I was not quite seventeen years old, an over-grown pale-faced young fellow, at that awkward and embarrassing age which, conscious, of having out-grown boyish ways, is yet very unsteady and insecure when seeking to tread in the footsteps of men. With an audacious fancy and a timid heart; oscillating between defiant self-confidence and girlish sensitiveness; snatching inquisitively at every veil that hides from mortal eyes the mysteries of human life; to-day knowing the last word of the last question, to-morrow confessing the alphabet has still to be learnt, and getting comfort after so restless and contradictory a fashion that one would have been intolerable to one's very self if not surrounded by fellows in misfortune---that is in years--who were faring no better, and yet continued to endure their personality.
It was at this time that I became intimate with a singular fellow who was some two years older than I, but like myself doomed to spend nearly another year as upper-class student. He did not attend the same gymnasium, nor were his relations, who lived out of Berlin, at all known to mine. I am really puzzled how to explain the fact that in spite of these obstacles we two became so friendly, that scarcely a day passed without his coming up the steep stairs that led to my rooms. Indeed even then a third party seeing us together might have found it hard to say what made us so essential to each other. He was in the habit of entering with a mere nod, walking up and down the room, now and then opening a book, or looking at a picture on the walls, and finally throwing himself into my grandfather's armchair--my substitute for a sofa--where, legs crossed, he would sit for hours, speaking not a word, until I had finished my Latin essay. Often when I looked up from the book before me I met his quiet, dreamy, brown eyes resting on me with a gentle brotherly expression, which made me nod to him in return; and it was a pleasure to me just to feel him there. If he chanced to find me idle, or in a communicative mood, he would let me run on by the hour without interruption, and his silent attention seemed to encourage and comfort me. It was only when we got upon the subject of music that he ever grew excited, and then we both lost ourselves in passionate debate. He had a splendid deep bass voice, that harmonized well with his manly aspect, dark eyes, and brown satin-smooth skin. And as he was also zealously studying the theory of music, it was easy for him to get the better of my superficial lay-talk by weighty arguments; yet whenever he thus drove me into a corner he always seemed pained at my defeat. I remember him, on one occasion, ringing me out of bed, formally to apologise for having, in the ardour of controversy, spoken of Rossini'sBarbierewhich I had been strenuously upholding, as a wretched shaver whose melodies, compared with those of Mozart, were of little more account than the soap-bubbles in his barber's basin.
In addition too to the extreme placidity that characterized him, he was always ready to do me a number of small services, such as the younger student usually renders to his senior, and there were two other things that helped to rivet our friendship: he had initiated me in the art of smoking, and set my first songs to music. There was one, I remember, which appeared to us at that time peculiarly felicitous both as to words and melody, and we used to sing it as a duet in all our walks together--
"I think in the olden daysThat a maiden was loved by me;But my heart is sick and troubled,It is all a dream may-be."I think in the olden days,One was basking in sunny bliss;But whether I or another?I cannot be sure of this!"I think in the olden daysThat I sang--but know not what;For I have forgotten all thingsSince I've been by her forgot."
"I think in the olden days
That a maiden was loved by me;
But my heart is sick and troubled,
It is all a dream may-be.
"I think in the olden days,
One was basking in sunny bliss;
But whether I or another?
I cannot be sure of this!
"I think in the olden days
That I sang--but know not what;
For I have forgotten all things
Since I've been by her forgot."
Dear and ridiculous season of youth! A poet of sixteen sings of the "old myth" of his lost love-sorrow, and a musician of eighteen with all possible gravity, sets the sobbing strophes to music with a piano-forte accompaniment that seems to foreshadow the outburst of the world's denunciation on the head of the inconstant fair!
We were, however, as I have already said, so especially pleased with this melancholy progeny of our united talents, that we were not long content to keep it to ourselves; we burned with desire to send it forth to the public. At that time the "Dresden Evening Times" under the editorship of, as I believe the late Robert Schneider, admitted poems over which my critical self-esteem could not but shrug its shoulders. To him, therefore, we sent our favourite--anonymously, of course--in the full persuasion that it would appear in the forthcoming number, text and music both, with the request that the unknown contributor would delight the Evening Times with other admirable fruits of genius. Full of a sweet shyness, spite of our incognito, we accordingly took to haunting the eating-houses where that journal was taken in, and blushingly looked out for our first-born. But week after week passed by without satisfying our expectations. I myself after twice writing and dignifiedly desiring the manuscript to be returned, gave up all hope, and was so wounded and humiliated by this failure, as first to throw down the gauntlet to an ungrateful contemporaneous world, and contribute to the pleasure of more enlightened posterity in the form of a longer poem; and then gradually to shun all mention of our unlucky venture, even requesting Bastel (my friend's name being Sebastian) to leave off humming the tune which too vividly recalled to me the mortifying history.
He humoured me on this point, but he could not refrain from privately carrying on his investigations in pastry-cooks' shops, the more that he was devotedly addicted to cakes and sweet things. It was then midsummer, and the small round cherry tarts were wonderfully refreshing to an upper class student's tongue, parched and dry with Latin and Greek. Bastel most seriously asserted that sweets agreed with his voice; he was only able to temper the harshness of his bass notes by plenty of sugar and fruit-juice. I on the contrary, despised such insipid dainties, and preferred to stick to wine, which at that time did very little indeed to clear up any mind I had. But in virtue of my calling I was bound to worship "wine, women, and song," and in the volume of poems at which I was working hard, there was, of course, to be no lack of drinking-songs.
We had now reached July, and the dog-days were beginning, when one afternoon Bastel made his appearance at the usual hour, but in very unusual mood. He lit his cigar indeed, but instead of sitting down to smoke it, he stood motionless at the window for a full quarter of an hour, drumming "Non più andrai" on the panes, and from time to time sighing as though a hundredweight lay on his heart.
"Bastel," said I, "what's wrong?"
No answer.
"Are you ill?" I went on; "or have you had another row with the ordinary? or did the college yesterday give you a bad reception?" (He belonged to a certain secret society much frequented by students, and wore in his waistcoat pocket a tricoloured watch-ribbon which only ventured forth at their solemn meetings.)
Still the same silence on the part of the strange dreamer, and the drumming grew so vehement that the panes began to ring ominously.
It was only when I left off noticing him, that he incoherently began to talk to himself, "There are more things in heaven and earth--" but further he did not carry the quotation.
At last I jumped up, went to him, and caught hold of his hand. "Bastel!" I cried, "what does this fooling mean? Something or other is vexing you. Tell it out, and let us see what can be done, but at least spare my window-panes and behave rationally. Will you light another cigar?"
He shook his head. "If you have time," said he, "let's go out, I may be able to tell you in the open air. This room is so close."
We went down stairs and wandered arm-in-arm through quiet Behren Street, where my parents lived, into Frederick Street. When he got into the full tide of carriages and foot-passengers, he seemed to be in a measure relieved. He pressed my arm, stood still a moment, and broke out: "It is nothing very particular, Paul, but I believe that I am in love, and this time for life."
I was far from laughing at the declaration. At the age of sixteen one believes in the endless duration of every feeling. But I had read my Heine and considered it bad taste to become sentimental over a love-affair.
"Who is the fortunate fair?" I lightly enquired.
"You shall see her," he replied, his eyes wandering absently over the crowd flowing through the street. "I will take you there at once if you are inclined."
"Can one go thus unceremoniously without being better dressed? I have actually forgotten my gloves."
"She is no countess," said he, a slight blush shewing through his dark complexion. "Just think! yesterday when I wanted to look once more through the Evening Times--yes, I know we are not to speak of it, but it has to do with the whole thing--chance, or my good star led me to a quite out-of-the-way little cake-shop, and there--"
He stopped short.
"There you found her eating cherry-tarts, and that won your affection," laughed I. "Well, Bastel, I congratulate you. Sweets to the sweet. But have you already made such way as to be able to calculate upon finding her again at the very same place?"
He gave no further reply. My tone seemed to be discordant with his mood. So indeed it at once became with my own, but my principles did not allow me to express myself more feelingly. Minor chords remained the exclusive property of verse; conversation was to be carried on in a harsh and flippant key, the more coldblooded and ironical the better.
We had walked, in silence for the most part, all the length of Frederick Street to the Halle Gate, I, for all my air of indifference, actually consumed with curiosity and sympathy, when my friend suddenly turned up one of the last side streets that debouch into the main artery of the great city. Here were found at the time I am speaking of, several small one-storied private houses of mean exterior, a few shops, little traffic, so that the rattling of cab wheels sufficed to bring the inhabitants to their windows; and numbers of children who played about freely in the street, not having to take flight before the approach of any heavily-laden omnibus. When almost at the end of this particular side-street we came to a halt before a small house painted green, and having above its glass-door a large and dusty black board with the word "Confectionery" in tarnished gilt letters. To the right and left of this door were windows, with old brown blinds closely drawn, although the house was not on the sunny side of the street. I can see the landscape on those blinds to this hour! A ruined temple near a pond, on which a man with effaced features sat in a boat angling, while a peacock spread his tail on the stump of a willow tree. The glass door in the middle looked as though it had not been cleaned for ten years, and its netted curtain, white once no doubt, was now by reason of age, dust, and flies, pretty much the colour of the blinds.
I was startled when Sebastian prepared to enter this un-inviting domicile: however I took care not to ruffle him again, and followed his lead in no small excitement.
We were greeted by a hot cloying smell, which under ordinary circumstances would instantly have driven me out again, a smell of old dough, and fermenting strawberries, mingled with a flavour of chocolate and Vanilla, a smell that only an inveterate sweet-tooth or a youth in love could by possibility have consented to inhale! Added to this, the room was not much more than six feet high, and apparently never ventilated, except by the chance opening of the door. How my friend could ever have expected to find the Dresden Evening Times in such an out-of-the-way shop as this was a puzzle to me. Very soon, however, I discovered what it was that had lured him again--spite of his disappointment--into this distressing atmosphere. Behind the small counter on which was displayed a limited selection of uninviting tarts and cakes, I could see in the dusky window-seat behind the brown blind, a young girl dressed in the simplest printed cotton gown possible, her thick black hair just parted and cut short behind, a piece of knitting in her hands, which she only laid down when after some delay and uncertainty we had determined upon the inevitable cherry-tarts. My friend who hardly dared to look at her, still less to speak, went into the narrow, dark, and most comfortless little inner room, where the "Vossische Journal," and the "Observer on the Spree" outspread on a round table before the faded sofa, kept up a faint semblance of a reading-room. A small fly-blinded mirror hung on the wall between the two wooden-framed lithographs of King Frederick William III. and Queen Louise, over which was a bronzed bust of old Blücher squeezed in between the top of the stove and the low ceiling and looking gruffly down.
Sebastian had thrown himself in feverish haste into one corner of the sofa, I into the other, when the young girl came in with the small plates for the tarts. I was now able to look at her leisurely, for she waited to light a gas-burner, it being already too dark to read. She was rather short than tall, but her figure was so symmetrical, so round, yet slender, that the eye followed her every movement with rapture, spite of her unbecoming, and almost ugly dress. Her feet, which were made visible to us by her standing on tip-toe to reach the gas burner, were daintily small as those of a child of ten, her little deft snow-white fingers looked as if they had always rested on a silken lap. What white things she had on, a small upright collar, cuffs, and a waitress's apron, were so immaculately clean as to form a striking contrast with the stained carpet, dusty furniture, and traces of the flies of a hundred summers visible on all around.
I ought, I am aware, to attempt some sketch of her face, but I despair beforehand. Not that her features were so incomparably beautiful as to defy the skill of any and every artist. But what gave the peculiar charm to this face of hers, was a certain spirituality which I found it no easy matter to define to myself, a calm melancholy, a half-shy, half-threatening expression, a springtide bloom, which, having suddenly felt the touch of frost, no longer promised a joyous fruitful summer; in short, a face that would have puzzled and perplexed more mature decipherers of character, and which could not fail to make an irresistible impression upon a dreamer of sixteen.
"What is your name, Fräulein, if I may venture to ask?" said I, by way of opening the conversation, my friend seeming as though he had no more important object than the mere consuming of tartlets.
"Lottka," replied the girl without looking at me, and already preparing to leave the room.
"Lottka!" cried I. "How do you come to have this Polish name?"
"My father was a Pole."
And then she was back again in the shop.
"Would you have the kindness, Miss Lottka, to bring me a glass ofbishop." I called after her.
"Directly," was her reply.
Sebastian was studying the advertisements in the "Vossische Journal" as though he expected to meet with the real finder of his lost heart there! I turned over the "Observer." Not one word did we exchange.
In three minutes in she came again, bringing a glass of dark red wine on a tray. I could not turn my eyes away from her white hands, and felt my heart beat while gathering courage to address her again.
"Will you not sit a little with us, Fräulein?" said I. "Do take my place on the sofa, and I will get a chair."
"Thank you, sir," she replied, without any primness, but at the same time with almost insulting indifference, "my place is in the shop. If there is anything I can do for you--"
"Do remain where you are," I insisted, venturing to catch hold of one of her hands which felt cool and smooth, and instantly slipped out of my grasp. "These newspapers are horribly dull. Allow us to introduce ourselves. My friend here, Mr. ----"
At that moment the shop-door opened, a little girl pushed shyly in, with two copper coins in her small fist, for which she wanted some sweeties. Our beauty availed herself of this opportunity of declining our acquaintance, and after having served the child, sat down again in her window-corner and took up her knitting.
Our position grew more and more unbearable. As to the tarts they were eaten long ago, and I had, partly out of embarrassment, and partly to give myself the air of an experienced wine-bibber, tossed off my glass of bishop at a draught, and now sat with burning brow and wandering mind, looking at the flies crawling along the glass's edge, and intoxicating themselves with the crimson drops. Sebastian was as silent as an Indian Fakir, and seemed to be listening intently to what was going on in the shop, where indeed there was not a sound to be heard, except now and then the click of the knitting-needles against the counter.
"Come, you trappist," said I at length, "we will pay our bill and get some fresh air. My lungs are as it were candied. For any one but a fly this atmosphere is insupportable."
"Good-bye, pretty child," said I at the counter with all the importance of a roué of sixteen, who has a volume of lyrical poems at home written in the style of Heine, and ready for the press. "I hope that we may improve our acquaintance at some future time when you are less absorbed. Au revoir!"
I should no doubt have indulged in greater absurdities, but that she looked at me with so strangely absent an expression that I suddenly felt ashamed of my impertinence, made her a low bow, and hurried out into the street. Sebastian followed me instantly; he had hardly dared to look at her.
"Now then," he said, as we rushed along through the silent street, "what do you say?"
"That the bishop is very fair, but the tarts execrable. I cannot understand how you forced your portion down as well as half of mine. I suspect that confectioner's shop of only selling old cakes bought second-hand."
"What of that?" growled he. "I did not ask about such things. I want to know what you think ofher."
"My good friend," I returned in an authoritative and fatherly tone. "What can one say about a girl who is able to breathe in that atmosphere! Woman is ever an enigma as you well know."
(He nodded assent and sighed; I had contrived--God knows how--to pass with him as a great discerner of feminine spirits, and was fond of introducing into my generalisations the word "Woman," which has always a mystical charm for youths of our age.)
"This monosyllabic creature--that she is enchanting it is impossible to deny! But I warn you against her, Bastel. Believe me, she has no heart."
"You think so?" he interpolated in a horrified tone without looking at me.
"That is to say she has either never had one, or destiny has changed it into stone in her breast. Otherwise would she so coldly have turned away when I addressed her? She has a past I tell you, perhaps a present also, but no future."
This stupendous sentence of mine thrown off in mere thoughtlessness produced an unexpected effect upon my chum. He started as though a snake had bitten him, snatched his arm out of mine and said--
"You think then that she--that she no longer--in a word you doubt her virtue?"
I saw now the mischief I had done. "Be easy, child," said I, throwing my arm over his shoulder. "Come, we must not have a scene here. We have agreed woman is an enigma. But as to character I have no grounds for suspecting hers. I only meant to say, take care that you do not get involved in an unpromising affair. For she looks like one from whom a victim would not easily escape! If you like I will keep an eye upon her, and I promise to render you every assistance that one friend can to another."
We had now reached a dark and deserted street-corner. Suddenly he embraced me, squeezed my hand as though bent on fusing it with his own, and instantly vanished up the nearest side-street.
I for my part walked home very slowly in order to grow cool and collected, but the singular form I had seen never left me for a moment. I was so feverishly abstracted at the home tea-table that my good mother grew alarmed, and sent me early to bed. When I went to my class the following morning, I found I had not prepared my Plato, and was obliged to put up with many mocking remarks from the lecturer on history in consequence of my having pushed the date of the battle of Cannæ a good century too far back. The day was wet, and I lounged down the street full of depression andennui. Sebastian kept himself out of sight. I stood an hour at the window on which he had drummed "Non più andrai" the day before, and looked meditatively at the rain-pools in the street below, out of which the sparrows were picking a few oat-husks. I heard the horses stamping in the stable, and the stable-boy whistling Weber's "Jungfern Kranz" and found myself suddenly whistling it too, and stamping the while. I felt so absurd and pitiable that tears nearly came. At length I armed myself with an umbrella, and ran out into the wet and windy street.
I had been invited to a party at a friend's house for that evening, but I had an hour to spare. And this hour, I thought, could not be better spent than in sauntering through the street where the confectioner's shop stood, and patrolling a short time on the other side to watch who went in. As it was already growing dusk I felt pretty well concealed under my umbrella, but all the same I was conscious of a certain agreeable mysterious sensation as though playing an important part in some deed of honour. In point of fact, however, there was nothing remarkable to be seen. The shop seemed to be pretty well frequented, but only by a humble class of customers, children, schoolboys intent upon devouring their pocket money, coughing old women going in for a penny-worth of lozenges. Dangerous young men did not seem aware that behind those brown blinds lurked a dangerous young girl.
Much relieved by the result of my observation, I finally crossed the street just to find out whether there were any possibility of peeping in. The gas was lit in both rooms, but the shop-window was so well-protected that one could see nothing whatever from without. But on the other hand the blind of the reading-room had a crack just across the back of the angler. So I stood and looked in, a good deal ashamed of myself for spying. And there, on the very same corner of the sofa that he occupied yesterday, sat my poor friend Sebastian before an empty plate covered with flies, his eyes wandering beyond the newspaper into empty space. A singular thrill came over me, half jealousy, half satisfaction, at his having got on no further. Just as I was watching him, he made a movement as if to take up his cap and leave. I drew back from the window, and crept along the houses like a thief who has had the narrowest escape of capture. When I got to the house where I was expected, I had of course to collect my wits. I was more lively than usual, and paid my court to the daughters of the house with all the awkward nonchalance of a man of the world of sixteen, nay, I even allowed myself to be persuaded to read out my last poem, and drank several glasses of strong Hungarian wine, which made me neither wiser nor more modest. When ten o'clock struck, I suddenly took my departure under the pretext of an appointment with a friend. To keep late hours seemed to me congruous with the character of a youthful poet. Had people but known that the real engagement was the copying out fair a German essay, all the halo would have vanished!
And as it was that luckless essay fared badly enough. The night was wondrously beautiful. After long-continued rain, the air was as soft and exquisitely still as a human heart just reconciled to a long-estranged friend (I involuntarily fall back into the lyrical style of those early days!), and the sky sparkled and shone with thousands of newly-washed stars. In spite of the lateness of the hour, girls and women went chattering through the streets without hat or shawl, with merely a kerchief thrown over their heads, as though the lovely night had enticed them out just to inhale, before going to bed, one draught of fresh air after the discomfort of the day. Every window stood open, the roses gave out their fragrance; one heard Mendelssohn's "Songs without words" played on the piano, or some sweet female voice quietly singing to itself.
How it happened I did not know, but all of a sudden there I was again at the little shop, and had hold of the door handle before I could make out even to myself what it was that led me there.
As I entered, Lottka raised her head from the counter where it had been resting on her arm. Her eyes shewed that she had been asleep. The book, over which she had been tiring herself, fell from her lap as she rose.
"I have disturbed you, Miss Lottka," said I. "Forgive me, I will go away at once. I happened to be passing by--and as the night was so beautiful--as since yesterday you--Would you be so kind as to give me a glass of bishop, Miss Lottka?"
Strange that my usually reckless eloquence should so regularly fail me in the presence of this quiet creature!
"What have you been reading?" I began again after a pause, walking the while up and down the shop. "A book from the lending library? Such a torn shabby copy is not fit for your small white hands. Allow me--I have a quantity of charming books at home--romances too--"
"Pardon me," she quietly rejoined. "I have no time to read romances. This is a French Grammar."
"You are studying by yourself then?"
"I already speak it a little, I wish to understand it more thoroughly."
She relapsed into silence, and began to arrange the plates and spoons.
"Miss Lottka," said I after an interval, during which I had regained courage from a contemplation of the gruff old Blücher in the smaller room. "Are you happy in the position that you occupy at present?"
She looked at me out of her large weary eyes with the amazement of a child in a fairy-tale when suddenly addressed by a bird.
"How come you to put such a question?" she enquired.
"Pray do not attribute it to heartless curiosity," I went on, in my excitement upsetting a small pyramid of biscuits. "Believe that I feel a genuinely warm interest in you-- If you need a friend--if anything has happened to you--you understand me-- Life is so sad, Miss Lottka--and just in our youth--"
I was floundering deeper and deeper, and the drops stood on my brow. I would have given a good deal if that old Blücher had not encouraged me to make this speech.
However I was spared further humiliation. The door leading from the interior of the house opened, and the person to whom the shop belonged made her appearance. She seemed a good-natured square woman, with a thick cap-border, who explained to me as civilly as she could, that I had already remained a quarter of an hour beyond the usual time of shutting up, for that she was in the habit of putting out the gas at half-past ten. Accordingly I paid in all haste for my half-emptied glass, threw an expressive and half-reproachful glance at the silent girl, and went my way.
That night my couch was not one of roses. I made a serious attempt to finish my German essay:--"Comparison between the Antigone of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Goethe," but what were either of these Hecubas to me? I began to scribble verses on the margin of the book, and their melody had so lulling an effect that not long after midnight I fell asleep in my chair, and in spite of the uncomfortable position never woke till morning, though in my verses I had confessed myself once more in love; and what of all the untoward circumstances of the case was the darkest, in love with the heart's choice of my best friend!
This too was my first waking thought on the following morning. I remember distinctly, however, that the misfortune which I clearly saw to be ours, did not after all make me actually miserable, nay that it rather exalted my self-complacency and rendered me very interesting in my own eyes, as I had now a chance of personally experiencing all that I had hitherto merely read of. I was never tired of conjuring up the disastrous and heartrending scenes to which this complication must necessarily lead, and an indefinably pleasurable kind of pity for myself, for Sebastian, and for the innocent source of our woes suffused all my thoughts.
Instead of going to the gymnasium, where I should have had to appear without the German essay, I preferred to visit the "hedge-school" as the French say, that is to lounge about the park, and there on a lonely bench in the most out-of-the-way corner, commit my youthful sorrows to paper. Heine and Eichendorff were at that time contending for my immortal soul. On that particular morning I was not yet ripe for the irony of the "Buch der Lieder," and the tree-tops rustled too romantically above my head for the utterance of any tones but such as suited a youthful scapegrace. About noon I saw with melancholy satisfaction that the poem entitled "New Love," begun that morning, would form a very considerable addition to my volume, if it went on long at this rate.
In the afternoon when I sat, thinking no evil, in my room, and attempting to draw the profile of my secretly beloved one from memory, I heard Sebastian's step on the stair. I hastily hid away the sheet of paper, and dipped my pen in the ink-stand to seem as though I were interrupted at my work. When he entered I had not the heart to look up at him.
He too gave me a very cursory greeting, stretched himself out as usual in my arm chair, and began to smoke a short-pipe.
In about half-an-hour he asked,
"Have you been there again?"
"Yes," I replied, and seemed to be very busy looking out a word in my lexicon.
"And what do you think of her now?"
"What I think? I have not yet found out the riddle. So much, however, I know, that she is not a flesh and blood girl, but a water-nixie, a Melusina, 'cold even to her heart,' and who knows whether her very figure does not end like a mermaid's 'desinit in piscem?'"
He sprang up. "I must beg you not to speak in such a tone!"
"Patience, old boy," said I. "Do not go and suppose that I think lightly of her. A past history she has that is quite clear. But why need there be any harm in it? Suppose there were only some misfortune, a great grief, or a great love?"
"You think so?" and he looked at me anxiously and sadly.
"I should not be at all surprised," I continued, "if she, with those precocious eyes and that wonderful composure, had already traversed the agonies of hopeless love. Do not forget her Polish father. Polish girls begin early both to excite and to feel passion. How the poor child ever got into that fly-trap, God knows. But you and I together should find it difficult to deliver her out of it."
After that followed a silent quarter of an hour, during which he turned over my MS. poems.
"I should like to copy out this song," he suddenly said, reaching out a page to me.
"What for?" asked I. "Bastel, I half suspect you want to pass it off as your own."
"Shame upon you!" returned he with a deep flush, "Igive myself out for a poet! But I have a tune running in my head; it is long since I have composed anything."
"Look out something better and more cheerful. What could you make of that feeble-minded whimper? That song is half a year old" (dated from that 'olden time' that I could not myself distinctly remember!)
He had taken back the sheet, and was now bending over it, being somewhat short-sighted, and singing in a low voice the following verses to a simple pathetic melody:
"How could I e'er deserve thee,By serving long years through;Though thou wert fain to own me,Most stedfast and most true.Or what though high exalted,Though glory were my meed:Love is a free gift from above,Desert it will not heed."Thou tree with head low bending,Thy blossoms may prove vain;Who knows if God will send theeThe blessing of his rain?Thou heart by joy and anguishProved and refined indeed:Love is a free gift from above,Desert it will not heed."
"How could I e'er deserve thee,
By serving long years through;
Though thou wert fain to own me,
Most stedfast and most true.
Or what though high exalted,
Though glory were my meed:
Love is a free gift from above,
Desert it will not heed.
"Thou tree with head low bending,
Thy blossoms may prove vain;
Who knows if God will send thee
The blessing of his rain?
Thou heart by joy and anguish
Proved and refined indeed:
Love is a free gift from above,
Desert it will not heed."
He sprang up, just gave me an absent nod, and rushed out of the room.
Not long after I went out myself. I had no particular object, except to quiet the tumult in my veins by bodily fatigue.
After walking with great rapidity about the town for an hour or so, I found myself unintentionally in the neighbourhood of the mysterious street. It attracted and repelled me both. I had a dim consciousness of not having played a very creditable part the night before. I was pretty sure that the young stranger who had so zealously offered himself as her knight, would be greeted by a satirical smile by Lottka. But that was reason the more, I argued, for seeking to give her a better impression of me. And therefore I plucked up courage, and rapidly turned the corner.
At the same moment I was aware of my friend and rival, his cap pressed down on his brow, advancing with great strides towards the small green house, from a contrary direction. He too was aware of me, and we each of us came to a halt and then turned sharp round the following moment as though we had mistaken our way.
My heart beat wildly. "Shame upon our ridiculous reserve and suspicion of each other!" I inwardly cried, feeling that if this went on I should soon hate my best friend with my whole heart.
I was in the angriest of moods while retracing my steps, and reflected whether the wisest and most manly course would not be to turn round again and take my chance even if a whole legion of old friends stood in my way. Had I not as much right as another to make a fool of myself about the girl? Was I timidly to draw back now after speaking out so boldly yesterday and offering myself as champion to the mysterious enchantress? Never! I'd go to her at once though the world fell to pieces!
I turned in haste--there stood Sebastian. In my excitement I had not even heard his quick steps following me.
"You here!" I cried in counterfeit amazement.
"Paul," he replied, and his melodious voice slightly trembled. "We will not act a part. We--we have been fond of each other, you and I. But believe me if this were to go on I could not stand it. I know where you are going: I was bound the same way myself. You love her--do not attempt to deny it. I found it out at once."
"And what if I do love her?" cried I, half-defiant and half-ashamed. "I confess that the impression she has made on me--"
"Come here under the gateway," said he. "We are blocking up the way, and you speak so loud you will attract attention. You see I was right; indeed I should have been surprised if it had not turned out thus. But you will agree that it is impossible to go on. One or other must retire."
"Very well," returned I, endeavouring to assume an inimical and dogged expression. "One of us must retire. Only I do not see why it should be I. Just because I am the younger by two stupid years, though as advanced a student as yourself."
I had hardly spoken the hasty heartless words before I regretted them. At that moment they sounded like a humiliating boast.
"Besides," I hastily added, "it does not signify so much which of us takes precedence, as who it is she cares for. At present you and I seem to have equally poor prospects."
"That is true," he said. "But none the less I cannot find it in my heart to enter into a contest with you; and then you are the bolder, the more fluent, I should give up the game beforehand if we were both to declare our feelings for her: you know what I mean."
"If this be so," I rejoined, looking with artificial indifference through the dark gateway into a garden where a lonely rose-tree blossomed; "if you have not more confidence in yourself than this, you cannot after all be so much in love as you suppose, and as I can fairly say I am. I have spent a sleepless night" (I did not reckon those seven hours snatched in a chair) "and a wasted day. And so I thought--"
I could not end my sentence. The pallor of his good, true-hearted face shewed me how much more deeply he was affected by this conversation than I, for whom indeed it had a certain romantic charm. I felt fond of him again.
"Listen," said I, "we shall never get on this way. I see that neither of us will retire of his own free will. Fate must decide."
"Fate?"
"Or chance if you prefer it. I will throw down this piece of money. If the royal arms are uppermost, you have won; if the inscription--"
"Do so," he whispered. "Although it would be fairer--"
"Will you cry done?"
"Done!"
The coin fell to the ground. I stooped down in the dim light we were standing in to make sure of the fact.
"Which is uppermost?" I could hear him murmur, while he leaned against the door-post. He himself did not venture to look. "Bastel," said I, "it cannot be helped. The inscription is uppermost. You understand that having once appealed to the decision of Providence--"
He did not move, and not a sound escaped his lips. When I drew myself up and looked at him, I saw that his eyes were closed, and that he stood as if in a trance.
"Don't take it so to heart," said I. "Who knows but that in two or three days I may come and tell you that she does not suit me, that the field is open for you, and that--"
"Good night," he suddenly whispered, and rushed away at full speed.
I only remained behind for a moment. At this abrupt departure the scales fell from my eyes. I was conscious that my feelings for the mysterious being were not to be compared with his, and that I should be a villain if I were to take advantage of this foolish appeal to chance.
In twenty yards I had caught him up, and had to employ all my strength to keep hold of him, for he was bent on getting away.
"Hear me," I said. "I have changed my mind. Nay, youmusthear me, or I shall believe you were never in earnest in your friendship for me. I solemnly swear, Bastel, that I make way for you. I resign utterly and for ever, every wish and every hope. I see it all clearly. You could not recover it if she were to prefer me. I--why I should make up my mind! You know one does not die of it even if all one's dream-blossoms do not come to fruit. Give me your hand, Bastel, and not another word about it."
He threw himself on my breast. I meanwhile feeling very noble and magnanimous, as though I had renounced a kingdom to which I was heir, in favour of some cousin belonging to a collateral line. Any one who had seen us walking on for an hour hand in hand, and been aware that we were disposing of a fair creature who had probably never given either of us a thought, could hardly have refrained from laughing at so shadowy an act of generosity. I insisted upon accompanying him at once to the shop. I was bent upon proving that my sacrifice did not exceed my strength. "Success to you!" I cried, as he turned the handle of the door, and I shewed him a cheerful face. And then I went away wrapped in my virtue, whose heroic folds were full compensation for all that I had resigned.
I slept so soundly that night, that I felt ashamed of myself the next morning for not having dreamed of her. Could it be that the flame of this "new love" had gone out thus suddenly, not leaving so much as a spark behind? I would not allow it to myself, and thereby diminish the importance of so tragic a collision. As it was Sunday I had plenty of time to give myself up undisturbed to my happy-unhappy sensations. A few verses written down that morning still linger in my memory:
"Sad and consumed by envious desire,A Cinderella sits beside the fire:The hearth grows cold, the ashes fly about,There is no sunshine in the air without."Oh strange that friendship should so cruel proveAs to inflict a pang on yearningLove:Pale and half-blind she weeps the long hours thro',Yet are they children of one mother too!"Love decks herself and proudly lifts her head;More and more glows her cheek's soft rosy red:The pale one bears the weight of household care,In games and dances never claims a share."Yet when her sister comes home late at night,Poor Cinderella laughs and points with spite:'Blood's on your shoe for all you're gaily drest,'And thus she robs the proud one of her rest!"
"Sad and consumed by envious desire,
A Cinderella sits beside the fire:
The hearth grows cold, the ashes fly about,
There is no sunshine in the air without.
"Oh strange that friendship should so cruel prove
As to inflict a pang on yearningLove:
Pale and half-blind she weeps the long hours thro',
Yet are they children of one mother too!
"Love decks herself and proudly lifts her head;
More and more glows her cheek's soft rosy red:
The pale one bears the weight of household care,
In games and dances never claims a share.
"Yet when her sister comes home late at night,
Poor Cinderella laughs and points with spite:
'Blood's on your shoe for all you're gaily drest,'
And thus she robs the proud one of her rest!"
And yet people persist in calling youth the time of unclouded bliss--youth, which through mere mental confusions and self-invented tortures lets itself be cheated out of heaven's best gifts; counterfeits feelings in order to achieve unhappiness, and passionately presses the unattainable to its heart!