face with the

mask of pretended innocence. Now he knew with certainty: there was no

longer anything to prevent; nothing remained to him but retribution.

Now he could show his brother that he knew him, had always known him.

He pointed to his wife. "She's begging me to go. Why should I? I'll

look out of the window. That will do just as well. I shan't see what

you are doing."

Apollonius did not understand him. Christiane knew that he did not,

without looking at him. She tried to leave the room. She could not

endure to be humiliated in Apollonius' presence till she was nothing

but dirt under his feet. Her husband held her with a savage grip. He

seized her with the swoop of a bird of prey. She would have had to

scream aloud if her mental torture had not deadened her physical pain.

"Don't mind her wanting to go away," gasped Fritz Nettenmair, stifled

with unnatural laughter, and held his brother with his eye as he held

his wife with his hand. "You needn't be afraid. Just as soon as I turn

my back she will be here again. Go on, talk to each other. Go on, tell

him that you can't bear him; I believe it of course; what won't a man

believe if a woman like you tells him so? And you, give her some of

your teachings from Cologne, where you learnt everything, how to drive

your brother out of his house and business so as to--hm--well--Ha, ha!

Why don't you tell her? A woman ought to be willing. Oh, such a

willing woman is--go on, tell her what that kind of a woman is. She

doesn't know it yet, innocent as she is! Ha, ha!"

Apollonius understood nothing of what he heard and saw; but the abuse

of a man's strength on a helpless woman filled him with indignation.

Involuntarily this feeling carried him away. It doubled his strength,

which was far superior to his brother's at all times, when he gripped

him by the arm that held his wife so that it let go its prey and

dropped as if paralyzed. Christiane tried to leave the room, but she

collapsed helplessly. Apollonius caught her and laid her on the sofa,

supported against its back. Then he stood before his brother like a

wrathful angel.

"I have tried to win you by gentleness, but you are not worthy of it.

I have endured much at your hands and will continue to endure," said

Apollonius; "you are my brother. You blame me for having driven you

into misfortune; God is my witness that I have done everything that I

knew to hold you back. For whom have I done what you reproach me with

doing, if not for you, and for the sake of your honor and to save your

wife and your children? Who compelled me to be hard on you? For whom

do I work? For whom am I doing all that I do? If you knew how it hurts

me to have you force me to tell you what I am doing for you! God

knows, you force me to it; I have never done it yet, not with others,

nor with myself. You know that you are only seeking an excuse to be

unbrotherly toward me. I know it, and will continue to endure you as I

have done till now. But that you should make an excuse of your wife's

dislike of me to torture her too, and to treat her as no good man

treats a good woman, that I will not stand."

Fritz Nettenmair burst into a horrible laugh. His brother had put him

to shame in every way, and now still wanted to play the virtuous hero

to him, the innocently offended, the chivalrous protector of the

innocently offended woman. "A good woman! Such a good woman! Oh yes

indeed! Is she not? You say so--and you are a good man. Ha, ha! Who

should know better whether a woman is good or not than such a good

man? You have not robbed me of everything? You have still to rob me of

my reason so that I shall believe your fairy-tale. She dislikes you?

She can't bear you? Oh, you don't know yet how much she dislikes you.

I need only be away, then she will tell you. Then it will be bad for

you! She will strangle you to make you believe her. When I am present

she won't tell you. A woman won't tell a thing like that when her

husband is there--a good woman, as she is. Why don't you say that you

can't bear her either? Oh, I have no longer any sense! I'll believe

anything that you two tell me!"

Forgetting everything but his passion, Fritz Nettenmair was convinced

that Christiane and Apollonius had invented the fairy-tale of her

dislike.

Apollonius stood shocked. He was obliged to say to himself what he did

not want to believe. His brother read in his face terror at the light

that was breaking in on him, dismay and pain at the misconstruction

put upon his conduct. And everything that he saw was so genuine that

even he was obliged to believe it. He was silenced by the thoughts

that pierced his brain like strokes of lightning. So it might still

have been prevented after all; what must come might still have been

hindered! And again it was he, himself--But Apollonius--he saw that in

spite of his confusion--still doubted and could not believe. So he

might still destroy the effects of his madness, might still perhaps

prevent, still hinder what must come, even if it were only for today

and tomorrow. But how? Should he make a wild joke out of the whole

scene? Such jokes were not unusual with him, and in his mind

Apollonius once more became the dreamer of old who believed everything

that was told him. He broke into a laugh, a fearful caricature of the

jovial laugh with which he had formerly been accustomed to reward his

own sallies. That was a confounded joke, that Apollonius could be made

to believe that Fritz Nettenmair was jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair

jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair! And, better still, of him. He had

never heard a more confounded joke than that! He read in his wife's

face how relieved she was at the turn he had given to the scene. He

dared to appeal to her to confirm the fact that it was a confounded

joke. Her "yes" made him still bolder. Now he laughed at his wife who

could be "confounded" enough to reproach him angrily with having made

her dependent on the favor of the man she hated, and explained

laughingly that it was such things that gave rise to little quarrels

in married life. He laughed at Apollonius for taking such a little

dispute so seriously. He asked to be shown the married people who

didn't have such disagreements now and then. It was easy to see that

Apollonius was still a bachelor!

Apollonius heard the councilman's voice in the hall, asking for him;

he went out quickly so that the councilman should not come in and be a

witness to the scene. His brother heard them going away together. He

was far from being reassured yet. When he went out Apollonius' face

had shown that he was still struggling with the thought that had

dawned on him.

Two passions were fighting against each other in Fritz Nettenmair's

soul. The dissolute habit of forgetting himself in drink drew him out

of the house by a hundred chains; jealous fear held him at home with a

thousand talons. If his brother had not yet thought of what he might

have if he liked, he himself had now introduced the thought into his

mind. All day long he turned his fear over and over and did not let

his wife out of his sight. Not until it had all grown quiet around

him, till his wife had put the children to bed and laid herself to

rest, till he no longer saw any light in Apollonius' windows, did the

talons relax their hold and the chains draw the stronger. He locked

the back door which separated Apollonius from the rest of the house,

he even bolted it as well, and locked the door of the stairs leading

to the piazza and finally the door at which he went out. He had cause

for haste without knowing it. The disagreeable-looking workman could

not stay much longer. Fritz Nettenmair did not yet know that

Apollonius had been to the quarry owner and succeeded in having the

workman dismissed, had talked to the police and brought it about that

the workman might no longer let himself be seen in the neighborhood on

the morrow. The workman was ready for his departure; from the public

house he was going straight out into the wide world. He only wanted to

take leave of his former master and tell him something more before he

went.

There was little left in the world to which Fritz Nettenmair was

attached. The road that he had been traveling led farther and farther

down from what he loved most; it was irretrievably lost to him. He

would never again be the centre of admiration and flattery. All that

still bound him to his wife was the searing chain of jealousy. He

never had been fond of his father; he hated his brother. He knew

himself to be hated or, in his madness, believed himself to be hated.

Little Annie would have clung to him with all the strength of a

child's heart longing to be loved, but he drove her away from him with

hatred; to him she was "the spy." To one man alone did his heart

cling, to the one who least deserved it. He knew that the man had

cheated him, had helped to ruin him, and still he clung to him. The

man hated Apollonius, he was the only person besides himself who hated

Apollonius and therefore Apollonius' brother clung to him!

Fritz Nettenmair accompanied the workman a part of his way. The

workman wanted to walk faster, so he thanked him for his company,

intending to proceed alone. When others part their last words are of

what they both love; Fritz Nettenmair's and the workman's last words

were of their hatred. The workman knew that Apollonius would have

liked to have put him in the penitentiary, if he could. As the two now

stood facing each other at parting, the workman measured the other

with his eye. It was an evil, lurking glance, a grimly surreptitious

glance that asked Fritz Nettenmair, without intending to be heard,

whether he was ready for something which the workman did not name.

Then he said, in a hoarse voice which would have struck the other but

that Fritz Nettenmair was accustomed to it: "What was it I wanted to

say? Oh, yes, you will soon be in mourning. I saw him the other day."

He did not need to mention any name, Fritz Nettenmair knew whom he

meant. "There are people who see more than others," the workman

continued, "there are people who can see in a slater's face if he is

doomed to fall that year, who see him being carried home, and see him

lying there, only he is not there any more. An old slater told me the

secret of how to see with the 'second sight.' I have it. And now

farewell. Meet it with resignation when they carry him home."

The workman had left him; his steps were already growing faint in the

distance. Fritz Nettenmair still stood and gazed into the white-gray

fog into which the workman had disappeared. The layers of fog hung

horizontally above the meadows by the street spread out like a cloth.

They rose and melted together, forming strange shapes, they curled,

floated apart and sank down again only to rear themselves once more.

They hung on the branches of the willows by the way, now veiling them,

now leaving them free, till it seemed uncertain whether the fog was

dissolving into trees or the trees into fog. It was a dreamlike

activity, untiring movement without aim or purpose. It was a picture

of what was going on in Fritz Nettenmair's soul, such a true picture

that he did not know whether he was looking at something outside or

something within himself. There came a hazy bending down and wringing

of hands about a pale figure on the ground, then a slowly moving

funeral procession, and now it was his enemy, his brother who lay

there, whom they carried. Now malicious joy flamed up sharply, died

down and pity took its place, now both were mixed and one tried to

hide the other. The figure lying there, whom they carried, Fritz

forgave everything. He wept over him; for in the intervals of the

funeral song the merry dance-tune sounded softly which the future

struck up: "There he comes! Now the fun will begin!" And beside the

dead lay a second corpse, invisible, his fear of what must come if his

poor brother did not lie dead. And in the coffin, Fritz Nettenmair's

old jovial happiness put forth new buds. Fritz Nettenmair felt himself

to be an angel; he wished that his brother need not die, because--he

knew that his brother must die.

He was still walking in the fog when the pavement of the town sounded

again under his feet. He had forgotten a past, he forgot the present,

for the future was his again. And he was one who--as he turned into

his street the old words rang as jovially as they ever did.

It gave him a curious feeling to think that through the door which he

had just opened a coffin was going to be carried out. Involuntarily he

stood aside as if to let the procession pass him. "We must submit," he

said softly, as if repeating to himself what he would have to answer

some one offering him consolation when once the time had come, "We

must submit to what is unalterable." And as he raised his shoulders in

accompaniment to the words, he perceived a faint glimmer of light. He

looked up; the light came through the crack between the lower part of

the shutter and the window ledge. There was a light in there, in the

living-room. "So late?" He gasped; the load lies again on his breast.

His brother was still alive; and what must come if he were not to die,

might still come before he died, or--it was already here! How swiftly

his hands moved--and yet the door was locked again quietly in an

instant! Just as softly and just as quickly he went to the back door.

It was not open, but the key was only turned once in the lock, and

Fritz Nettenmair could swear to it that he turned it twice before he

went. He felt his way to the door of the room; he found the latch and

gently pressed it; the door opened; a faint glimmer shone out into the

hall. It came from a covered light on the table; beside the table a

small bed stood in the shadow. It was little Annie's bed, and her

mother was sitting beside it.

Christiane did not notice the opening of the door. Her head was bent

low down over the bed; she was singing softly and did not know what

she was singing; she was listening full of fear, but not to her song;

she would cry if the tears did not dim her eyes. But now the color

might come back to the child's cheek again, the strange expression

about the child's eyes and mouth might disappear, and she might fail

to see it and might fear in vain. It seemed to her as if the color

must come and the expression change if she only tried hard enough to

notice this coming and going. And at the same time she was able to

think how suddenly this thing had come that had made her so afraid;

how little Annie in the bed beside her own, suddenly cried out in a

strange voice and then could not speak any more; how she jumped up and

dressed; how she waked Valentine in her distress, and he, without her

knowledge, waked Apollonius. The old fellow had tried all the keys in

the house until he found that the key of the shed opened the back

door; she did not know that. So much the more vividly did she picture

how Apollonius came in, how she felt at his unexpected appearance,

full of terror and shame and yet wonderfully tranquillized. Apollonius

had fetched the doctor at once and medicines. He had stood by the bed

and bent over little Annie as she did now. He had looked at her full

of pain and said that little Annie's illness was owing to the discord

between herself and her husband, and that she would not get well

unless this ceased. He had told her of the miracles that are possible

to a mother and of how men and women can and must conquer themselves.

Then he had given Valentine a few more orders relating to little Annie

and had left, fearing that his brother, in his error, might otherwise

believe that he wanted to drive him away from the sick-bed of his

children. Apollonius had said that little Annie would not get well

again if the discord did not cease. He had said that people can and

must conquer themselves; Christiane determined to conquer herself

because he had said so. A mother could do miracles for her child; if

she thought of Apollonius' face when he spoke thus, the greatest

miracle must become possible to her.

Fritz Nettenmair entered. He thought of nothing but that Apollonius

must have been there, even if he were not there any longer. Everything

danced before his eyes he was in such a fury. He would have flown at

his wife if he had not seen old Valentine sitting at the door of the

bedroom. He meant to wait till the old man had left the room, and

crept to the chair at the window where he had always sat formerly,

when he was such a different man. His wife heard his soft tread; she

could not see his face. It seemed to her that he knew of little

Annie's condition and walked so softly on that account. She looked at

little Annie with a glance that said, that what she was about to do

now she would do for the sake of her sick child; a glance at the door

by which he had gone out added: "And because he said I should."

"Here is father, Annie," she said. In reality she was talking to her

husband who sat at the window, but she could not turn her face toward

him, could not address her words directly to him. "You always asked

for him, you know. You thought that when he came he would be as he

used to be before you were sick. Mother wants him to be like that

too--for your sake."

Her voice came from so deep down in her chest that the man had to

force himself to control his rage. He thought: "She is speaking so

sweetly so as to deceive me. They planned that when he was here." And

the soft tones in which she continued only caused his anger to swell

more wrathfully.

"And you won't go to Heaven yet, will you Annie? You're such a good

little girl and you'll stay with father and mother. If only--you

mustn't be afraid of father, you silly little Annie, because he speaks

so loud. He doesn't mean to be cross."

She stopped; she expected an answer from the father, not from the

child. She expected that he would come to the bed and speak to the

child as she had done, and through the child with her. Whatever she

might think of him, the child was his child, after all, and it was

ill.

The man remained silent and sat on quietly in his chair. For the

length of time that it takes to say half the Lord's Prayer there was

no sound but the ticking of the clock; and that grew faster and faster

like the beating of a human heart that feels misfortune approaching.

The flame of the light flickered as with fear.

Valentine rose from his chair to attend to the light.

There was a sound of wheezing in the child's chest; she wanted to

speak and could not. She wanted to stretch out her hands toward her

father, and she could not. She could do nothing but hold out the arms

of her soul to her father. But her father's soul did not see the

beseeching arms; it held its wrath convulsively in its hands and had

no hand free for the child. Valentine stepped away from the light and

went out to give vent to his feelings in tears. The man rose and

approached his wife softly without her noticing him. He wanted to

surprise her, and he succeeded. She started, frightened, as she

suddenly saw facing her across the bed a distorted human countenance.

She started, and he said through his teeth: "You are frightened? Do

you know why?"

She meant to tell him herself that Apollonius had been there, but she

had not yet had an opportunity; she did not dare to do so at the sick

child's bedside, because she knew that he would fly into a rage;

whenever she could she had spared the child the sight of his roughness

while she was still well; now it might frighten the little girl to

death. She did not answer him, but looked at him beseechingly,

indicating the child by a glance.

"He was here! Wasn't he here?" he asked, not for information but to

show that he did not need any. He raised his clenched fist; little

Annie struggled to sit up. He did not see it; but his wife saw it, and

her terror grew. She clasped her hands, she looked at him with a

glance in which there was everything that a woman can promise, that a

woman can threaten. He saw only her terror at his knowing what had

happened--and his fist descended on her forehead.

There was a shriek. The child writhed in convulsions; the mother, who

had fallen upon her, wept loudly. Valentine hurried in, Fritz

Nettenmair went into the bedroom. He did not know which was uppermost

in him, gratified revenge or fright at what he had done. He sank down

on the bed as if the blow that he struck had stunned himself. He only

half heard Valentine running for the doctor. In the same state he

heard the latter come and go, and in the same state he listened to see

if he could hear Apollonius' voice whispering and his soft tread. He

did not dare to show himself; shame restrained him. He justified his

behavior and called little Annie's illness just a desire to be

coddled. "Children think they're dying one day, and the next they're

more lively than ever," he said to himself.

His feverish listening and efforts to reassure himself turned into

feverish dreaming. Between waking and sleeping he heard quiet steps in

the next room, quiet voices, quiet weeping, and at intervals silence.

The quiet weeping that grows loud and is controlled again as if a

sleeper were near whom it will not wake, that breaks out again as if

it could not wake the sleeper, and again grows soft as if it were

frightened at itself for being so loud when every one is quiet: who

does not know such weeping? Who does not guess what it means, even if

he does not know it?

Fritz Nettenmair knew it, half asleep; there was a dead person in the

next room. They had brought him home. "We must submit to what is

unalterable."

For the first time for many months he slept quietly again.

And why should he not? The quiet weeping turned into a merry waltz.

"There he is! Now the fun will begin"--the words rang triumphantly

from the "Red Eagle Tavern" in the distance, into his sleep.

But the quiet steps and the quiet voices were real, and they

continued; and there was a dead body in the next room, the beautiful,

dead body of a child. The breach between the parents had made the

child ill; pain at her father's savage attack on her mother had broken

her little heart.

When the new day sent its first glimmer of light through his window,

Apollonius rose from the chair on which he had sat ever since his

return to his room. There was something solemn in the manner in which

he stood upright. He seemed to say to himself: "If it is as I fear, I

must act for us both; it is for that that I am a man. I have sworn to

uphold my father's house and his honor, and I will do what I have

sworn to do, in every sense."

Fritz Nettenmair woke at last. He knew nothing more of the

dream-scenes of the night. He only knew that his wife had magnified

the "spy's" desire to be coddled into an illness so that she might

have an excuse for being together with "him." He began to think of how

he should put an end to this coddling. With this idea in his mind he

stepped through the door and stood--before a dead body. A shudder ran

over him. The dead child lay there before him like a sign to warn him:

"You shall not go farther on the way that you have taken!" There the

child lay, his child, and she was dead. The child stood before him, an

accuser and a witness. She bore witness for her mother. The mother had

known that she was dying; and at the deathbed of her child not even

the lowest creature would do what he had thought her capable of doing.

The child accused him. He had struck a mother at the side of her

child's deathbed. No man can do that, not even if the woman were

guilty. And she was not; the child testified to that. Now he knew that

the pale, dumb countenance of the mother had cried: "You will kill the

child; don't strike!" And he had struck nevertheless. He had killed

the child. That thought fell on him like a thunder-bolt, so that he

collapsed before the child's bed, across which he had struck her

mother, before the bed in which his child had died because he struck

her mother.

There he lay a long time. The bolt that struck him down had lighted

the past with cruel distinctness: he had seen them both innocent whom

he persecuted. And there was no guilt but his. He alone had built up

the misery that lay crushingly upon him, load on load, guilt on guilt.

But after all it was not yet too late! He heard his wife's quiet step

in the hall coming toward the door of the room. He heard the door

open. If little Annie had been standing in the door of the bedroom

then, she would have smiled. He meant to be kind, he meant to be again

as he had been before little Annie had been taken sick. He held out

his hand to the woman as she entered. She saw him and started. She was

as white as little Annie's body, even her lips, usually so crimson,

were white. Her neck, her beautiful arms, her soft hands were white,

her eyes that were always so shining, were dull. All the life in her

had withdrawn to the deepest recesses of her heart and there wept for

her dead child. When she saw him her whole body began to tremble. In

two steps she stood between him and the body; as if she still wanted

to protect the child from him. And yet it was not that. Neither fear

nor dread quivered about her little mouth; it was firmly closed. It

was a different feeling that drew her beautifully arched eyebrows

together and flamed in her usually so gentle eyes. He saw: this was no

longer the woman who had spoken melting words of peace; she had died

with her child in the terrible night just past. The woman who stood

before him was no longer the mother who looked at him with hope, whose

child he could save; it was the mother whose child he had killed. It

was a mother who drove the murderer away from the holy place where her

child lay. He spoke--Oh, if he had but spoken yesterday! Yesterday she

had yearned for the words; today she did not hear them.

"Give me your hand, Christiane," he said. She drew her hand back

convulsively, as if he had already touched her. "I have been

mistaken," he continued; "I will believe you, I see myself; I will not

do it again! You are better than I."

"The child is dead," she said, and even her voice sounded pale. "Don't

leave me without comfort in my terrible fear. If I can become

different I can only do so now, and if you give me your hand and raise

me up," said the man. She looked at the child, not at him.

"The child is dead," she repeated. Did that mean it was indifferent to

her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save

the child? The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a

strength full of fear and held it fast.

"Christiane," he sobbed wildly, "Here I lie like a worm. Don't tread

on me! Don't tread on me! For God's sake, have mercy. I could never

forget it, if I had lain here like a worm in vain. Think of it! For

God's sake, think of it; you have me in your hand now. You can make of

me what you will. I hold you responsible. You will be to blame for

anything that may come after this."--She had finally succeeded in

withdrawing her hand from his grasp; she held it away from herself as

if she looked at it with loathing because he had touched it.

"The child is dead," she said. He understood that she said: "Between

me and the murderer of my child there can never be anything more in

common, neither on earth nor in heaven."

He rose. A word of forgiveness might perhaps have saved him! Perhaps!

Who knows! He staggered back into the bedroom. Christiane did not see

him go, but she felt that his presence no longer profaned the place in

which lay the sacred image of her maternal sorrow. Weeping softly, she

sank down over her dead child.

In the meantime Apollonius had begun the decorating of the tower-roof

of St. George's. He had built a scaffold, fastened his ladder to the

broach-post, put a hempen ring on it, attached his tackle to the ring

and hung his swinging-seat on the pulley. The tin ornamentation, which

consisted of single long pieces, was intended to represent two

garlands festooned around the spire.

Apollonius was industrious at his work. The mastertinsmith, who was

anxious to see his decorations completed as soon as possible, had less

ground to complain of Apollonius than the latter had to be

dissatisfied with him. At first the master urged Apollonius; soon

Apollonius had to drive the master on. A part of the top garland which

was to hang in a festoon over the door in the roof was lacking.

Apollonius could not finish his work until he had the material for it.

A neighboring village required his services for minor repairs. Leaving

his tackle hanging from the tower of St. George's he went to Brambach.

The next day old Valentine knocked at the living-room door. He had

already been there several times and gone away again. His entire being

expressed uneasiness. He was so preoccupied with something that he had

on his mind that he thought he must have failed to hear the answer to

his knock and laid his ear to the key-hole as if he assumed that it

must still be there to hear if he only listened hard enough. His

anxiety aroused him from his absent-mindedness. He knocked a second

and a third time and, still receiving no answer, plucked up courage to

open the door and go in. The young wife had avoided him for some time.

She did so now, too, but today he had to speak to her. She

intentionally sat at some distance from the windows, near the bedroom

door. The old man did not perceive that she was as uneasy as he, and

that his presence made her even more so. He apologized for his

intrusion. When she made a movement to leave the room, he assured her

that he would not remain long and that he would not have forced

himself upon her had he not been impelled to do so by something which

was perhaps very important. He hoped that it was not so, but still, it

might be. She listened and looked more and more anxiously now at the

windows, now at the door. Her demeanor showed plainly that she hoped

if he had anything to say to her he would say it as quickly as he

could.

Valentine began: "Master Fritz is on the roof of St. George's. I saw

him just now in the church-yard."

"And did he look this way? Did he see you coming into the house?"

asked Christiane breathlessly.

"God forbid!" replied the old man. "He is working like the devil

today, not even thinking of anything to eat and drink. When a man

works like that--" Valentine stopped and completed the sentence to

himself--"he has some end in view." Christiane was silent. She was

struggling with the desire to confide her whole anxiety to the

faithful old soul. He saw nothing of this. "Our neighbor, over there,"

he continued, "has times, you know, when he cannot sleep at all. The

night before Master Apollonius went to Brambach he was at his kitchen

window and saw somebody sneaking from the back of our house into the

shed." He did not say whom the neighbor had seen, he probably expected

the young wife to ask. But she had not even heard his story. "The

previous evening," he went on, "before Master Apollonius left for

Brambach, he tried to get together the things he wanted to take with

him; he examined everything, as he always does, but he could not make

up his mind what to take. And it is so strange that Master Fritz has

become so industrious all of a sudden."

Apollonius' name roused Christiane; she listened as the old man

continued: "It occurred to me for the first time, just now, when our

neighbor told me that somebody had crept into the shed. I wondered

what he could be wanting there, and at night too. And when I looked up

and saw Master Fritz working so hard, an uneasy feeling came over me

and drove me into the shed as if I were being chased with a stick.

There, I imagined what any one who had sneaked in there might have

done. First I saw the ax that belongs with the other tools lying near

the door. I thought to myself: did he do anything with the ax? And

again I imagined what any one who had crept in there at night might

have done with it. It occurred to me that he might have done something

to the ladders. But I found nothing wrong there. Nor was there

anything wrong with the swinging-seat that still lay there. Then I

began to look at the pulleys and last of all at the tackle. It seemed

as if one of the ropes had been worn a little by rubbing against

something hard. I thought to myself: 'that often happens,' and was

about to lay it down again, but then I thought: 'there is nothing else

wrong, and if somebody crept in here at night he meant to do

something, and if he had the ax then he did something with that.' I

looked a little closer and--merciful Heavens!--the rope had been cut

into in several different places. I threw it over the beam and hung on

it; the cuts gaped open. I believe if the seat were hung on it the

rope would break." The old man had become quite pale. Christiane hung

breathlessly on his every word; she had fallen back in her chair and

could scarcely speak.

"It was not so the evening before," he continued. "Master Apollonius

has an eye for every detail. He would have discovered it. I think the

person who cut the rope watched Master Apollonius as he examined

everything, and thought he would not look them over again before he

used them. That is the reason why he crept in at night."

"Valentine!" cried the young wife, seizing him by the shoulders, half

as if she wanted to compel him to tell the truth, half as if to

support herself, "he did not take it with him? Valentine, tell me!"

"No, not that one," said Valentine. "But the other seat that was

there, and the tackle belonging to it."

"And was that cut too?" she asked with ever increasing fear. He

replied: "I do not know. But the man who did it had no idea which one

Master Apollonius would take with him."

The woman trembled so violently that the old man forgot his fears

concerning Apollonius in his fear concerning her. He had to support

her to prevent her from falling. She pushed him away and half

imploringly, half threateningly, cried: "Oh, save him, Valentine, save

him. Oh God, it is I who have done it!" She prayed to God to save him,

and then moaned that he was dead and that it was her fault. She called

Apollonius by the tenderest names and entreated him not to die.

Valentine, in his distress, sought for words to comfort her and in so

doing found comfort for himself; or if there were no real comfort, at

least there was the hope that Apollonius was already on his way home.

He had certainly examined the tackle again. If he had met with an

accident they would have heard of it by now. He had to repeat this a

dozen times before she understood what he meant. And now she began to

expect the bearer of the terrible tidings, and started at every sound.

She even imagined her own sobbing to be his voice. Finally Valentine,

infected by her desperate terror and not knowing what else to do, ran

to fetch the old gentleman, thinking that he might know how to save

Apollonius, if it were still possible.

The old gentleman sat in his little room. As he withdrew deeper and

deeper into the clouds that separated him from the outer world, even

his little garden finally became strange to him. Especially the

eternal question: "How are you, Herr Nettenmair?" had driven him to

the house. He felt that people no longer believed his: "I am somewhat

troubled with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence," and in

every question he heard only a mockery. Much as Apollonius suffered

with him, his father's isolation and increasing unsociability were not

altogether unwelcome to him; for the deeper his brother sank, the more

difficult it had become to conceal from the old gentleman the

condition of the house; and to exclude busybodies from the garden was

impossible. Apollonius did not know that his father suffered tortures

in his room equal to those from which he wanted to protect him. Here

the old gentleman sat the livelong day, crouched down in his leather

chair behind the table, and brooded over all the possibilities of

dishonor that might come to his house; or he strode up and down with

hasty step, the flush in his sunken cheeks and the vehement gestures

of his arms betraying all too plainly how in his thoughts he did his

utmost to avert impending calamity. His was a condition which would

eventually lead to complete insanity, if the external world did not

throw a bridge across to him and force him to leave his isolation.

This was what happened on that day. Force of habit compelled old

Valentine, without his being conscious of the fact, to open the door

gently, and gently to step in; but the old gentleman, with his

morbidly acute perception, discerned at once the unusual. His

anticipation naturally took the same course which all his thoughts

pursued. Some disgrace must be threatening the house so to alter

Valentine's usual manner; and it must be a terrible one indeed thus to

upset the old fellow and break through his assumed composure. The old

gentleman trembled as he arose from his chair. He struggled with

himself as to whether he should ask. It was not necessary. The old

fellow confessed, unasked. With nervous haste he related his fears and

his reasons for them. The old gentleman was startled, in spite of the

fact that his imagination had prepared him for the truth; but

Valentine observed none of this in his exterior, he listened to him as

always, as if he were relating matters of the utmost indifference.

When Valentine had finished, the sharpest eye could no longer have

perceived the slightest tremor in the tall, stately figure. The old

gentleman had the firm ground of reality under his feet once more; he

was again the old gentleman in the blue coat. He stood as austere as

of yore before his servant; so austere and so quiet was he that his

bearing inspired Valentine with courage. "Imagination!" he exclaimed

in his old grim manner. "Are none of the journeymen around?" Valentine

called one who was just about to fetch slate. The old gentleman

despatched him to Brambach to bid Apollonius return home at once. "If

you think he won't go quickly enough for you, you fussy old woman,

tell him to hurry so that you may soon learn that you've worked

yourself into a state about nothing. But no word of this to anybody

and lock up the wife so that she can't do anything silly." Valentine

obeyed. The old gentleman's assurance, and the fact that something had

really been done, had a more powerful effect upon him than a hundred

good arguments. He imparted his encouragement to Christiane. He was in

too great haste to tell her upon what grounds it was based. If he had

had time for that he would probably have left her less reassured.

Nothing was further from himself than the suspicion that the old

gentleman, while characterizing his fears as idle fancies, and

pretending to send the messenger only to reassure him and the young

wife, was inwardly convinced of the guilt of his elder son and of the

danger, if not actual death, of his younger son.

"Now," said Herr Nettenmair, when Valentine had returned to him, "the

old fool has of course told our neighbor the fairy-tale that he spun

out of thin air, and the young wife has confided it to all the gossips

in town!"

Valentine noticed nothing of the feverish suspense with which the old

gentleman awaited an answer to the question which he had disguised as

an exclamation. "I've done nothing of the kind," he replied earnestly.

The old gentleman's supposition had wounded him. "In the first place I

didn't really think myself that anything was very wrong yet; and Frau

Nettenmair has not spoken to a soul since then."

The old gentleman took hope anew. During Valentine's absence he had

given way for a moment to all the anguish that a father cannot but

feel under such circumstances; but then he reasoned with himself that

there was no use in wasting time in idle complaint as long as

something might still be done. Even if Valentine and Christiane had

told nobody what they knew, other things of the same sort might have

become known. Such a criminal thought does not originate by chance; it

is the blossom of a poisonous tree with trunk and branches. Valentine

had to tell him all that had happened since Apollonius' return home.

It was the story of a wanton, inordinate, pleasure-seeking spendthrift

who in spite of the efforts of his better brother had sunk to the

level of an ordinary libertine and drunkard; of a faithful brother

who, compelled by the necessity of rescuing the honor of business and

home, had shouldered the care of everything and as a reward was being

persecuted unto death by the degraded prodigal.

The old gentleman sat motionless. Only the blush that burned ever

warmer on his thin cheeks betrayed what he suffered for the honor of

his house. Otherwise he seemed to know it all, already. That was his

old manner, which he perhaps made use of now because he thought that

Valentine would then be less likely to conceal or alter facts against

his better knowledge. His inward agitation prevented him from

perceiving in what strong contradiction this semblance of calm stood

to his morbid sense of honor. Valentine did not endeavor to deepen the

shadows which fell upon Fritz Nettenmair's conduct, but, knowing the

old gentleman as he thought he did, he deemed it necessary to place

Apollonius' actions in the brightest possible light. But he only half

knew the old gentleman after all. He miscalculated the effect that he

would produce when he praised the filial tenderness with which

Apollonius had withheld all news of danger from his father's ears.

Thus he undid what a simple tale, describing the son's efforts to save

that which the old gentleman held most dear, had accomplished. The

father saw only a realization of the fear which Apollonius' diligence

had awakened in him. In unfilial fashion Apollonius had concealed the

danger from him in order to be able to take the whole credit for the

rescue to himself. Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind

old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance.

This latter feeling the old gentleman could forgive him less than the

former, even in face of his grief over his son's death, which he now

deemed a certainty. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he

became that things would never have come to such a pass if he had

known about it and taken the matter in hand, and that Apollonius in

fact had only his own ambitious desires to thank for his death. These

thoughts, however, had to give way before immediate necessity. What he

knew concerning Fritz was enough to strengthen suspicion once it was

aroused, but not to create it in the first place unless there were

some additional reason of which he knew nothing. He must learn from

his guilty son himself if such existed. He had made up his mind what

to do in any case. He called for his hat and cane. At any other time

Valentine would have been astonished at this command, perhaps even

frightened. But when one is wrought up over something unusual, only

the usual seems unexpected, only that which calls to mind the old

quiet state of affairs. As the old gentleman made ready to depart, he

pointed out to Valentine once more how foolish and groundless his

fears were. "Who knows," he said grimly, "what our neighbor saw? How

could he recognize anybody at night, so far off? And you with your ax

story! If the rope should break by chance or any other accident happen

to the boy in Brambach, of course you would be sure and certain that

it was your imaginary ax-slashes that had done it, and that the man

whom our neighbor pretends to have seen sneaking into the shed, had

made them. And if you say a word or make mysterious hints about all

that you imagine in your silly pate, the whole town will be full of it

in no time. Not because what you have invented is probable enough for

any sensible man to believe, but just because people are glad to speak

ill of anybody. God will take care that nothing happens to the boy.

But of course it might happen, and maybe it has already happened. How

easy it is for an accident to happen to anybody, specially to a slater

who hovers between heaven and earth like a bird, and yet has not the

wings of a bird. That is why the slater's calling is such a noble

calling; the slater is the most manifest picture of how Providence

holds the man who works at an honest profession safe in its hands. But

if Providence lets him fall, there is a reason for it, and nobody has

a right to go around spinning yarns which will bring unhappiness and

even disgrace on somebody else. I am sure this affair will soon show

itself as it really is and not as your fears have led you to imagine.

For--"

The old gentleman had reached this point in his speech when some one

was heard outside setting down a load. He stood for a moment dumb,

petrified. Valentine looked through the window and saw that it was the

journeyman tinner unloading.

"It's Jörg," said he, "who is bringing the tin garlands."

"And you get frightened and think they are bringing, goodness knows

whom. Where is Fritz?"

"On the church roof," replied Valentine.

"Good," said Herr Nettenmair. "Tell the tinner to come in when he has

done--." Valentine did so. Until he came Herr Nettenmair continued his

lecture in a somewhat lower tone. Then he turned to where the

workman's respect made itself audible in a quiet clearing of the

throat and asked him if he had time to accompany him to the church

roof of St. George's where his elder son was at work. The tinner

assented. Valentine ventured the suggestion that it would be better to

send for Fritz. The old gentleman said grimly: "I must speak to him up

there. It is about the repairs." He turned again to the tinner and

said with condescending grimness: "I shall take your arm. I am having

a little trouble with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence."

The appearance of the old gentleman on the street was calculated to

create a sensation. He would certainly have been stopped by a hundred

hand-shakers and interrogators if something had not diverted public

attention. A hurried, whispered rumor ran through the streets. Two or

three stood together in little groups awaiting the approach of a third

or fourth, who would give them to understand that he knew what it was

that was responsible for the formation of the ten or twelve similar

groups standing around. Then somebody would whisper it as he passed

rapidly by, beginning always with a: "Haven't you heard?" which was

generally brought forth by a: "What has happened?" Herr Nettenmair did

not need to ask; he knew without being told what had happened, but he

did not dare to appear as if he knew. The journeyman thought Herr

Nettenmair was going to sink down beside him, but the old gentleman

had only struck his foot: "it was of no consequence." The journeyman

questioned a hurrying passer-by. "A slater has been killed in

Brambach." "How?" asked the journeyman. "A rope broke; nothing further

is known." Herr Nettenmair felt that the journeyman was frightened,

and that he was frightened at the thought that it was the son of the

man he was leading who had been killed. He said: "It was probably in

Tambach. They have made a mistake. It is of no consequence." The

journeyman did not know what to think of Herr Nettenmair's

indifference. The latter kept repeating to himself, as a burning flush

came into his cheeks: "Yes, it must be. It must be." He thought of a

way in which one can escape all courts, all investigations. It must

have been a hard way of which he thought, for he clenched his teeth,

as he shook his head and said: "It must be, now it must be." As if in

a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St.

George's. The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer

man!

The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the

church-roof--about some repairs. He had spoken unconsciously in his

diplomatic way.

It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs--but

not about those of the church-roof.

Between heaven and earth is the slater's realm. Between heaven and

earth, high up on the roof of St. George's Fritz Nettenmair was at

work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him. He had fled

here to escape the eyes of men which he imagined riveted upon him; he

had fled here to escape his own thoughts in a fury of diligence. But

he had brought with him all the demons of hell, and, industriously as

he toiled, the moisture that stood on his brow was not the warm sweat

of honest labor, but the cold sweat born of a guilty conscience. In

agonized haste he hammered and nailed slate together as if he were

nailing fast the universe which otherwise would crumble to pieces in a

quarter of an hour. But his soul was not where he hammered; it was

where ropes were constantly breaking and luckless slaters plunging

headlong to certain death. Now he heard voices, and the sound of one

of them struck like the blow of a hammer on his tortured heart. It was

the only voice which he did not expect to hear. Would he to whom it

belonged ask, "Where is thy brother Abel?" No. He wanted to tell his

son that his brother had met with disaster, that it was a day of

misfortune and that he must not work any more. And if he should ask,

the answer was almost as old as the human race; "Am I my brother's

keeper?" It seemed like a relief to him when he remembered that his

father was blind. For he knew that he could not endure his father's

seeing eyes. He hammered and nailed more and more hurriedly. He would

elude his father if he could, but the roof-truss was small, and the

old gentleman's voice was already at the roof door. He would not

notice him until he was compelled. He heard him say: "This is far

enough. My compliments to your master, and here is something for you.

Drink my health with it." Fritz Nettenmair, listening, heard his

father sit down on the empty board in the dormer window and knew that

his tall figure filled the entire opening. He heard the journeyman's

thanks and his footsteps as they gradually receded.

"Beautiful weather," said Herr Nettenmair. The son realized that the

father wanted to know if anybody else were near by. There came no

answer, the words died in Fritz Nettenmair's breast, he hammered

always louder and more vehemently. He wished the hour, the day, his

life were at an end. "Fritz!" called the old gentleman. He called

again and yet again. At last Fritz Nettenmair was compelled to answer.

He thought of the call, "Cain, where art thou?" and responded "Here,

father," and hammered on.

"The slate is solid," said the old man, indifferently; "I can tell by

the sound; it does not split."

"Yes," replied Fritz with chattering teeth, "it will let no water

through."

"It is better than it used to be," continued his father, "they have

got deeper into the quarry. You seem to be alone." A "Yes" died on the

son's lips. "The deeper it lies, the stronger the slate is. Is there

no other scaffold near?"

"None."

"Good. Come here. Here in front of me!"--

"What do you want me to do?"

"To come here. What has to be said must be said softly."

Fritz Nettenmair went and stood before his father, shaking all over.

He knew that he was blind and yet he sought to avoid his glance. The

old man struggled for composure but not a line of his withered face

betrayed the struggle, only the length of his silence and his

breathing, which sounded like the tired echo of the creaking swing of

the pendulum on the tower clock near-by, might have suggested it.

These preparations awoke in Fritz Nettenmair a premonition of what was

to come. He strove for defiance. "If he in his distrust has surmised

it, who can prove it? And if he could prove it, he would never tell,

of that I am sure. Otherwise why does he speak so softly? He may say

what he will--I know nothing, it was not I. I have done nothing." The

muscles of his face quivered; an expression of wild defiance played

upon his features. The old gentleman said no word. The sound of

traffic in the streets rose muffled to the heights, violet shadows lay

on all below, about Apollonius' swinging seat trembled the sun's last

ray.

"Where is your brother?" came at last from between the father's teeth.

"I do not know. How should I know?" answered the son defiantly.

"You do not know?" It was only a whisper but every word struck like

thunder in the soul of the son. "I will tell you. Yonder in Brambach

he lies dead. The rope broke with him, and you had made slits in it

with the ax. Our neighbor saw you sneaking into the shed. You

threatened before your wife that you would do it. The whole town knows

it, they are carrying it now to the courts. The first person who comes

up these steps will be the bailiff to lead you before the judge."

Fritz Nettenmair broke down completely; the scaffolding creaked

beneath him. The old gentleman listened. If the miserable wretch

should fall over the edge of the scaffolding, he would be plunged into

the depths and all would be over. All that had to be, would be! A lark

soared above them scattering its merry _Tirili_ over trees and houses.

Happier mortals heard the song from afar; workmen let their spades

rest, children their whips and tops; with eyes turned heavenward all

sought the soaring, singing bird and hearkened with bated breath. Herr

Nettenmair did not hear the lark; he also held his breath, but he was

listening to what was happening below, not above. It was nothing that

sounded like the song of a lark which he wanted to hear. There was a

rumbling, and a broken cry of anguish. At first he listened full of

hope, then filled with despair. On the boards of the scaffolding

before him he heard the rattle of heavy breathing. Fate, which might

have stretched out a sympathizing, helping hand, had not done so. He

must do it, for it must be done. If he did not, people would point

their finger at the children and say: "It was their father who slew

his brother and died on the gallows" or "in the penitentiary." And

when it was long forgotten the children would only need to appear and

it would be called into life again; people would point with their

fingers and turn from them in horror. The confidence of the world

which one inherits from one's parents is the capital with which one

begins life. Confidence must be placed in man before he deserves it,

in order that he may learn to deserve it. Who would place confidence

in children branded with a father's guilt? The flush on his thin

cheeks burned brighter, his sunken breast panted heavily.

Involuntarily he pointed forward with his arm. Fritz Nettenmair

divined his meaning, tried to pull himself together, and would have

sunk helplessly down again if he had not supported himself with both

hands. Lying thus on his hands and knees before the old gentleman he

cried out in an agony of fear, "What do you want, father? What have

you in mind?"

"I want to see," said the old gentleman in a shrill whisper, "whether

I must do it or whether you will do what must be done. For it must be

done. Nobody knows anything as yet which could lead to an

investigation before the courts except me, your wife and Valentine.

For myself I can answer, but not for them; they may betray what they

know. If you should fall now from the scaffolding, so that people

could think it was an accident, the great disgrace would be prevented.

The slater who meets his death through accident stands before the

world as an honest man--honest as the soldier who dies on the

battle-field. You are not worthy of such a death, you bankrupt soul.

The hangman should drag you on a cowhide to the gallows, you villain,

who have murdered your brother and have tried to poison the future of

your innocent children and my past life which has been always full of

honor. You have brought down disgrace enough on your house, you shall

not bring more. They shall never say of me, that my son, or of my

grandchildren, that their father, died on the gallows or in the

penitentiary. Say the Lord's Prayer, now, if you can still pray. Then

turn as if you were going back to your work and step with your right

foot over the scaffolding. If I say the shock of your brother's death

made you dizzy, the courts and the town will believe me. That is the

return for a life that has been different from yours. If you will not

do it of your own accord, I shall go with you and you will have me too

on your conscience. People know that I have trouble with my eyes; they

will say that I stumbled and tried to hold on to you and dragged you

down with me. My life is of no value after what I have heard today,

but your children's is just beginning. And no disgrace shall be

attached to them, as truly as my name is Nettenmair. Make up your mind

now what is to be done. I shall count thirty--by the pendulum there."

Fritz Nettenmair had listened to his father's words with growing

horror. That his deed had not yet become generally known, gave him

hope. Fear of impending death aroused his energies. He took refuge

again in defiance. Vehemently he declared: "I do not know what you

want. I am innocent. I do not know what you mean by an ax." He

expected his father to enter into his protest, even if sceptically at

first. But the old gentleman began calmly to count--"one--two--"

"Father!" he cried with increasing fear, and his mocking defiance

broke into a wail. "Only listen to me. The courts would listen and you

will not. I will throw myself over because you want me to be dead; I

will die, though I am innocent. But at least listen to me." The old

gentleman gave no answer; he counted on. The miserable man saw that

sentence had been pronounced. His father would not believe him no

matter what he said, and he knew that what the stubborn old man

undertook, he always carried out, unrelentingly. First he decided to

acquiesce in his fate; then the thought came to him that he would

plead again; and then it occurred to him that he could push the old

man aside and make his escape; then that he could hang on to something

in some way when the old man caught hold of him and not fall with him.

Nobody could blame him for this. Through all these thoughts he saw

shudderingly what awaited him if he escaped and the courts should

seize him. It was better to die now. But on the other side of death

something still more terrible awaited him. He looked back and lived

his whole life through in a moment to see if the eternal Judge would

find pardon for him. His thoughts became confused, he was now here,

now there, and had forgotten why. He saw the mist gathering in which

the workman had disappeared and at the same time he looked into the

bright windows of the Red Eagle inn where he heard voices: "There he

comes--now the fun will begin." He stood on the street corners and

counted, and the boards beneath Apollonius would not break, nor the

ropes above him; he stood before his wife and, leaning over little

Annie's dying bedside, said, "Do you know why you are frightened?" and

reached out his hand to give the fatal blow; also he lay as if in a

fever dream before his father and brooded in anxious, terrible fear.

Then it was as if he had come to himself again and unending time had

elapsed between the moment when his father began to count and the

present. Everything must be all right by now, only he must try to

recall whether he had pushed his father aside and thus made his escape

or whether he had held back when his father attempted to drag him down

with him. But there he still lay, and there his father still sat. He

heard him count "nine" and stop. Consciousness forsook him completely.

The old gentleman had in truth ceased to count. His sharp ear heard a

hurrying footstep on the stairs. He seized hold of his son and held

fast as if to be sure that he did not escape him. So cold and lifeless

was the son's body that the father knew it was not necessary to hold

him; he must be unconscious. A new uneasiness awoke in him. If the son

had lost consciousness, he must be hidden from strange eyes, for this

unconsciousness might in some way arouse suspicion. He arose and

turned away from the window in the direction of the newcomer. He was

undecided whether he would stand before the window covering it with

his body or go forward to meet the intruder.

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD JOSIAH HEARS THE LAW]

The journeyman whom he had sent to Brambach, for it was he who was

approaching in such haste, coughed as he came up the stairs. He could

keep him back from the scaffolding and most likely prevent him from

seeing that somebody was lying there if he went to meet him; if he

stood in front of the window it was probable that he would not be able

to cover the whole space. The old gentleman felt now for the first

time how his strength had been broken by what he had gone through that

day. The journeyman, however, observed nothing unusual as Herr

Nettenmair, leaning on the rafters of the stairs, barred the way.

"Shall I tell him to come to you here, Herr Nettenmair?" asked the

journeyman.

"Tell whom?" Herr Nettenmair had difficulty in retaining his

artificial composure.

"He will be home by this time," responded the journeyman. The old

gentleman did not repeat his question; he held fast to the rafter on

which he was leaning. "He was already on his way home," continued the

journeyman. "I came with him as far as the gate. Then he sent me to

the tinner's to see if the tin was ready at last. Jörg told me that he

had already brought it to the house and had just come from the roof of

St. George's where he had led you and I thought because you were in

such a hurry to see Herr Apollonius, I would ask you if I must tell

him to come up here."

Herr Nettenmair ran his hand up and down the rafter as if he had only

taken hold of it to examine it. But, feeling that his hands trembled,

he gave up the examination. As grimly as he could, he replied, "I

shall come down myself." Wait at the landing until I call you. The

journeyman obeyed. Herr Nettenmair drew a deep breath when he knew he

was no longer observed. This breath became a sob. The terrible strain

which he had undergone was beginning to find an end, and the agony of

the father which had been swallowed up till now in passionate fear for

the honor of the house, asserted itself. But he knew that his good

son's life would hang in the same danger as long as the wicked son

lived near him. He had foreseen this contingency and had mapped out a

plan of action. He felt his way back to the window. Fritz Nettenmair

in the meanwhile had recovered consciousness and been able to rise.

The old gentleman bade him come in from the scaffolding and said:

"Tomorrow before sunrise you will no longer be here. See if you can

become another man in America. Here you are in disgrace, and can only

bring disgrace. You will follow me home. I will give you money, you

will make ready for the trip. You have done nothing for your wife and

children for years. I will take care of them. Do you hear?"

Fritz Nettenmair reeled. He had just looked inevitable death in the

face and now he might live! Live where nobody knew what he done, where

every chance sound would not frighten him with the vision of the

bailiff.

"Apollonius did not fall," continued the old gentleman, and Fritz

Nettenmair's bright, new heaven sank into nothingness. The old spectre

held him again in its grasp. He loved again the woman from whom he had

just wanted to flee. The old gentleman had awaited his son's assent.

"You will go," he said, when the son remained silent. "You will go.

Tomorrow before day-break you will be on your way to America, or I

shall be on my way to the court. If disgrace must be, it is better to

have disgrace alone and not disgrace combined with murder. Remember, I

have sworn it. Take your choice."

The old gentleman called to the journeyman to come up to him and lead

him home.

* * * * *

The rumor which the old gentleman had heard on his way to St.

George's, had penetrated to the street where the house with the green

shutters stands. One passer-by said to another: "Have you heard the

news? A slater has been killed in Brambach." The young wife sprang

from her chair but sank fainting to the floor. A second time Valentine

forgot his fears for Apollonius in his anxiety about her. He sat near

her as she lay on the floor and held her head in his trembling hands.

At last she made a slight movement. He helped her raise the upper part

of her body and supported her. She brushed her disheveled hair from

her face and looked about her. Her gaze was such a strange tense one

that Valentine's fear increased. She nodded her head and said in a low

voice, "Yes!" Valentine knew that she was saying to herself that she

had really heard the terrible news and had not dreamed it. She sat for

a long time motionless, hearing no word of all that Valentine spoke to

her--not even when he tried to prove that Apollonius could not be

dead, that he was too careful and too good for an accident to happen

to him. He would have given his life to help her, but he knew not how.

So he talked on and on, hoping by ceaseless chatter to help her and

himself over the anguish of the moment.

At last she found tears. Valentine lived again; he saw that she was

saved. He read it in her face, which, open as she herself, could

conceal nothing. He sat and listened with joyful attention to her

weeping, as if it were a beautiful song she was singing him. He

listened to the pure melody of her voice as she wept, the melody which

she had not lost when, leaning over little Anne's dying bed, she had

uttered the twofold cry of pain and horror. She wept her heart out and

arose without help from Valentine. Then she prepared to go out. There

was something solemn and resolute in her bearing. Valentine perceived

it with astonishment and dread. He asked anxiously if she were going

anywhere. She nodded her head. "But I must not let you," he said. "The

old gentleman made me solemnly vow."

"I must," she replied. "I must go to the court. I must say that I am

guilty. I must suffer my punishment. Their grandfather will take care

of my children. I would like to tell them to lay him by little Anne's

side, he loved her so. I should like to lie there too, but they won't

allow that. No, I won't say anything to them about that."

"Won't you stay until the old gentleman comes back? Then I shall be

free of my responsibility." He hoped that Herr Nettenmair would find

some way to dissuade her from her purpose.

The young wife nodded assent. "I will wait that long," she said.

Anxiety and hope drove Valentine out of the house to see if Herr

Nettenmair were anywhere in sight. Christine took her hymn-book from

the desk and sat down at the table.

When Valentine returned he was no longer the same man who had gone

out. He was confused and embarrassed, but in a very different way from

what he had been before. He appeared constantly on the point of doing

or saying something, became suddenly frightened and did and said

something entirely different, and then seemed uncertain whether he

should not be frightened at that too. At first the young wife did not

notice the change in him, but soon she began to watch him curiously

and with increasing apprehension. Gradually she became infected by his

behavior. When he laughed involuntarily she glowed with hope, and when

he put on a long face she clasped her hands convulsively together and

turned pale; sometimes she pressed her hands to her beating heart,

sometimes to her burning, hammering temples. At last Valentine

considered her sufficiently prepared, to abandon the weather topic.

"It is a day," said he, "when men might rise from the dead, and who

knows--but please, for my sake, don't be frightened." She became

frightened, however. She said to herself, "But it isn't possible." And

she was all the more frightened because it was not only possible but

certain. "Look toward the back of the house," sobbed Valentine,

attempting to laugh. She had looked before he told her to do so. She

held fast to the door post as she heard footsteps in the shed. But

even the door post no longer stood firmly, she herself stood no longer

on firm ground; she rocked dizzily between heaven and earth. When she

saw him coming, there was nothing in the world for her except the man

for whom she had suffered weeks of death-agony; everything whirled

about her in a circle, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the trees,

the sky and the green earth; it was as if the whole world would sink

from under her and drag her into its vortex if she did not hold fast

to him. She felt herself fall to the ground, and then she knew nothing

more.

Apollonius caught her as she fell. He stood and held in his arms the

beautiful woman whom he loved, who loved him. She was pale and seemed

dead. He did not carry her into the room, he did not let her fall to

the ground, he did nothing to revive her. He stood bewildered; he did

not know what had happened to him, he had to collect himself.

Valentine had not yet spoken with him, he had only heard from the

journeyman who was hastening to St. George's that Apollonius was

following him and would soon be there. Apollonius had been detained at

the gate for a moment by the nail-smith. He had then made haste to

obey his father's command which he, however, found surprising, as he

could discover no reason for it. He had heard of the slater's death in

Tambach; but he did not know that rumor had confused the names of the

two places, and that it was possible for anybody to believe that the

accident had occurred to him. Absolutely unprepared for that which was

to happen in the next moment, he came through the shed. He had meant

to go straight to his father in his room, when, seeing Christiane fall

fainting to the ground, he hastened toward her. Now he held her in his

arms. Slowly her deep blue eyes opened. She looked at him and

recognized him. She did not know how she had come into his arms, she

did not know that she lay there, she knew only that he lived. She wept

and laughed at the same time, and put both arms around him to be sure

that he was there. She asked in yearning, anxious eagerness: "Is it

you? Are you really here? Are you still alive? You didn't fall? I

didn't kill you? You are you, and I am I? But he--he may come." She

gazed about wildly. "He will kill you. He will not rest till he has

killed you." She clasped him to her as if she wanted to cover him with

her body from the enemy, then she forgot all fears in the certainty

that he still lived, and she laughed and wept and asked him again if

it were really he, and if he were alive. But she must warn him. She

must tell him everything that the other had done--and what he had

threatened to do to him. She must do it quickly; any minute he might

come. Warning, sweet unconscious love-words, weeping, laughter,

blessed gladness, fear, anguish over lost happiness, bride-like

embarrassment, forgetfulness of the world in the one moment which was

life to her--all this trembled through each quivering word she

uttered. "He lied to you and to me. He told me that you jeered at me

and that you had offered my flower to the highest bidder. You know, at

the Whitsun feast, the little blue-bell that I laid there. And you

sent it to him. I saw it. I did not know why I was sorry for you. Then

he told me during the dance that you had laughed at me. You went away,

and he told me you made fun of me in your letters. That hurt me. You

don't know how it hurt, even though I did not know why. Father wanted

me to marry him. And when you came I was afraid of you, but I was

still sorry for you and I loved you though I did not know it. It was

he who first told me so. Then I avoided you--I didn't want to become a

bad woman--and I still don't want to. Then he compelled me to lie. And

he made threats of what he would do to you. He would see to it that

you fell and were killed. It was only a joke, he said, but if I told

you, then he would do it in earnest. Since then I have not slept a

night, I have sat up in my bed and been full of deadly fear. I saw you

in danger and could not tell you and could not help you. And he made

slits in the rope with the ax the night before you went to Brambach.

Valentine told me that our neighbor had seen him creeping into the

shed. I thought you were dead, and I wanted to die too. For I was the

cause of your death, when I would die a thousand times to save you.

And now you are alive and I cannot grasp it. Everything is just as it

was, the trees, the shed, the sky, and you are not dead. And I wanted

to die because you were dead. And now you are alive, and I don't know

whether it is true or whether I am dreaming. Is it true? Tell me, is

it true? I will believe anything you say. And if you tell me that I

must die, I will die. But he may be coming! Perhaps he has been

listening! Tell Valentine to go to the court and have him taken away,

so that he can do you no more harm."

Thus the feverish woman went on raving, laughing and weeping in his

arms. Forgetting everything, like a child playing on the edge of an

abyss of which it knows nothing, she unconsciously called into life a

danger more deadly than the one which had just been averted, more

threatening than the one from which she wanted to guard the man with

her body. She did not realize what her passionate movements, the

sweetness of her reckless abandon, her caresses, her warm, throbbing

embraces must arouse in the man who loved her; that she was doing

everything that could make the man whose uprightness and honor she

trusted so blindly, forget uprightness and honor in the tumult of his

blood. She had no idea what a conflict she was kindling in him, and

how hard, if not impossible she was making the victory. Now he knew

that the woman in his arms was his, that his brother had defrauded him

of her and her of him. Now he knew it, while the woman in his arms

revealed to him the greatness of the happiness of which his brother

had robbed him. The brother had stolen her and had ill-treated her;

and for all that he had suffered and done for his brother's sake, he

now persecuted him and sought his life. Did the woman belong to him

who had stolen and ill-treated her, to him whom she hated--or to him

from whom she had been infamously stolen, who loved her and whom she

loved? These were not clearly defined thoughts, but countless detached

sensations which, borne along in a stream of deep, wild feeling,

rushed through his veins and made taut the muscles in his arms--to

clasp to his heart that which was his! But a vague, dark fear rose

counter to this current and stiffened his muscles in a convulsive

cramp--the feeling that he wanted to do something and did not know

what it was or where it might lead him, a far-off recollection that he

had made a vow and would break it if he now let himself be carried

away. He struggled for a long time beneath the flow of intoxicating

sounds before he realized that he was struggling and that the thing

for which he struggled was clearness, the fundamental requirement of

his nature. At last this clearness came to him and said: "The vow that

you have made is to uphold the honor of your house, and what you want

to do now will destroy it forever." He was the man, and must answer

for himself and for her. The treachery of which he with a touch, with

a glance, might be guilty toward this woman whose trust in him was so

unbounded, stood before him in all its blackness. There still stood,

protectingly, a holy reserve between him and her, which a single

touch, a single glance might dispel forever. He looked anxiously about

for a helper. If only Valentine would come! Then he would have to let

her go from his arms. Valentine did not come. But shame at his

weakness that sought help from without, became his helper. He gently

laid the defenseless woman down. Not until he felt the soft limbs slip

from his grasp did he lose her. He had to turn away and could not

choke back a loud sob. Just then the youngest boy peeped curiously

into the yard. He hastened to him, took him in his arms, pressed him

to his heart and placed him between him and her. It was strange; the

pressure with which he clasped the child to his heart relieved his

wild yearning and his tense muscles relaxed. In the child he had

clasped her to his heart in the only way he dared hold her close to

him.

She saw him place the child between him and her and understood him. A

burning flush rose to the roots of her brown, unruly locks. She knew

now for the first time that she had lain in his arms, had embraced

him, had talked to him as only unforbidden love may talk. She saw now

for the first time the abyssmal danger in which she had placed him and

herself. She raised herself up on her knees, as if she wanted to

beseech him not to despise her. Then it occurred to her that her

husband might have been listening and might still carry out his

threat. Through her joy over his escape she might still be his

destruction. He saw all this and suffered with her. He had gained the

conflict with himself not to show her what was going on within him,

but he had not yet fought the inward struggle to its end. He leaned

toward her and said "Above us and your husband is God. Go in now,

sister, my dear, good sister." She dared not look up but through her

closed lids she saw the benevolence, the deep, inexhaustible

kindliness, the indelible respect for man which shone in his eyes and

played about his gentle mouth. And as he was her conscious and

unconscious standard, so now she knew that she was not bad, could not

become so, he would carry her in his strong arms, protected, as a

mother carries her child. Herr Nettenmair came from the shed toward

them accompanied by the journey-man. Fritz Nettenmair who followed

them saw Apollonius lead Christiane to the house door.

When Herr Nettenmair came home, nothing was to be read in his crusty

face of all that he had suffered and planned that day. The young wife

and Valentine had to listen to a sermon on unfounded imaginings, for

the story had proved to be as it was, not as Valentine had imagined it

in his fear. He spoke of Fritz Nettenmair's trip as one which his son

had had in contemplation for a long time but to which he had not

consented until today. Apollonius was told to bring the account books

into the old gentleman's room at once.

He had to read them aloud to the old gentleman; a curiously

purposeless task, for neither of them had his mind on the figures. And

moreover the old gentleman behaved as if he knew all about everything

already. Valentine came and received various instructions relative to

the departure of the elder son. An hour later he returned, having

performed his duties. He told how Fritz Nettenmair was looking forward

to his new life in America. They would be astonished when they saw him

again. He could hardly await the time. The old gentleman's courage

revived. Grimly he commanded Apollonius to go to bed; the work they

had begun could be continued another time.

Disquieted, like a tortured spirit, now wringing his hands, now

clenching his fists, Fritz Nettenmair wandered from the shed to the

house and from the house again to the shed. With each round he made,

his soul rose up in the wildest defiance and sank again into

despairing helplessness. His heart cried out for a word of love. His

arms stretched out convulsively to press something to his heart which

was his, that he might know he was not lost. For nobody is lost who

has somebody in the world to love. Endowed of a sudden with renewed

strength, he hastened through the house door into the room where his

children lay. A night-light protected by a shade shone brightly enough

for the father to see his children. He sank on his knees before the

nearest little bed. A long forgotten sound rose to his lips and he

whispered it, yearningly as never before. "Fritz!" He only wanted to

clasp his children to his heart once, to see their love and then to

go; to go and become another man, a better one, a happier one. The

little fellow awakened: he thought his mother had called. Smilingly he

opened his eyes and--shivered with fright. He feared the man standing

at his bedside; one he knew so well, and yet more strange than a

stranger to him. It was the man who had given him such angry glances,

the man from whom his mother had locked him in his room that he might

not see what the man did to her. But he had got up trembling and

listened at the door; and clenched his little fists in powerless rage.

"Fritz," said the father anxiously, "I am going away and I shall not

come back. But I will send you beautiful apples and picture-books, and

think of you a thousand times a minute."

"I don't want them," replied the boy, frightened but defiant. "Uncle

'Lonius gives me apples. I don't want yours."

"Don't you love me either?" asked the father in a breaking voice at

the second little bed. George took flight into his brother's bed.

There the children clung to each other in fright. Scorn and repugnance

were reflected in George's face. "I love mother and I love Uncle

'Lonius, but I don't like you. Let me alone; I'll tell Uncle 'Lonius."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed in wild mockery, and at the same time sobbed

in impotent pain. The children were no longer his. He was no longer

their father. Yet they were his children! And he had to go away and

leave them; and those whom he hated, who had ruined everything for

him, would be happy through his going. He became even more miserable

than he had already been. He saw his wife lying before him in her

beauty, and the desire entered his mind to destroy this beauty. But

his recollection of the moment when he lay stretched before his

father, prepared for death, was mightier than the desire and banished

it. The picture of that moment lived strong within him, only there was

an exchange of persons. He painted it with more and more vivid colors.

And now it was a fierce joy that drove him again from the house to the

shed and from the shed to the house. His arms moved in violent

gesticulation. The moon rose. The house with the green shutters lay

there so peaceful in its shimmer. No passer-by would have divined the

unrest concealed behind its walls; none would have suspected the

thought that hell was brewing there in a ruined vessel.

* * * * *

Apollonius was exhausted from watching and struggling. He needed

rest. The next morning he had to complete the garlanding of the

tower-roof, and then take down his swinging-seat, block and pulley,

iron ring and ladder. His step must be firm, his eye clear. For the

single hour that remained before work was to begin, he did not wish to

undress and go to bed. He sat down in his wooden chair. There sleep

came to him sooner than he expected--but it was not the kind of sleep

he needed; it was an uninterrupted disturbing dream. Christiane lay in

his arms as she had lain the day before; he struggled again, but this

time he did not conquer, he clasped her to him. When he opened his

eyes, it was day and time to go to work. He was in a more excited

state of mind than when he had left his father. He hoped that the

visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his

pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh

morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub. But this did

not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even

during his work. The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he

felt himself always in her throbbing embrace; passionate upbraidings

of his brother rose again and again in his heart. He did not know

himself any longer. In addition to the reproaches he made himself for

his evil thoughts, came dissatisfaction because he knew he was not

putting his whole mind on his work. Usually he worked his cheerful,

industrious self into each task he performed, and it was bound to be

good and lasting. But today it seemed to him that he was hammering

unrighteous thoughts into his work, that he was forging out of them an

evil charm, and that the result could not be good nor enduring.

The slater must work thoughtfully. The man who undertakes repairs today

must rely upon the faithfulness of him who stood decades, perhaps

centuries ago where he stands now. The lack of conscientiousness that

rivets a roof-hook slovenly today may be the cause of a good man's death

fifty years hence when he hangs his ladder on that hook. Behind the

struggle of his conscience against the visions of his sinful dream

lurked, like a dark cloud, the fear that in his distraction he might be

forging a future disaster for somebody.

His work was done. The new tin decoration gleamed in the sun around

the dark surface of the slate roof. Ring, tackle, swinging-seat and

ladder had been removed; the workmen who had assisted at the removal

had gone again. Apollonius had taken down the "flying" scaffold and

the poles on which it rested; he stood alone on the narrow board which

formed the path from the cross-beam to the roof-door. He stood

thinking. He felt as if he had forgotten to drive in nails somewhere.

He looked in the slate and nail boxes of his swinging-seat which hung

near him on a beam. The sound of a mysterious hurrying step came to

his ears from the tower stairs. He paid no attention to it, for just

then he found a sheet of lead lying among his things. He had brought

with him the exact number of sheets that he needed. So this was

evidently one that he had forgotten; in his distracted state of mind

he had overlooked one of the riveting points. From the door he looked

up and down the surface of the roof. If the mistake had happened on

this side of the tower he could perhaps rectify it without his seat.

Perhaps the ladder would suffice to reach the required point. And so

it proved to be. About six feet above him, near the roof-hook he had

taken out a slate and had neglected to replace it with a sheet of lead

and to fasten the garland to it. In the meantime the mysterious steps

were coming ever nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end

of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof. The clock

below rumbled. It was almost two. Apollonius had not yet had dinner,

but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest

until he had rectified it. He had gone back to fetch the ladder. It

lay on the beam near the swinging-seat. As he stooped to get it he

felt himself seized and pushed with wild violence toward the door.

Instinctively he caught hold of the lower edge of a beam with his

right hand while with his left he sought in vain for support. This

movement brought him face to face with his assailant. Horrified he saw

the distorted, wild features of his brother.

"You shall have her all to yourself, or down you go with me."

"Away!" cried Apollonius. In his angry pain all his reproaches against

his brother mounted into his face. Exerting all his strength he pushed

him back with his free hand.

"So you show your true face, at last?" mocked Fritz Nettenmair in

still greater rage. "You have dislodged me from every place that I

possessed; now it is my turn. You shall have me on your conscience,

you fluff-picker. Throw me over, or down you go with me!"

Apollonius saw no deliverance. The hand with which he held desperately

to the sharp edge of the beam was well-nigh exhausted. With all his

strength he would have to seize his brother by the arms, turn him

round and push him over if he did not want to be dragged down with

him. And yet he cried: "I will not!"

"Very well," groaned Fritz. "You want to put the blame of this too on

me; you want to make me do this too. Your sanctimoniousness shall now

have an end." Apollonius would have sought a new hold, but he knew

that his brother would take advantage of the instant when he let go

his present one. Fritz was already just on the point of making a

violent dash at him. Apollonius' hand was slipping from the edge of

the beam. He would be lost if he did not find some new hold. He could

perhaps make a jump and catch the beam with both hands; but then his

brother, by the force of his own onset, would certainly fall through

the door. A vision of his honest, proud, old father, of the young wife

and her children, rose before him, and he remembered the vow that he

had made to himself; he was their only support--he must live. One

spring and he had caught the beam in his arms; at the same moment his

brother rushed headlong past him. The weights below rattled, and the

clock struck two. The jackdaws, disturbed in their rest by the

struggle, swooped wildly down to the roof-door and fluttered about in

a croaking cloud. There was the sound of a heavy body striking on the

street pavement far below. A cry went up from all sides. Pale living

faces looked on a paler dead one which lay all bloody on the pavement.

Ghastly haste, screams, a clasping of hands, a running hither and

thither, spread like a whirlwind from the church-yard to the farthest

corner of the town. But the clouds high above in the sky heeded it not

and continued on their vast course unmoved. They see so much

self-created misery below them that a single instance cannot touch

them.

Everything in the world has its use, if not in itself or for him who

does it or who has it, then at least for others. So that which had

brought disgrace on the house of Nettenmair was now a guard against

greater disgrace. Fritz Nettenmair's love of drink was known

everywhere; everybody had seen him drunk; it was no wonder that all

who learned of his death attributed it to this vice. It was well that

nobody outside of the Nettenmair household knew that he had intended

to go to America; it was also well that, to avoid attracting attention

upon his return, he had worn his ordinary workman's clothes in the

mail coach with only his overcoat thrown over them. The coat had got

lost on the way and those who had a right to its restitution naturally

put in no claim for it. It did not occur to anybody to attach much

importance to this scarcely-noticed incident, as it was not necessary

to piece a story together when a complete one was already at hand.

Moreover, before the deed he had gone to his usual place of

recreation, had drunk heavily, and, after boasting in his foolhardy

way that he would now perform his master-piece, had left the tavern

for St. George's much intoxicated. All these outward circumstances

served to confirm the generally accepted opinion. By a fortunate

chance there had been no workmen at St. George's; of the struggle that

had taken place before the fall nobody knew anything except Apollonius

and the jackdaws who lived there. As soon as the inspector learned of

Fritz's death he looked up Apollonius, whom he found sitting exhausted

at the foot of the tower, and told him the story that was going the

rounds. It entered nobody's head to question Apollonius. They all told

him about it instead of letting him tell. He therefore kept silence

about that which nobody questioned. The courts found no reason to make

an investigation, and the danger which had menaced the honor of the

family passed quietly over.

One evening a black bier was seen before the house with the green

shutters. At a distance stood groups of women and children, now

whispering softly to one another, now peering eagerly in one direction

with a curiosity that at times became impatient. Here and there a long

black coat and a three-cornered hat came down the street in solemn

gloom and vanished behind the bier into the house. At last the door

opened. The coffin stood on the bier, the pall covered both; gently,

in rhythmical motion, there appeared a black moving mass; now they

were in their places; the pall-bearers adjusted their hats. The

procession moved, rippling, wavering. On top gleamed bright the hammer

which Valentine had polished, and told that what they were now

surrendering to earth had worked honestly between heaven and earth.

The sweet tears of the old women washed away whatever stains clung to

his memory. Inwardly they made a vow that none who belonged to them

should ever become a slater. The slater's calling is a dangerous one,

between heaven and earth; the man who lay beneath the black pall,

between the boards, silent as he was, preached that with poignant

eloquence. They turned their eyes toward the old gentleman who was led

by two mourners. He seemed to embody the very spirit of honest burial.

But when their gaze fell upon Apollonius they forgot the mildness with

which they had just judged; they unburied the dead man from the cool

funeral flowers that covered his human nakedness. The hammer lying

above him would have been covered with the dark rust of shame had it

not been for Apollonius. Then they looked at the young wife, and,

according to the way of their sex, the mourners became match-makers.

And indeed they had right on their side; a bonnier couple or one

better suited could scarce have been found in the whole town. The

procession passed by the Red Eagle, where a ball was in progress at

which Fritz Nettenmair was missing--surely a dull affair! The

procession went the same way that Fritz Nettenmair had gone after he

had talked with the workman. He had then seen in spirit his brother

lying beneath the black fluttering pall and himself following as a

mourner. The procession went on, still keeping to the streets that

Fritz Nettenmair had trodden on that occasion. Outside the town-gate

the willows melted again into mist or the mist into willows. Here and

there mist-men carried mist-coffins near the real one. At the

cross-ways, where Fritz Nettenmair had seen the journeyman disappear

in the mist, he himself disappeared. In Tambach they were bearing the

journeyman to burial. The two must have had much to say to each other.

Fritz Nettenmair could have told the workman how carefully he had

carried out the thought sown by him, even to the cutting of the rope;

and the workman could have told his former master how he became a

victim to the cuts thus made. The pastor who preached the sermon over

Fritz Nettenmair's grave, who was buried with all the honors due to

his standing or to be bought with money, did not know what an

awe-inspiring theme had eluded him.

The last word of the funeral sermon had died away, the last spadeful

of earth had fallen on the coffin, the mourners had gone home; it

became night, and again day, and again night, and again and again day

and night; other things drove Fritz Nettenmair's unfortunate death

from the minds of the townsmen--and still other things these things. A

stone was erected over his grave, and his honest death was vouched for

by a sculptor and impressed with chisel-strokes upon forgetful

posterity. One might think that the dark cloud that had hovered over

the house with the green shutters would have burst in the storm that

dashed the older son from the tower-roof of St. George's to the

pavement below, and that life would now be bright there, as its outer

aspect promised. One might indeed think so if one saw only the young

widow and her children. The three strong young beings raised their

drooping heads as soon as the burden which had oppressed them was

lifted. The young widow did not look as if she had been a wife, still

less an unhappy wife; from day to day she seemed more like a bridal

maiden or a maidenly bride. And why should she not? Did she not know

that he loved her? Did she not love him? Did not the teasing words of

others, even if she did not think of it herself, remind her that her

love was no longer a forbidden one? The marriage was so natural, so

necessary according to traditional ideas that those who were too old

or too dignified to jest took it as a matter of course without

mentioning it, and did not mention it merely because they took it as a

matter of course.

In his diplomatic fashion the old gentleman made various intimations

that if he had remained at the head of things all would have happened

differently. What Apollonius had spoiled, he would now carry out to

the best possible end. Necessity had placed him at the helm again, and

he would remain there. He forgot that he had twice been forced to the

acknowledgment that when one becomes old, control in the business is

only possible when one need not see through strange eyes. He was to

experience this now for a third time. Since the night before his older

son met a violent death, Herr Nettenmair had resumed his position as

manager of the business. Apollonius reported to him daily concerning

the progress of current work and received orders. When a piece of work

has once been fairly started it can go on by itself and requires from

the superintendent nothing but inspection and an occasional stimulus.

If, however, something new is to be undertaken, a groove must be

sought in which it can run, and the groove must be the shortest,

surest, and most profitable. Clear-seeing eyes are needed, with a

quick power to grasp. That Apollonius possessed these the old

gentleman perceived on the first occasion. It pertained to a

particularly difficult piece of work. Apollonius put it before him

with such clearness that the old gentleman believed he saw it with his

bodily eyes. It was a case, however, in which his experience failed

him. To Apollonius it presented no difficulties. He pointed out three

or four different ways in which it could be done and reduced the old

gentleman to such a state of confusion that he could scarcely conceal

it. A curious, wild train of contradictory sensations rushed through

his brain--joy and pride in his son, then pain that he was nothing and

never could be any more, then shame and wrath that his son knew this

and triumphed over him; the desire to curb him and show him that he

still was lord and master. But even if he wanted to carry his point,

would his son obey? There was no way to preserve even the appearance

of leadership save through his diplomatic art. In a grim voice he gave

commands which were utterly unnecessary, because they pertained to

things which would have been done as a matter of course without

command. In new matters he angrily disapproved of all suggestions made

by Apollonius; but the commands which he finally gave were always in

general accordance with that which Apollonius had suggested as most

expedient. Afterward he made excuses to himself and found something

that would have been much better than Apollonius' suggestion. He was

convinced that if he only had his eyesight everything would be

different. Sometimes he gave himself up unreservedly to his joy and

pride in his son's efficiency; but this feeling was soon replaced by

the wrathful necessity to exert his diplomatic art. Apollonius

realized the restraint that he was imposing upon his father quite as

little as he did his father's pride in him. He was glad that he had

nothing more to conceal from the old gentleman concerning the

business, and that obedience to him did not interfere with the

fulfilment of his vow. The sky above the house with the green shutters

took on a brighter, bluer hue. But the spirit of the house still

wandered about wringing its hands. When the clock struck two in the

morning it stood in the arbor before the door to Apollonius' room and

raised its pallid arms pleadingly toward heaven.

The business increased under Apollonius' diligent hand; the orders

were twice as many as they had formerly been. The postman brought

great piles of letters into the house. Apollonius accepted an

advantageous offer made by the owner and leased the slate quarry. He

understood the management of the works from his stay in Cologne, and

he employed a former acquaintance from that city whom he knew to be an

expert in the business and reliable in his dealings. His choice was a

good one; the man was energetic, but in spite of this fact much

additional work fell on Apollonius. The councilman shook his head

sometimes doubtfully, fearing that Apollonius had over-estimated his

strength. It did not strike the young widow how seldom Apollonius came

into the living-room. The children, whom he often called to him to

perform little services whereby they might learn, kept up the

intercourse. They could testify that Apollonius had very little time.

She went to his room frequently, but always when he was not at home.

She adorned the doors and walls with everything she had which she knew

he loved, and she spent many hours there at work. She noticed the

pallor of his face, which seemed to become greater each time she saw

him. As she was but a mirror of his feelings, his pallor reflected

itself in her. She would have liked to cheer him up, but she did not

seek to be near him; her presence seemed to have the opposite effect

upon him from what she desired. He was always friendly and full of

chivalrous respect toward her. This at least comforted her to a

certain extent. She had endowed him with all the virtues that she

knew; among these she had not forgotten truthfulness, the first of

them all to her. Therefore she knew that he would not compel himself

to show respect to her if he did not feel it. He made merry sometimes,

especially when he saw her eyes fixed anxiously upon his pale face,

but she noticed that her society did not make him healthier or more

cheerful. She would have liked to ask him what was the matter. When he

stood before her she did not dare. When she was alone she asked him.

Many nights through she thought of ways to entice the confession from

him and talked with him. Surely if he had heard her weep, had heard

how sweetly and tenderly she cajoled and pleaded, had heard the dear

names she gave him, he would have told her what ailed him. Her whole

life was between heart and mouth; and when her heart whispered in her

ear what she had said, she flushed rosily and hid her blushes deep

beneath the covers from herself and the listening night.

She confided her fears to the old inspector. "Is it a wonder?" he

asked, "when a person sits all day long for a year and a half over his

business and all night long over books and letters? And then all the

anxiety he had about his--God forgive him, he is dead and one should

not speak ill of the dead--about his brother; and then the fright,

which made me ill for three days, over--and when his widow is there

too--I never did like him much, least of all toward the end. But youth

is so! I warned him a hundred times, the brave fellow! And now the

confounded quarry! Such conscientiousness! He is one who would never

consider his own health." The councilman gave the young widow a long

lecture which was not in the least meant for her. Then they agreed

that Apollonius ought to have a doctor whether he wanted him or not;

and the councilman immediately went to the best physician in town. The

physician promised to do all that was possible. He called on

Apollonius, who put up with him because those whom he loved desired

it. The doctor felt his pulse, came again and again, prescribed and

re-prescribed; Apollonius became ever paler and gloomier. At last the

good man declared that here was a malady against which all art was

useless. So deep-seated was the trouble that no remedy of his could

reach it.

Apollonius knew that no physician could cure his illness. The

councilman had only partly divined the cause. Overwork had merely

watered the soil for the parasite growth which was gnawing at

Apollonius' inmost being. The first symptoms seemed of a physical

nature. As his brother had plunged to death before him, the clock

below had struck the hour of two. Since then every sound of a bell

frightened him. What aroused more serious apprehension was an attack

of dizziness. All the horrors of that day did not obliterate the

feeling of uneasiness which had taken possession of him when he

discovered the inexactitude in his work. Every time a bell sounded it

seemed to him a warning. Early the next morning he went to the

roof-door with his ladder in his hand. He had already noticed how

insecure his step was as he climbed the tower stairs; now, when

through the open door the distant mountains began to nod so curiously

to him and the firm tower to rock beneath him, he became frightened.

That was dizziness, the slater's worst, most malicious enemy when it

takes sudden hold of him on a swaying ladder between heaven and earth.

In vain Apollonius strove to overcome it; he had to give up his

purpose for the day. No way had ever been so hard for Apollonius as

the tower stairs down from St. George's. What would happen? How could

he fulfil his vow if this dizziness did not leave him? On the same day

he had some work to do on the tower of St. Nicholas. There he had to

venture into more dangerous places than at St. George's; the bells

rang at the most critical instant; he felt no trace of dizziness.

Joyfully he hastened back to St. George's, but again the ladder

trembled under his feet, the mountains nodded, the tower rocked. He

was on the lowest rung of the ladder when the clock began to strike

the hour. The sound penetrated every nerve of his body; he had to hold

fast to the railing until the last echo had died away. He made attempt

after attempt, and climbed all ladders and towers with his old

sureness of foot; only at St. George's did dizziness return. There he

had hammered his sinful thoughts into his work; he had felt at the

time that he was forging an evil charm, a coming disaster. Day and

night the picture followed him of the place where he had forgotten to

insert the sheet of lead and to rivet the decoration. The flaw was

like an evil spot, a spot where a crime had been begun or completed

and where no grass grows, no shadow falls; like an open wound which

does not heal until it has been avenged, like an empty grave which

does not close until it has received its denizen. If only the gap were

closed the charm would lose its potency. He might authorize a workman

to do the job, but the thought of leaving his neglected work to

another brought a flush of shame to his pale cheeks. The sheet of lead

nailed by another would be certain to fall; the gap cried out for him,

and he alone could close it. Or the destruction which he had forged

there would seize hold of the workman, dizziness would overtake him

and he would plunge into the depths.

Since his brother's wife had lain in his arms he had lived a double

life. During the day he worked outside and at night he sat in his room

among his books, all that went on mechanically; in spite of his

efforts his heart was only half in his work; the other half lived its

own life, hovering with the jackdaws about the flaw in the tower-roof

and brooding over the coming disaster which he had forged that

morning. His soul fought ever anew the battle with his brother. Was it

his brother's fall that he had forged? Perhaps it would have been

possible to save the madman. Anxiously he sought for possibilities,

and shrank with horror from the thought that he might find one. All

his good qualities became overwrought--his loyalty, his

conscientiousness, his scrupulousness. He did not try to put his

shortcomings upon his brother; with loving hand he took his brother's

guilt and placed it on his own shoulders. It became ever clearer in

his mind that he might have saved his brother. He could have found

some way if his heart and head had not been full of wild, forbidden

desires, if he had not been full of wrath against the madman instead

of feeling pity for him. With his evil thoughts he had forged disaster

for his brother. Without those thoughts his work would have been

finished and his brother would not have found him in the tower, would

have come too late and would have repented of his resolve. Or, if he

had still been there, he was the stronger, cooler headed, and he

should have found a way to prevent the calamity.

It was natural that people should chaff him about the marriage that

seemed a necessity to them. He had to confess to himself that they

were right and that his desires were no longer forbidden ones. But the

fact that they had once been so cast its shadow over the blameless

present. His love seemed sullied to him. Reason and love might say

what they would, he felt that there would be guilt in the marriage.

And so it came that Christiane's presence brought him no cheer. There

were moments when his gloom struck him as a sort of illness and he

hoped that it would pass over. But even then he drew no nearer to

Christiane, much as his heart yearned for her. He continued the same

as on that day when he placed the child between him and her. She

remained pure and holy to him.

To the old gentleman with his external sense of honor, a life like

Apollonius' and Christiane's, without the consecration of the church,

was a grave offense. Only under the name of her husband could

Apollonius, without disgrace, be the protector and supporter of the

beautiful young widow and her children. According to his way he

pronounced the ultimatum. He fixed the time for the wedding. The

indispensable half-year of mourning was over; in a week the betrothal

should be announced, three weeks later the marriage should take place.

Life in the house with the green shutters grew more and more sultry.

The new clouds which had gathered invisibly about it threatened a

storm severer than that in which the old ones had been dispelled. The

young widow had no choice but to play the part of the affianced; she

was rallied about her wedding garment, and, adjusting herself to the

situation, she began preparations. Tears fell upon her work, and joy

had an ever smaller and smaller part in it. She saw the condition of

the man she loved become hourly worse; and she could not fail to know

that the approaching marriage was to blame. The paler and more fragile

he became, the gentler and more full of respect was his conduct toward

her. There was something in it that seemed like pitying pain and an

unexpressed prayer for forgiveness of a wrong, an insult of which he

felt himself guilty toward her.

Apollonius was compelled to come to a decision. He could not. The

yawning discord in his soul became ever greater. If he resolved to

renounce happiness, the phantom of guilt disappeared and happiness

stretched out alluring arms toward him. She loved him and had always

loved him, only him; all the world approved, in fact demanded it of

him. He saw her before she had been stolen from him, how she had laid

the little blue-bell down for him, all rosy beneath the brown curling

locks which struggled to be free; then, pale under the ill-treatment

of the brother who had stolen her from him, pale for him; then

trembling before his brother's threats, trembling for him; then

laughing, weeping, full of anguish and full of happiness in his arms.

His brother's fall had made this woman free. He had known that when he

let his brother fall. If he should wed his brother's wife, who had

become free through the fall, he would make himself guilty of this

fall. If he received the reward of the deed, the deed was also his. If

he took her, the feeling would never leave him; he would be unhappy

and would make her unhappy with him. For her sake and for his he must

refrain. When he came to this decision, he realized how unsubstantial

his conclusions were, viewed with the clear eye of the spirit; and

yet, if he tried to reach out for happiness, the dark feeling of guilt

hovered over him like an icy frost about a flower, and his soul could

do nothing against its annihilating power. And the bells of St.

George's continued to ring their warning. What made Apollonius'

agitation even more feverish was the knowledge that the flaw in his

work had not been corrected. It rained incessantly, the gap yawned

wide, the boarding greedily drank in the water, the wood was bound to

rot. If the winter cold increased, the water would freeze in the wood

and injure the slate. The town, which trusted to his sense of duty,

would suffer harm through him. Each night the stroke of two awakened

him from sleep. Shadows mingled with his fever-dreams. The reproaches

of his inward and outward yearning for purity blended. The open wound

cried aloud for justice, the open grave for him who would close it.

And it was he whom the bells called to justice, he who must close the

grave before the disaster he had forged should descend upon an

innocent head. He must climb to the tower and correct the flaw. But

when he got there, it struck two, dizziness seized hold of him and

dragged him down after his brother. From day to day, from hour to

hour, the beautiful young widow saw him grow paler and became pale

with him. Only the old gentleman in his blindness did not see the

cloud which was lowering so threateningly. The air was very sultry in

the house with the green shutters. No one who looks at the little

house now would suspect how sultry it once was there.

It was on the night before the appointed betrothal day. Snow had

fallen, and then great cold had suddenly set in. For several nights

the so-called St. Elmo's fire had been seen darting tongues of flame

from the tops of the towers to the gleaming stars of heaven. In spite

of the dry cold, the inhabitants of the district felt a curious

heaviness in their limbs. There was no air stirring. The people looked

at one another as if each were asking the other if he too felt the

same uneasiness. Odd prophecies of war, sickness and famine went from

mouth to mouth. The more intelligent smiled, but were themselves

unable to refrain from clothing their inward gloom in corresponding

pictures of some impending disaster. All day long dark clouds, of

different form and color from what the wintry sky is accustomed to

display, had been gathering. Their blackness would have been in

unbearably glaring contrast to the snow which covered mountains and

valley and hung like candied sugar on the leafless boughs, if their

dark reflection had not somewhat deadened the dazzling splendor. Here

and there the firm outline of the cloud-castles softened and seemed to

hang down over earth like drooping breasts. These bore more nearly the

aspect of ordinary snow-clouds, and their dull reddish gray served to

unite the leaden blackness of the higher plane with earth's drab

whiteness and dingy appearance. The whole mass hung motionless over

the town. The blackness increased. Two hours after midday it was

already night in the streets. Dwellers on the ground floor drew down

their blinds; in the windows of the upper stories appeared one light

after another. In the public squares of the town, where a greater

portion of the sky could be seen, groups of people stood, looking now

upward into the heavens, now into the long, doubtful faces around

them. They told of the ravens that had come in great flocks into the

suburbs, they pointed to the deep, restless, uneven fluttering of the

jackdaws around St. George's and St. Nicholas', they spoke of

earthquakes, of land-slides and even of the Judgment Day. The more

courageous thought it was only a violent thunder-storm. But even that

seemed serious enough. The river and the so-called fire-pond, the

waters of which could, at a moment's notice, be let into any part of

the town by means of subterranean channels, were both frozen. Some

hoped the danger would pass by. But each time they looked up at the

sky they saw that the dark cloud-mass had not changed its position.

Two hours after midday it had stood there; toward midnight it still

stood there unmoved. Only it seemed to have become heavier and had

sunk lower. How could it move when there was not a breath of air in

motion, and to scatter and dispel such a mass as this a hurricane

would have been required!

It struck twelve from St. George's tower. The last stroke seemed

unable to die away. But the deep trembling murmur that hung on so long

was no longer the dying tone of the bell. For now it began to grow; as

if on a thousand wings it came rushing and surging and pushed angrily

against the houses that would retard it; whistling and shrieking, it

drove through every crevice that it met, and blustered about the house

until it found another rift to drive out of again; it tore shutters

open and slammed them furiously, it squeezed its way groaningly

between adjacent walls, whistled madly round street corners, lost

itself in a thousand currents, found itself again and rushed headlong

into a raging stream, careered up and down with savage joy, jolted

everything that stood fast, trilled with wild-playing fingers on the

rusty vanes and weather-cocks and laughed shrilly at their groans; it

blew the snow from one roof to another, swept it from the street,

chased it onto steep walls where it crouched with fear in all the

window chinks, and whirled great, dancing fir-trees of snow before it

in its mad course.

Seeing that a storm was imminent, no one had taken off his clothes.

The town and county storm night-watch, as well as the fire company,

had been gathered together for hours. Herr Nettenmair had sent his son

to the main guard-room in the town hall to represent him there as the

master-slater of the town. The two journeymen sat with the tower

watchman, one at St. George's, one at St. Nicholas'. The other

municipal workmen entertained one another in the guard-room as well as

they could. The building inspector looked anxiously at Apollonius,

who, feeling his friend's eye fixed upon him, rose, to conceal from

him if possible his brooding state of mind. At this very moment the

storm broke forth with renewed violence. From the town-hall tower it

struck one. The sound of the bell whimpered in the grip of the storm

which dragged it along in its wild chase. Apollonius stepped to the

window as if to see what was happening outside. A gigantic,

sulphur-blue tongue leaped into the room, sprang twice trembling upon

stove, wall and people, and then, leaving no trace, was swallowed up

in itself again. The tempest raged on: but, even as the storm had

seemed born out of the last sound of St. George's bell, there now

arose a something out of the raging which exceeded it in force as far

as the raging had exceeded the sound of the bell. An invisible world

seemed to tear it to pieces in the air. The storm raged and panted

with the fury of the tiger which cannot destroy what it holds in its

grasp; the deep, majestic rolling that outsounded it was the roar of

the lion which has his foot on the enemy--the triumphant expression of

struggle satisfied by action.

"That struck somewhere!" said one. Apollonius thought: "If it should

strike St. George's tower, where the gap is, and I should have to

climb up, and the clock should strike two, and"--he could think no

further. A cry for help, a cry of fire resounded through storm and

thunder. "The lightning has struck!" was the cry on the street. "It

has struck St. George's tower! Quick to St. George's! Fire! Help!

Fire! St. George's! Fire in the tower of St. George's!" Horns blew,

drums beat. And always the storm and peal after peal of thunder! Then

the cry came: "Where is Nettenmair? If anybody can help it is

Nettenmair. Fire! Fire! At St. George's! Nettenmair! Where is

Nettenmair? The tower of St. George's is on fire!"

The councilman saw Apollonius turn pale, his form sink more deeply

into itself than before. "Where is Nettenmair?" was again the cry from

the street. Then came a dark flush over his pale cheeks and his

slender figure rose to its full height. He buttoned his coat quickly,

and drew the strap of his cap firmly under his chin. "If I stay," he

said to the councilman, as he turned to go, "remember my father, my

brother's wife and the children." The councilman was taken aback. The

young man's "if I stay" sounded like "I shall stay." A presentiment

came over the friend that here was something that had to do with the

salvation of Apollonius' soul. But the expression on Apollonius' face

was no longer one of suffering; nor was it anxious or wild. In spite

of apprehension and alarm, the stout-hearted man felt something like

joyful hope. It was indeed the old Apollonius again who stood before

him, with the same quiet, modest resoluteness that had won his heart

at the first sight of the young man. "If he would only remain so!"

thought the inspector. He had no time to reply. He pressed his hand.

Apollonius felt all that this hand-pressure wanted to say. Compassion

crept over him for the good old man, and something like regret for the

anxiety he had caused him and would still cause him. He said with his

old-time smile: "For such cases I am always prepared. But there is no

time to spare. Good-by for a while!" Apollonius, who moved more

quickly than the councilman, was soon out of sight. All the way to St.

George's, amid the cries, the horns, drums, storm and thunder, the

councilman kept repeating to himself: "Either I shall never see the

good fellow again, or he will be well when he returns." He did not try

to explain to himself how he had come to this conclusion. There was no

time. His duty as municipal inspector demanded his entire attention.

The cry "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair?" greeted Apollonius on all

sides and echoed in the distance. The confidence of his

fellow-citizens awakened in him a renewed sense of his own worth.

When, upon returning from afar, he had seen his native town stretched

out before him, he had dedicated himself to her and her service. The

opportunity now presented itself to show whether he had meant this vow

in earnest. He reviewed in his mind all the possible forms of danger

and how they could best be met. A fire-sprinkler lay ready in the

roof-truss, and cloths were at hand to dip into water and protect the

places most in danger. The journeyman had been instructed to have hot

water ready. The beams were connected everywhere by ladders. For the

first time since his return from Brambach he threw his whole soul into

his work. Before real necessity and its demands the visions of his

brooding fancy receded like dissolving shadows. All his old elasticity

and buoyancy were [Illustration: The Prophet Jeremiah] [Blank Page]

called into being again, intensified by the feeling of relief which

had taken possession of him. Thoughts can be refuted by thoughts,

against feelings they are a very weak weapon. In vain had his spirit

seen the way of salvation; he had fallen a victim to the general

apathy about him. Now a strong, healthful feeling sprang up in

opposition to the strong, morbid ones and devoured them in the ardor

of its flame. He knew, without any special thought on the subject,

that he had found the solution which brings redemption, and that this

was the cause of his renewed being. He knew that dizziness would not

overcome him, but if he should remain it would be a sacrifice made to

duty, not to guilt, and God and the gratitude of the town would assume

in his stead the responsibility for his loved ones.

St. George's Square was thronged with people who gazed in troubled

fear at the roof of the tower. The ancient building stood like a rock

in the fierce battle which the brightness of lightning and the old

night waged untiringly about it. A thousand glowing arms embraced the

tower with such ardor that it seemed as if it would be consumed in

their glow; like a great surging sea the light broke upon its walls,

only to fall back again before the power of night which engulfed all

in its dark flood. The mass of pale faces, pressed close together at

the foot of the tower, flashed into view during momentary gleams of

light but were soon lost again in dreary blackness. The storm tore at

their hats and coats, blew hair into their faces, struck them with

flapping garments and pelted them with glistening drops of snow, as if

it wanted to make them atone for the wounds it received when it beat

as rain on the rocky ribs of the tower. And as the people now

appeared, now disappeared in alternating light and darkness, so also

their confused attempts at conversation were drowned at every turn by

storm and thunder.

Somebody called out in self-consolation: "It was a harmless flash;

though it struck, nothing caught fire." Somebody else thought that the

flame might still break out. A third became angry; he took this

suggestion as a wish that the flame might break out. He had been

comforted by the first thought; he had to avenge himself for the

uneasiness which the suggestion created in his mind. Trembling with

cold and anxiety, many stared up stupidly with blinded eyes into space

and knew not even why. A hundred voices explained what misfortune

would befall the town, must befall it, if the lightning had really

struck and the tower had caught fire. Some told of the nature of

slate, how it melts in fire and is carried as slack through the air,

often setting fire to a whole city at the same time. Others lamented

that the storm would further a possible fire, and that there would be

no water with which to extinguish it. Still others said that if there

were any water it would freeze in the engines and be of no avail. Most

of them depicted with fearful eloquence the course that the fire would

take. If the burning truss should fall the storm would blow it right

where there was a thick cluster of houses, quite near the tower. This

was the most dangerous place in the whole town in case of fire, for

there were numberless frame verandas in narrow courts, boarded gable

roofs and shingle-covered sheds, all crowded so closely together that

it would be impossible for a fire-engine to be squeezed in among them

or for the firemen to get at their work. If the burning truss should

fall on this side, as it most certainly would, the entire portion of

the town that lay before the wind would be irretrievably lost. These

reflections reduced the timid to such a state of mind that every new

flash seemed to them the inevitable fire. That nobody could see more

than one side of the tower at a time tended to increase the

misapprehension. It was curious, but from all sides the cry was heard:

"Where? Where?" Storm and thunder prevented mutual understanding.

Everybody wanted to see for himself. Wild excitement prevailed.

"Where did it strike?" asked Apollonius, who had just arrived. "On the

side toward Brambach," answered many voices. Apollonius pushed his way

through the crowd. With long strides he hastened toward the tower

steps. He had come considerably in advance of his more deliberate

associates. In the tower his questions were to no purpose. The people

in the tower thought that though the lightning had struck it had not

set fire to anything; still they were on the point of gathering

together their best things to flee from the danger. Only the

journeyman, whom he found occupied at the stove, remained

self-possessed. Apollonius hastened with lanterns to the truss, to

hang them there. The ladder steps did not tremble beneath his feet; he

was in too great haste to notice it. There seemed to be no trace of

incipient fire in the truss. Neither the odor of sulphur, which

denotes fire by lightning, nor ordinary smoke was perceptible.

Apollonius heard his associates on the steps. He called to them that

he was there. Just at that moment a blue light flashed through all the

tower-windows followed immediately by a tremendous crash of thunder.

Apollonius stood for an instant, stunned. If he had not unconsciously

caught hold of a beam, he would have fallen to the ground from the

shock. A thick fume of sulphur took his breath away. He sprang to the

nearest window to obtain fresh air. The workmen farther from where it

had struck had not been stunned, but stood motionless with fright on

the topmost flight of steps. "Come!" cried Apollonius. "Quick! the

water! The sprinkler! It must have struck on this side--that's where

the pressure and the smell of sulphur came from. Quick, water and the

sprinkler at the door!" The master-carpenter, standing on the ladder

steps, called, coughing, "But the smoke!" "Quick!" replied Apollonius,

"the door will give more air than we want." The mason and the

chimney-sweep followed the carpenter, who carried the hose with the

sprinkler, as quickly as he could, up the ladder steps. The others

brought buckets of cold water, the journeyman a pail of hot water to

pour over the cold to prevent its freezing.

At such moments he who remains calm inspires confidence; to the

self-possessed man of action others defer without question. The wooden

passage-way to the door was narrow, but through Apollonius'

intelligent directions room was immediately found for all. Next to

Apollonius stood the carpenter, then the sprinkler, then the mason.

The sprinkler was so turned that the two men had the levers before

them. Two strong men could work it. Behind the mason stood the

journeyman who was to pour hot water on the cold as often as was

necessary. Others performed the journeyman's previous duty; they

melted snow and ice and kept the water thus obtained in the watchman's

warm room so that it should not freeze again. Still others were ready

to serve as carriers and formed a sort of double line between roof and

watchman's room. While Apollonius was explaining to the carpenter and

mason, in rapid words and signs, his plan of action which they then

carried into effect, he had taken hold of the roof-ladder with his

right hand and was reaching out with his left toward the bolt of the

door. The workmen were all full of hope, but when the storm whistled

in through the opened door, tore the carpenter's cap from his head,

blew masses of fine snow against the beams, howled, rattled, and

blustered against the ridge of the roof, while flash after flash of

lightning broke through the dark opening, the bravest among them

wanted to withdraw his hand from the futile work. Apollonius had to

stand with his back to the door to get his breath. Then gripping the

lath-work above the door, with both hands, he bent his head back in

order to get a look at the roof from the outside. "It can still be

saved," he cried with an effort so that he could be heard above the

storm and the uninterrupted rolling of the thunder. He seized the tube

of the shorter hose, the lower end of which the carpenter had screwed

onto the sprinkler, and wound the upper part around his body. "When I

pull twice on the hose start the sprinkler; we'll save the church and

perhaps the town." With his right hand propped against the lath-work

he swung himself out of the door; in his left hand he held the light

roof-ladder which he wanted to hang on the next hook above the door.

This seemed impossible to the workmen. The storm would certainly tear

the ladder down, and all too possibly the man with it. It came in well

for Apollonius that the wind pressed the ladder against the surface of

the roof. There was plenty of light by which to find the hook; but the

fine snow which flurried about and, rolling down from the roof, struck

him in the eyes, was a hindrance. He could feel, however, that the

ladder hung securely. There was no time to lose; he swung himself up

on it. He had to trust more to the strength and sureness of his arms

and hands than to a secure footing as he climbed upward, for the storm

swayed man and ladder to and fro like a bell. Above, to one side of

the topmost rung of the ladder, blue flames with yellow points leaped

forth from under the gap and licked the edges of the slate roof. The

lightning had struck two feet below the point where the sheet of lead

was lacking. A short hour ago he had been frightened by the thought of

the mere possibility that the lightning could strike there and that he

would have to climb up--a series of dark, deadly fever visions had

risen before him: now, all had happened as he had pictured it--but the

gap was like any other part of the tower-roof and he stood on the

ladder, free from all dizziness, pervaded only by a keen, strong

desire to avert impending danger from church and town. Yes, something

that had enhanced his vague fears now proved to be of distinct

advantage to him. The water which had been pouring into the hole for

weeks, and which was now frozen in the wood, prevented the flame from

obtaining the upper hand as quickly as it would otherwise have done.

The area taken possession of by the fire up to the present time was

small. The frost in the boarding had stubbornly beat back the leaping,

ever-returning flames and it would take time before they could

permanently strike root and from their vantage point do further

destruction. If they had united in one big flame and overstepped the

space below the hole protected by the frost, the fire would soon have

grown to gigantic proportions and the church, perhaps the town, have

succumbed to the combined force of fire and storm. He saw that there

was still time to save, and he needed the strength that this thought

gave. The ladder not only swung backward and forward, it moved up and

down. What could be the cause of that? If the beams of the roof were

loose--but he knew that that was not the case--this movement would be

impossible. But the trouble was that the ladder was not hanging on the

hook; he had hung it on a projecting tin oak-leaf which formed part of

the roof's decoration, near one of the rivets, and he had neglected to

fasten the other end of the garland on which the ladder hung. His

weight was pulling on it now and dragging it and the ladder gradually

down. An inch more and the leaf would be horizontal, the ladder would

slide off it and he and the ladder together would fall into the

tremendous depth below. His newly-acquired courage was to be put to

the test. Six inches from the leaf was the hook. He took three

cautious steps up the tottering ladder; then, seizing hold of the hook

with his left hand and holding fast, he raised the ladder with his

right hand from the leaf to the hook. It hung securely. He let go the

hook and, holding fast to a rung of the ladder with both hands,

stepped back onto it again. And now the slates below the hole began to

glow; it would not be long before the burning particles carried

destruction far and near. Apollonius drew his claw-hammer from his

belt; a few strokes with the tool and the slate fell, splintering

below. Now he could see clearly the very small area of burning

surface; his confidence increased. He pressed twice on the hose and

the sprinkler began to work. First he held the nozzle toward the hole

so that the lath-work above might be the better protected from the

flame. The sprinkler proved to be powerful; the water that penetrated

beneath the edge of the slate shivered it into small bits. The flames

cracked and leaped angrily under the gushing water; only when the jet

was turned directly upon them, and then more by means of its

smothering power than its inherent qualities, did it finally vanquish

them.

The surface of the fire lay black before him; there was no hissing in

response to the jet from the hose. Far below him the works of the

clock rattled. It struck two! Two strokes! Two! And he stood and did

not plunge headlong into space. How different in reality from what his

feverish forebodings had threatened! In his brooding, waking dreams he

had stood at the top of the tower, it had struck two, a great

dizziness had come over him and dragged him down, to expiate a dark

crime. But now he stood there in reality, the ladder swayed in the

storm, snowdust flurried about him, lightning darted around him, the

sheet of snow on roofs, mountains and valley shimmered bright with

each gleaming flash, it struck two below him, the tone of the bells,

rent by the storm, wailed in the tumult, and he stood, stood free from

all dizziness and did not fall. He knew that no guilt was attached to

him, he had done his duty where thousands would have failed, he had

saved the town which he loved with all his soul, from a terrible

danger. But there was no vainglory in his heart, only a prayer of

thanksgiving. His thoughts were not of the people who would praise

him, but of those who would breathe freely again, of the misery that

had been prevented, of the happiness that would be preserved. For the

first time in many months he felt what it means to breathe freely.

This night had brought gladness to him. With joy he looked back on the

vow that he had made. To men like Apollonius, the highest blessing of

a good deed is that it gives courage for new good deeds.

The throng below still cried: "Where? Where?" and crowded close

together when the second stroke occurred. They stood for a moment

paralyzed with fear. "Thank the Lord! It was harmless this time too!"

exclaimed one voice. "No! No! It is burning. God have mercy!" replied

others; sharp eyes saw in the darkness that appeared between the

flashes little blue flames leaping like candles over the slate. These

flames sought one another and when they found one another they blazed

up convulsively into a larger flame, then fled dancingly away and

shivered into pieces. The storm bent and blew them here and there;

sometimes they seemed to die out, but suddenly they leaped up brighter

than ever. They were growing, one could see that, but their growth was

not rapid. Much more rapid and vehement was the new cry of fire that

swelled through the town. In anxious suspense the gaze of all was

riveted on the one small spot. "Help! Now! It can still be put out!"

And again through storm and thunder sounded the agonized cry:

"Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair?" A voice called, "He is in the

tower." All hearts felt relief when they heard that. And most of them

did not know him, even among those who called out for him, and those

who did not know him cried out loudest. In moments of general

helplessness the crowd clings to a name, to a mere word. Some thus

thrust from themselves the calls of conscience which demanded personal

effort, personal risk, and these are they who are most merciless in

their judgment of the helper if he is unable to help. The rest are

happy if they can delude themselves for the moment. "What could he

do?" cried one. "Help! Rescue!" cried others. "Even if one had wings,

he would not dare the ascent in such a storm." "Nettenmair surely

would." In the depths of their hearts, however, even the most

confident knew that he would not. The thought that the flame could be

extinguished if it were only accessible aggravated the general spirit

of uneasiness. It prevented that dull submission which the inevitable

with gentle severity compels. When the door opened and the suspended

ladder became visible, and it seemed as if somebody were going to dare

the deed, the effect on the crowd was as terrifying as the stroke

itself had been. And the ladder hung and swayed in the air with the

man who was climbing upward, enveloped in snow, encircled by

lightning; the ladder that seemed cut from a splinter swinging with

the man like a bell in the awful heights. Every one held his breath.

The same expression of horror stared from hundreds of unlike faces at

the man on high. None believed in the daring feat--and yet they saw

the man who dared. It was like something that was at the same time

dream and reality. Nobody believed in it, and yet each one stood

himself on the ladder while under him swung the light splinter in

storm and lightning and thunder, high between heaven and earth. And

again they stood below on the firm earth and looked upward; and yet if

the man should fall it would be they who fell. The people on the firm

ground held convulsively to their own hands, to their canes, to their

clothes, that they might not fall from the terrible height. They stood

secure, and yet at the same time they hung over the abyss of death,

for years, for a lifetime; the past had never been; and yet they had

only been hanging on high for a moment. They forgot the peril to the

town and their own, in the peril of the man above them whose peril was

their own. They saw that the fire was quenched, the danger to the town

was over; they knew it as in a dream when one knows that he dreams; it

was a mere thought without a living meaning. Only when the man had

climbed down the ladder, had disappeared into the door and drawn the

ladder after him, only when the people no longer clung to their own

hands, canes, and clothes, only then did admiration battle with

anxiety, only then did the exultant cry: "Hurrah! Brave fellow!"

become smothered in the lament: "He is lost!" A trembling old voice

began to sing: "Now thank we all our God!" When the aged man came to

the line: "Who has protected us," a great consciousness seemed to

sweep over the people of what might have been lost and what had been

rescued for them. Absolute strangers fell into one another's arms,

each embraced in his neighbor the loved ones whom he might have lost

and who had been saved. All united in the singing of the hymn; the

sounds of thanksgiving swelled through the whole town, soared over the

streets and squares where the people stood who had feared to go

closer, entered the houses, penetrated into the innermost chambers,

rose to the remotest garrets. The sick man in his lonely bed, the old

man in the chair where weakness had bound him, little children who did

not know the meaning of the hymn or of the danger that had been

averted, all joined in the song of praise. The town was one great

church, and storm and thunder the giant organ. Again the cry was

heard: "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair? Where is our helper? Where is

our rescuer? Where is the brave fellow? Where is the noble man?" Wind

and storm were forgotten. Everybody pushed forward, looking for the

man who was being called on all sides. The tower of St. George's was

besieged. The carpenter appeared, saying that Nettenmair had lain down

in the watchman's room to rest for a few moments. The carpenter was

beset with questions. Had he been injured at all? Would his health

suffer? The carpenter could tell nothing except that Nettenmair had

done more than a man is capable of doing in the ordinary course of

events. In such supreme moments man is a different being; later he

marvels himself at the power he displayed. But everything must be paid

for. It would not surprise the carpenter if, after the tremendous

exertion, Nettenmair should sleep for three days and nights at a

stretch. The people seemed prepared to wait on the steps for that

length of time, in order to see the brave man as soon as he waked. In

the meantime a prominent man had begun to take up a collection in the

market-place. Money, of course, could not reward such a deed as had

been performed that day; but at least they could show their gratitude

to the courageous doer. Carried away by the impulse of the moment,

acknowledged misers hastened home to fetch their contribution,

regardless of the fact that in an hour they would regret having done

so. Not many of the well-to-do refused to contribute, all the poor

gave their share. The collector was astonished at the rich success of

his efforts.

Apollonius rested for half an hour. Before he lay down he saw that the

lanterns were carefully put out. He closed the door, and had the

sprinkler emptied and the hose brought into the watchman's room so

that the frost could do no harm to them. He was able to stand no

longer. The councilman, who had come to him in the meantime, had to

compel him almost with force, to go down to the watchman's room. His

friend then bolted the door, made Apollonius take off his frozen

clothes, and sat down like a mother at his bedside. Apollonius could

not sleep, but the old man did not allow him to speak. He had brought

rum and sugar with him, and there was hot water enough; but

Apollonius, who had never drunk anything strong, declined the grog

with thanks. In the meantime the workman had brought clothes.

Apollonius assured them that he felt perfectly himself again but that

he felt a hesitancy about getting out of bed. Laughingly the old man

gave him his clothes. Apollonius had undressed under the bedclothes

and in the same way he now dressed beneath them. The councilman turned

his back to him and looked laughingly out of the window at storm and

lightning; whether his smiles were over Apollonius' bashfulness or

from pure joy at having his favorite again he did not know. He had

often regretted having remained a bachelor, now he was almost glad. He

had a son at any rate, and as good a one as a father could wish.

Trouble now began for Apollonius. He was torn from arm to arm; even

women of prominence kissed and embraced him. His hands were so shaken

and squeezed that for three days he had no feeling in them. He did not

lose, however, his naturally noble bearing. His modest, blushing

embarrassment in the face of so much enthusiastic thanks and admiring

praise, became him as well as his brave, determined conduct in time of

danger. Those who did not already know him were amazed; they had

formed a very different conception of him: dark, bold-eyed, audacious,

overflowing with spirits, in fact almost wild. Still they had to

acknowledge that his appearance was not at variance with his deed. His

maidenly blushes lent an added charm to the tall manly figure, and the

modest embarrassment of his honest face, which seemed in no way to

realize what he had done, was very winning; his gentle thoughtfulness

and quiet simplicity placed his achievement in a still more pleasing

light, for it was plainly to be seen that vanity and ambition had

played no part in it.

* * * * *

We pass now in spirit over a period of three decades and return to the

man with whom we were occupied at the beginning of our tale. We left

him in the arbor of his little garden. The bells of St. George's

called the dwellers of the town to morning service; they sounded also

in the garden behind the house with the green shutters. There he sits

every Sunday at this time. When the bells call to afternoon service he

is seen wending his way to church with his silver-headed cane in his

hand. Nobody sees the old gentleman without greeting him with

reverence. It has been nearly thirty years, but there are still people

who lived through that remarkable night. They can tell those who do

not know what the man with the silver-headed cane did for the town on

that night. And to what he set on foot the next day the stones

themselves bear witness. Just outside of the town, on the road to

Brambach, not far from the rifle-range there rises a stately building

with a pleasant garden. It is the new town hospital. Every stranger

who goes to it learns that its conception originated with Herr

Nettenmair. He also has to listen to the entire story of that night,

and of Herr Nettenmair's brave deed, who was then a young man; and how

a collection was taken up for him, and how he gave this money to the

town as a nucleus for the hospital, and how rich citizens, inspired by

his example, donated and bequeathed until, after a number of years, an

additional contribution from the town completed the sum necessary for

the erection of the building.

When Herr Nettenmair returns from church he spends the rest of Sunday

in his little room where he still lives; or he takes a walk to the

slate quarry, which now belongs to him, or rather to his nephews. The

fulfilment of the vow which he made to himself has continued to be the

aim of his life. Everything that he has done he has done for his

brother's family, he has considered himself only the administrator. If

he happens to see a pretty little girl anywhere, he thinks of dear

little dead Annie. His memory is as conscientious as he himself, for

he always calls the child to him, strokes her hair, and it would be

strange indeed if he did not find in the pocket of his blue coat

something or other wrapped up in nice clean paper which he produces to

bring forth a word of thanks from the little mouth. The child,

however, cannot enjoy herself to the full until he has gone, for, in

spite of his friendliness, his tall figure has something so grave and

solemn about it that her joy is usually swallowed up in respect.

During the week Herr Nettenmair sits over his books and letters, or

superintends the packing and unpacking, the chipping and sorting of

the slate. Punctually at twelve o'clock he has his dinner in his room,

punctually at six his evening meal; this takes a quarter of an hour.

Then, rubbing his hand gently over the old sofa, he rises and, if it

is summer time, exercises for three-quarters of an hour in his garden.

On the stroke of a quarter to one and a quarter to seven he latches

the door behind him. On Sunday it is different; then he sits for a

whole hour in the arbor and gazes up at the church roof of St.

George's. There is little for us to tell; the reader knows all that

goes on in Nettenmair's soul, and what he reads from the church tower.

The reader also knows to whom the aged but still beautiful face

belongs that sometimes peers through the trellised arbor at the old

man. The lock which is now white was dark brown and full, falling over

an unwrinkled forehead, the cheeks glowed with youthful strength, the

lips were red and smiling and the blue eyes gleamed when she hastened

to meet the man who had rescued the town. He kissed her gently on the

brow and called her "Sister." She understood what he meant. Even at

that time she looked up to the man with the submission, nay, the

devotion with which she now hangs on his every word; but at that time

there was another feeling as well that showed itself in her open

countenance.

The old gentleman flew into a rage when Apollonius told him of his

determination not to marry. He gave his son his choice between

considering the honor of the family or returning to Cologne.

Apollonius' heart found it harder than his head to convince his father

that it devolved upon him alone to uphold the honor of the family and

that he must remain. He knew that he could keep his word only by

remaining true to his determination. But he could not tell his father

this, for if the old man should discover the true relation existing

between the two young people he would insist upon the marriage more

strongly than ever. Then he would also have to tell him how his

brother had met his death, and that would cause his father unnecessary

pain. He did not realize that his father in his heart was convinced

that his brother had taken his own life. The two men, so closely

related, did not understand each other. Apollonius assumed that his

father had the same inward sense of honor which he himself possessed;

and the father saw in his son's refusal and in his argument of having

to maintain the position of the family, nothing but the old obstinacy

contending that his presence was indispensable and not even taking the

trouble to conceal itself--he thought that in his son's eyes he was

nothing but a blind, helpless old man. And what caused and furthered

their misunderstanding was reserve, that family trait which they held

in common. On the same morning a delegation had tendered Apollonius

the thanks of the town and its most prominent citizens had vied with

each other in giving tokens of esteem and respect. This was cause

enough to arouse arrogance in an ambitious soul, and cause enough for

the old gentleman, who considered that Apollonius had such a soul, to

believe in this arrogance. The old gentleman had to admit that his son

was indispensable and dared assert neither right nor might against

him. The emotion and mental exertion on the day before the death of

his eldest son had undermined his strength; he collapsed entirely now

and became each day queerer and more sensitive. He no longer demanded

subserviency from Apollonius; he found a certain self-tormenting

pleasure in reproaching his son with unfilial conduct, and in

continually giving expression to his bitter regret that such an

industrious son should have to put up with so much from an overbearing

old father who was not, and never could be, anything any more. At the

same time he rejoiced in his eccentric fashion over the industry of

his son, the growing honor and increasing fortunes of his house. He

lived to see the purchase of the slate quarry which Apollonius had

previously leased. The son endured his father's eccentricities with

the same loving, untiring patience which he had exhibited toward his

brother. He lived only in the thought of fulfilling as completely as

lay within his power the vow that he had made to himself, and in this

vow he had included his father. The success of his work gave him

strength to bear all little annoyances with cheerfulness.

On the day after the winter night's storm he had told the old building

inspector the whole story of his inner life. The councilman, who till

the day of his death clung to Apollonius with all his soul, remained

the latter's only companion, as he was the only person with whom he

could hold intimate intercourse without being untrue to his own

nature.

For several days after the storm Apollonius had to lie in bed. A

burning fever had taken hold of him. At first the physician pronounced

his illness a very serious one, but in reality it was only the body

fighting triumphant battle against the general suffering which had

found mental absolution in the resolve of that night. The sympathy of

the town manifested itself in various touching ways. The old

councilman and Valentine were his nurses. The one whom nature through

love and gratitude had determined upon as the best nurse for the sick

man, Apollonius did not call to his bed, and she dared not go

uncalled. Throughout his illness, however, she took up her abode in

the little trellised arbor and remained there so as to be as near to

him as possible. When he slept the old councilman beckoned to her to

enter. Then she stood with folded hands behind the screen at the foot

of his bed and accompanied his every breath with anxiety and hope.

Unconsciously her gentle breathing regulated itself by his. For hours

she stood looking through a crack in the screen at the sick man. He

knew nothing of her presence, and yet the inspector could see how his

sleep became easier, his face more smiling. There was no bottle from

which he took his medicine which, without his knowing it, he did not

receive from her hand, no plaster, no application which she had not

prepared; no cloth, no cover touched him which she had not warmed on

her breast, kissed with her loving lips. When he talked with the

councilman about her, she saw that he was more anxious concerning her

than himself; when he sent friendly, comforting messages to her she

trembled behind the screen with joy. She rested but little; and when

the cold night wind blew flakes of snow through the loose blinds onto

her warm face, when her own breath, frozen on the pillow, touched

icily throat, chin and bosom, she was happy in the thought that she

was allowed to suffer something for him who had suffered all for her.

In those nights sacred love conquered earthly love in her; out of the

pain of sweet, disappointed desire which yearned to possess, arose his

image surrounded once more by that halo of unattainable glory in which

she had known him of yore.

Apollonius recovered quickly. And now began the joint life of these

two people. They saw each other but seldom. He lived in his little

room by himself. Valentine brought him his meals, as always. The

children were often with him. If the two happened to meet, he greeted

her with friendly reserve and she returned his greeting. If they had

anything to discuss together it happened each time as if by chance

that either the maid was present or the children and Valentine. But no

day passed without some silent token of courteous respect. On Sundays,

when he came in from his garden, he brought a bouquet of flowers with

him which Valentine then presented to her. He could have made a

brilliant marriage, gallant lovers sued for her hand; but he repelled

all offers and she all suitors. So passed days, weeks, months, years,

decades. The old gentleman died and was buried. The good councilman

followed, and then Valentine. The children grew to be youths. The

unruly lock over the widow's brow, Apollonius' corkscrew-curl, turned

gray; the children became men, strong and gentle like their teacher

and master; lock and curl were silver white; the life of the two

remained the same.

Now the reader knows all the past which the old man, sitting in his

arbor, reads from St. George's tower when the bells call for Sunday

morning service. Today he looks forward into the future, rather than

backward into the past. For his older nephew is soon to lead Anna

Wohlig's daughter to the altar of St. George's, and then home; not to

the house with the green shutters, however, but to the big house close

by. The pink-tinted house is too small for the growing business--and

besides the new household would not find room there; Herr Nettenmair

has bought the big house across the way. The youngest nephew is going

to Cologne. The old cousin who did so much for Apollonius has been

dead for many years; also the son has died, leaving his large business

to his only child who is the betrothed of Fritz Nettenmair's younger

son. There will be a double wedding at St. George's. The two old

people will then live alone in the house with the green shutters. For

a long time the old gentleman has wanted to hand over the business to

his nephews, but the young men have steadfastly refused till now. The

older nephew insists that his uncle shall remain at the head; the old

gentleman does not wish to do so. A part of the councilman's estate,

which he inherited, he has reserved for himself for his lifetime;

everything else, and that is by no means little, for Herr Nettenmair

is considered a rich man, he will give over to his nephews; what he

has reserved for himself will go at his death to the new town

hospital. He has made good his word; he will go down to his grave with

unsullied name.

The future bride protests against accepting all that her mother-in-law

wants to give her. There is but one thing that the old lady wishes to

keep for herself; it is a little tin box with a withered flower, and

it lies with her Bible and hymn-book, as sacred to the owner as these.

The bells still call. The roses on the tall bushes are fragrant as of

yore; a white-throat sits on the bush beneath the old pear-tree and

sings; a gentle breeze steals through the garden and even the box

around the circular beds rustles its dark leaves. The old gentleman

looks musingly at the tower of St. George's; the beautiful matron's

face peers through the trellis at him. The bells call it, the

white-throat sings it, the roses breathe it, the gentle breeze

whispers it, the beautiful aged faces speak it, from the tower roof of

St. George's you may read it: "Men tell of the happiness and

unhappiness that heaven brings them! What men call happiness and

unhappiness is but the raw material. It lies within man himself to

mold that material as he will. It is not heaven that brings happiness;

man prepares happiness for himself, and raises heaven in his own

breast. Man need take no care to go to heaven, if heaven but comes to

him. Who carries not heaven within himself may search in vain for it

through all the universe. Be guided by reason, but encroach not upon

the sacred bounds of feeling. Turn not disapprovingly from the world

as it is, but seek to be just to it, and it will be just to thee. In

this sense let thy path be

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH."