"Well, perhaps I can," said Oswald; "but let us speak of something else."
"As you like it, my dear sir. What do you think of immortality?"
On the following day the weather had cleared up. The morning sun had been hid behind thick mists, but a few hours later it had rent the gray veil, and was now pouring its golden light upon the refreshed earth. In the garden of the château all looked paradisiacally fresh and fragrant, as on the first day of creation. The flowers raised their heads again, and if here and there a few drops were still hanging in a calyx, they looked in the bright sunshine like sparkling tears of joy; the birds were singing with delight in the thick branches of the trees, and the little worms that had been waiting patiently in all the crevices, under the leaves and under the stones, came forth in restless activity.
And around the gray walls of the castle, which were now flooded with rosy light, swift swallows were flitting to and fro, and on the roof, in the gutters, between the stucco ornaments quarrelsome sparrows were resuming their difficulties. In the large hall, where the portraits of Grenwitz barons and baronesses were hanging on the walls in long rows, from the fabulous Sven down to the great-aunt of the baron, "as she had been at eighteen," and to Oscar, "who fell with Wodan," and Harald's, "who would have done better to weep himself to death at his father's coffin;"--the atoms were dancing about, as they rose from the old gala-furniture with the faded damask covers, in the three slanting bridges of light formed by the three arched windows.
Down stairs, in the breakfast-room, the baron and the baroness were enjoying their frugal meal. They looked ready for their journey, and Anna Maria had already put on her huge bonnet with wide projecting wings, as it had been worn some twenty years ago. The great travelling carriage was waiting at the door. The four heavy bays whisked their bobtails thoughtfully to and fro, and the silent coachman cracked his whip regularly every five minutes, from mere force of habit, and not to admonish his master to be in a hurry, for that would have been incompatible with the respect he owed them as well as with his phlegmatic nature.
"I knew it," said the baroness, offering her husband half a glass of Moselle wine,--"drink that, dear Grenwitz, it will give you strength for the journey,--I knew it. He refuses our kind offer because he is not very well! Ridiculous."
"He really looks as if he were not very well," said the old baron, "ever since we were at Barnewitz, and then it does not look quite well, it seems to me, that we should ask him to accompany us just when the carriage is at the door! We ought to have done it sooner, perhaps."
"I do not understand you, dear Grenwitz," said the baroness. "Don't you talk as if Mr. Stein was our equal! No wonder that the young man is running over with pride. To ask him a week ahead to pay a visit in the neighborhood! That would be nice! Why, we have not even mentioned our Heligoland journey to him!"
"I should have done so long ago, if you could only have come to some definite conclusion about it," said the old gentleman, scratching himself behind the ear.
"I have now formed my resolution," said the baroness, angrily; "formed this very moment. If he does not choose to accompany us on a little trip in the neighborhood for three days, if it gives him too much trouble to go with us when we take leave of our neighbors, who have all treated him with the utmost condescension, then he shows clearly that he does not mean to take leave, and so he may stay where he is."
"But, dear Anna Maria," said the baron, "that is, after all, not exactly the same thing; and then where is he to stay in the mean time, and how can we get along with the two boys quite alone?"
"I tell you, dear Grenwitz," replied the baroness, "I do not care where he stays. He likes generally to go his own way--let him go his own way in this case also. He can make a pedestrian tour through the island, or visit his friend Oldenburg, or at worst remain here, although that would, of course, be more inconvenient. Our journey is expensive enough, and he would only be a burden to us. He will, as usual, interest himself exclusively in Bruno's welfare, and leave Malte entirely on our hands. If he stays, Bruno will be compelled to be more with Malte, and as the question during vacation is only about a little supervision of the boys, I am willing to intrust them to John as readily, and perhaps rather than to Mr. Stein. Besides, if we bring Helen back with us, we would not have room for him in the carriage. No, no; let him stay here; I see my way clear now--quite clear."
"I do not know," said the old gentleman, out of humor.
"But I do know," said the baroness, rising; "and formerly that was enough for you, dear Grenwitz. Come, it is time for us to start, if we wish to reach Count Grieben's for dinner. There is Malte. I hope you are warmly dressed. Where on earth is Bruno?"
"Up stairs with the doctor. He wants to stay if the doctor stays."
"There you see, dear Grenwitz; there you have it. A nice education, indeed. At once go up stairs, Malte! Bruno must get ready instantly; do you hear, instantly!"
"I won't tell him any such thing," replied Malte. "You can do it yourself."
"So I will," said the baroness, ringing the bell. "Tell Dr. Stein I beg him to come down for a moment!" she said to the servant.
The servant disappeared; the baroness walked up and down in the room with rapid strides.
"Only for Heaven's sake no scene, dear Anna Maria," said the old gentleman, who had risen.
The baroness did not vouchsafe an answer, for at that moment the door opened, and Oswald and Bruno came in--Bruno with a dark, defiant face and traces of recent tears in his eyes, but quite ready to start; a straw hat covered with oil-cloth in his hand.
"You wish to see me, madam," said Oswald, bowing to the baroness.
The baroness was not a little disconcerted by this unexpected solution of the difficulty.
"I was told Bruno refused to accompany us," she said "and so I thought----"
"Pardon me, madam," said Oswald, interrupting her; "of course, a refusal on the part of Bruno to obey your orders is utterly out of question. Bruno would have preferred to keep me company. It required only a word, however, to remind him that he must not on my account forget for a moment what he owes to you and the baron."
"Well, that is what I thought," said the baroness, who in her heart was very glad to have escaped a "scene" with Oswald, of whom she was more or less afraid, little as she was willing to confess this humiliating weakness even to herself. "He shall not repent having complied with our wishes. The weather is splendid, and I hope we shall have a delightful ride. What a pity, dear doctor, you cannot be one of us! Well, I hope we shall find you quite well again when we return--probably in two or three days.--Ah, mademoiselle, everything in readiness? Well, let us start, dear Grenwitz. Adieu, my dear doctor!Adieu, mademoiselle; n'oubliez pas ce que je vous ai dit!Ah, Mr. Timm! really, I had nearly forgotten you."
"Very flattering and very natural," said Mr. Timm, who had just made his appearance, his pencil stuck behind his ear, and his toilet in very imperfect condition, in order to bid them good-by, and who now helped the baroness into the carriage. "Bon voyage.My kindest regards to Count Grieben! famous old gentleman, who keeps a capital glass of wine! All right! Up!" and Mr. Timm gave the nearest horse a sound blow with his open hand, and then kissed his hand to the people in the carriage as it began to get into motion.
"God be thanked," he said, as the carriage had disappeared, and rubbed his hands with delight "Now we are all alone among the girls. What shall we do for sheer delight!Qu'en dites-vous, Monsieur le docteur? Qu'en dites-vous, Mademoiselle?"
"I have to write some letters, and will go to my room," said Oswald, going into the house.
"Then we'll take a French lesson in the garden, little Marguerite," said Mr. Timm, putting the young lady's arm unceremoniously in his own.
"I have not time," said the pretty Frenchwoman, trying to withdraw her arm.
"Ah, nonsense!" said Albert "If you have not time now that the old scarecrow is gone, when will you have time? We have made very good progress already in the verbaimer:J'aime--tu aimes--nous aimons!"
And Albert drew willing Marguerite into the garden, and those who took a special interest in the romantic couple, could see them roam about there, arm in arm, till dinner-time, and notice, moreover, that they decidedly preferred the divers shrubberies and darker avenues to the more exposed parts, which was perfectly natural in the burning sunlight.
It was afternoon, and Oswald was sitting at his writing-table, which he had only left to share a very silent dinner with Albert and Margerite, when a servant brought him a note. Oswald had, since he lived at Grenwitz, received so few letters that he was quite surprised, and asked the bearer from whom it came.
"From Baron Oldenburg," was the answer, "and the baron's carriage is at the door."
Oswald opened the note. It ran thus:
"Dear friend! If you can get rid of the studious boys, and have nothing better to do, I wish you would come and keep a lonely hypochondriac company for a few hours, and convince yourself, at the same time, how well the little heath flower has borne the transplanting into a strange soil. My coachman brings you this. He has orders to return with you or upon you. You may choose! Your Oldenburg."
Oswald hesitated what he should do. With the sunshine his longing for Melitta had returned. He could not comprehend how he could have let three days pass without making an attempt to see her. And yet he was reluctant to take the first step towards a reconciliation, although he knew that the cloud conjured up by the scene in the ball-room had long since disappeared, and that he had himself repented a thousand times his grievous wrong. We all know the contradictions in which so young a heart is apt to lose itself when pride and love contend for the mastery! And Oswald's proud heart had to beat many years yet before it learnt true love, which the Bible knows under the beautiful image of Charity, that beareth all things and believeth all things. True love can live only in hearts that have lived much and suffered much, as the sweetest and most highly prized fruits hang on those trees which the autumnal winds begin to strip of their summer dress of rich leaves.
Oswald took a sheet of paper to write the baron, that he could not accept his invitation, but the next moment he had taken up his hat and run down. The same elegant light wagon in which the baron had brought him back from Barnewitz, with the two fiery black horses, was at the door. The coachman, a handsome young man with an immense beard, smiled when he saw him, remembering the liberal fee he had received on that evening. As he got in, Albert called out over the garden wall:
"Can you take me with you,Monsieur le docteur?"
"Not very well!" said Oswald.
"Well, then, go alone!" said Albert; "to the devil," he added, as the carriage rolled away. "You are right, Marguerite," he said to the little Frenchwoman, who now came out of the shrubbery in which she had hid from Oswald, "the doctor is really afat, as you say, and I shall soon be near hating him."
In the mean time the object of Mr. Timm's rising hatred was driving through the smaller gate towards the lane which went all around the ramparts into the beechwood. The latter came up to this place from the sea-shore, and had to be passed by all who drove from Grenwitz to Cona, the old home-place of the Oldenburgs. It was a delightful drive through the lofty cool halls of beech-trees, where the blue sky shone through the thick green tops of the trees; and on the left, when the underwood in places flourished less thickly between the grand old trunks, the blue sea occasionally flashed through, at first at rare intervals only, then, as they approached the edge of the forest, more and more frequently, till at last, at the end of the wood, it lay before them blue and boundless, sparkling in the glorious sunlight.
The road followed the bluffs above the beach,--at times coming quite near to the brink, so that the roaring of the breakers among the great rocks below could be distinctly heard,--then again receding for some distance. On the right the eye swept over enormous grain-fields, which covered the whole table-land. The tall, strong stalks bent under the burden of the full ears, and waved to and fro in the mild breezes which came from the sea. Here and there a lark was fluttering, whose nest was close by the road, and then winged its way singing up into the blue sky.
Then the road descended into a low valley, through which a considerable brook, the outlet of the Fashwitz moor, was hurrying towards the sea. A village extended along the brook and close down to the sea, in which mostly fishermen lived, who paid rent to Baron Grenwitz, The carriage had to pass through the village, which looked very pretty with its small, tidy cottages, and the little gardens before the doors, in which all the flower-beds were edged with shells. At the door of one of the larger houses, which bore a sign with a large ship sailing swiftly through the green waves, and thus announced itself as an inn, a horseman was stopping. He was on a marvellously beautiful thoroughbred. He wore a long overcoat, and Oswald could not see his face, as he was just bending down to take a glass of brandy, which a pretty blue-eyed girl with a charming little snub nose held up to him.
"That horse is worth his two hundred pounds," said the coachman, who was a connoisseur.
"Who is the gentleman?" asked Oswald.
"Can't tell; I could not see his face."
Behind the fishermen's village the road ascended quite suddenly to a greater height than before. The landscape also changed its aspect entirely. The ground was less level; instead of golden grain, russet heather covered the soil--a desert, with large and small stones here and there, and at times with large plains of sand, on which a few spare signs of turf appeared at intervals. The air even seemed to be less mild, and where the road approached nearer to the brink of the steep bluff one could hear the roaring of the sea very distinctly. A sea-eagle was drawing its vast circles on high, and at times its blue shadow would darken for a moment the sunlit, rocky road.
"Is it far to Cona?" asked Oswald.
"The farm lies in that direction," said the coachman, pointing with his whip to the right across the heath; "you cannot see it from here. I have orders to drive you to the Swiss cottage."
"And where is that?"
"Straight before us, in the pines."
A small wood of pines crowned the highest point on the shore, to which the road now led upwards, becoming more and more rocky and steep. When Oswald turned round to look back, he noticed, at a distance of four or five hundred yards, the horseman whom he had seen at the inn. He rode keeping pace with the carriage, and when the latter stopped accidentally, because something was out of order in the harness, he also checked his horse till the carriage moved on again. Oswald, who had been struck by this manœuvre, asked the coachman a few minutes later to stop again. He turned round: the horseman also was stopping. He repeated the same manœuvre once more with the same success.
"That is very strange," said Oswald.
"Yes," replied the coachman; "I do not know what it can mean."
At that moment the horseman left the road and trotted off across the heath in the direction in which the coachman had said the farm-buildings of Cona were lying.
The carriage had reached the pines, which stood so close that one could not see the sea, and only heard its roaring as it mingled with the rush of the wind in the tall trees. Then it suddenly flashed up again at a turn in the road, and they saw before them, upon an open place looking upon the sea, a house built in Swiss cottage style, Oldenburg's summer-house.
When the carriage stopped on the open space before the door, surrounded by trees, and covered with dry brown leaves as with a carpet, Oldenburg appeared up stairs on a gallery, which divided the two stories and ran around the whole house. The next moment he was down at the door and shook Oswald heartily by the hand.
"There you are," he said. "I was almost afraid you would have done like most people, who, when they have once been in my company, do not care to renew the experiment."
"I do not know, baron, whether you show yourself to most people as you did to me," said Oswald; "if that is so, then I have at least a different taste from most people."
"Really, a salam inoptima forma," said Oldenburg, smiling; "a couple of old gray-bearded sons of Mohammed could not do it better. Nothing is wanting but that we should now kiss the tips of our fingers. But come into the house; we'll be more-comfortable there."
They stepped into a small hall, from which they reached, by means of an easy, wide staircase, a larger hall in the upper story, which was lighted from above. From here they went into a large, quite high room; a glass door opened upon the broad gallery, which afforded an uninterrupted view upon the sea, and seemed to overhang the steep precipice, although there was still a distance of about thirty yards between it and the brink. Below was the surf howling between the shingle and huge blocks of stone.
The view from this elevated point out upon the blue, boundless sea, and upon the high white chalk-cliffs, which stretched far to the left, and ended finally in a cape crowned with the beech forest of Grenwitz, was indescribably grand, and Oswald could not suppress a loud cry of admiration.
"Well," said Oldenburg, leaning over the railing of the gallery by Oswald's side, "was it not a good idea of my worthy grandfather's to build a house at this point, which, by the way, is one of the highest in the whole island. I recall the old gentleman yet, with his long snow-white beard, and can see him even now sitting here on this gallery, and looking out with his dying eye upon the sea, like the king of Thule. He revered it as a grandson reveres his grandmother, and loved it as a young man loves the idol of his heart. I wish he could have bequeathed to me, beside his size, also his capacity of enjoying the beauties of nature. Unfortunately I have missed inheriting that."
"Are you in earnest?" asked Oswald.
"Certainly," said Oldenburg. "I have often enough regretted it in travelling, and been heartily ashamed of my æsthetic stupidity, which kept me from feeling anything at places where others would make summersets for pleasure or weep sentimental tears. I tried in vain to do like the English misses and sob: Beautiful, very fine indeed! I read in vain in Byron and Lamartine till I knew them nearly by heart,--it was all in vain. I never could do more than poor Werther, who saw in nature but a well-varnished picture; and a couple of beggar-boys, who fought in the sand by the sea-shore, or a poor fellah turning his heavy water-wheel, were more interesting to me than the Gulf of Naples and the Nile. I delight in men and the manners of men,--Nature is beyond me."
"But why do you exile yourself into this solitude? Why do you, who could so easily afford it, not rather live on theBoulevard des Capucines, or in Pall-Mall, London, than on this northern shore?"
"For the same reason that the falcon is made to fast twenty-four hours, before he is taken out on the gazelle-hunt,--to sharpen my hunger after my favorite dish. When I have lived here a few weeks my senses become fresh again and susceptible, and the sight of man's busy life has its old charms for me once more."
"And how much longer do you expect to stay here?"
"I do not know yet. My Solitude--this is the name my grandfather gave this place--pleases me this time better than usual. I have led an odd sort of life for the last few years, and seen so many children of Adam of various races and degrees of civilization that at last they all looked alike to me, an evidence that my senses had become dull and a new fast was necessary. You and Czika must see to it that I do not starve altogether."
"And where is our little foundling?"
"Somewhere on the heath, where she lies down in the blooming broom and stares at the sky; or on the beach, where she climbs about among the rocks and claps her hands with delight if a wave wets her bare feet. She has not been persuaded yet to put on shoes; I leave her in perfect freedom since she declared, on the second day of her stay here, when I refused to let her run out in the most inclement weather: Czika dies if she cannot go in the rain!"
"Does she pine after her mother?"
"Do you really think that brown woman, whom I at least saw only in passing, is her mother?"
"Certainly! The likeness between Czika and the Brown Countess is unmistakable."
"From whom have I heard that expression before?" said Oldenburg, thoughtfully; "probably from you the other day, but it sounded so familiar to me. Does the name come from you?"
"No; from Frau von Berkow," said Oswald, fixing his eye upon Oldenburg.
"Ah, indeed!" said the baron.
This was the first time that Melitta's name was mentioned by the two men, and it was characteristic enough, that at once a pause occurred in the conversation.
"On what occasion did Frau von Berkow make the acquaintance of the gypsy?" asked the baron, after a little while.
Oswald told him in a few words the story of the Brown Countess, as he had heard it from Melitta.
Oldenburg smiled. "Yes," he said, "now I remember. Frau von Berkow told me that anecdote some years ago. The story is a very pretty one, especially for those who take an interest in Frau von Berkow, because it is very characteristic of the amiable lady, who is as kind-hearted as she is fond of such littleescapades."
The baron said this as simply and calmly as if there had never been a period when he would have risked his life for a smile of this "amiable lady."
"But had we not better go in?" he continued; "I see Hermann, my raven and my factotum, has put all kinds of nice things on a table, and there comes Thusnelda, his wife and my nurse, to invite us solemnly to take some refreshments."
A venerable-looking old lady of large size appeared in the glass door, dropped a low courtesy and said:
"Master, the table is set."
"Very well," said Oldenburg. "Have you seen the Czika?"
"I thought she was here," replied the matron, looking anxiously around.
"No. Bring her up if she comes while we are at table. Just go and look out for her. Come, doctor, I hope the long drive has made you hungry, or at least thirsty; Thusnelda has prepared for both cases."
While they took their seats at the richly served table, Oswald looked around in the room. The large apartment was well filled with chairs and sofas of various shapes, which seemed to have no fixed place, and a large writing-table of oak. Along the walls stood huge oak cases filled with books. Books were lying upon the tables and on the sofas and chairs; books strewed the floor. A few busts, copies from the antique, and some large engravings, were the only ornaments of the room, which evidently had no special claims to elegance. Between two of the bookcases, where an engraving ought to have hung, there was a green silk curtain, which conceded either an awkwardly placed window, or a portrait that was not to be seen by the curious eye of stray visitors.
Then his attention returned once more to the baron himself, who appeared to him to-day, in his long coat of yellow linen hanging loosely around his tall, thin form, quite another man. But then the altered costume struck Oswald even less than the changed expression in his face. The ironical line near the mouth, which even the close black beard could not effectually conceal, the small, sharp wrinkles on the high forehead, around the eyes, and near the nostrils--all these were to-day effaced by a benevolent smile, which gave an expression of mildness and goodness to the usually sharp eyes. Oswald could hardly trust his eyes, although he had overcome much of his former prejudice against the baron. Now the thought that a woman could and might love this man with her whole heart did not appear to him any more so very strange as at the ball at Barnewitz. He thought of the leaf in Melitta's album; he thought of his own words: This man will never be happy, because he will never desire to be happy, and of Melitta's answer: "Therefore this man is taken out of my life, as his portrait is taken out of my album;" and he said to himself: Ah, he might have been happy if he had desired to be so! Why did he not desire it? What has parted the two?--Which of them spoke the word that parted them, as it seems, forever?
These thoughts no longer awakened in Oswald that wild jealousy which had torn his heart on the day when he first met the baron in the forest. But the mysterious darkness which brooded over these events which he could not penetrate, and, what was worse, which he did not dare to penetrate, filled his soul with that sadness, that pity, which we feel for ourselves when our devotion is interrupted just when we most desire to pour out our overflowing heart in prayer.
Oswald tried to master his emotion; he felt as if the baron's sharp eyes were able to read what was going on in his soul. But the latter remained apparently quite unconcerned, and entirely preoccupied by the subject of their conversation: Czika and the Brown Countess. Both men tried in vain to solve the enigma of this remarkable affair with all their ingenuity. What could have induced the Brown Countess to leave her child, which she seemed to love most devotedly, so unceremoniously in the hands of strangers? How could she gather courage to part with her at the very moment when the brutal jokes of the young noblemen--young Count Grieben's groom had told the whole story to Oldenburg's coachman--and the playful elopement with the child had excited her rage to such a degree? Had she given the girl to Oswald or to the baron, or had she not given her but merely sold her, postponing the day of payment for a month, in the hope that the two men, or either of them, would in the mean time become so attached to the child that she would receive a higher price for her?
"My special apprehension," said Oldenburg, "is that the Brown Countess may repent of her bargain and take the child again from me, or that the Czika cannot resist the longing after her young life, and vanishes some fine morning or other. I confess it would be a severe blow for me. Your prophecy that I would find in the sweet child a treasure more precious than Aladdin's magic lamp, seems to have been fulfilled. I should like to be the child's father! I should like to endow this silent heart with speech, to see my own thoughts beautified and ennobled in the new language. I should like to bind her to me with all the ties that can bind a daughter to her father, a father to his daughter--of course only in order to see these ties torn, and some jackanapes come and ask me to throw her into his arms, because his coat fits him a little better than his neighbor's! I am now in that period of life when one longs to have children; when one is not a Swiss, who, you know, proposed to eat children, though not from love; I long for them as a tired wanderer desires a staff to support his weary limbs. When we feel that we have reached the turning-point in our life, and that we must go down hill henceforth, while the land of our youth is gradually disappearing behind the top of the hill, then we would like to hear joyous children's voices reach us from the other side, which recall to us our own happy childhood. You will ask me why I do not yield to my prosaic desires and marry?--Or perhaps you will not ask me so; for you will see yourself that marriage is out of question for a man who has spent the ten best years of his life in all kinds ofliaisons dangereusesandinnocentes, I do not want a wife who does not wish me to say to her: I love you! and how can I tell her so without making myself ridiculous in my own eyes, after having said so to I know not how many in all the languages I know? No, no! With such views a man may become a Turk and establish a harem, but he is too bad in all conscience for marriage in the highest and purest sense, which is a wonderful alchemy changing two into one."
"And yet," said Oswald, "genuine love has a purifying, hallowing power, which scatters all doubts as the rays of the sun scatter fogs and mists. True love, like true hatred, wipes 'all foolish stories from the tablets of memory,' and changes us in an instant from wild barbarians into Hellenes of delicate feelings. Rude strength, which before simply asserted itself in destruction or in production, now assumes a pleasing shape, and where before it created a Siva, whose fiery glance destroyed all creatures, it now creates an Olympic Zeus, who blesses all creation with his paternal eyes."
"Well said," replied the baron; "will you try this hock, a wine of some merit,--very well said and also perhaps true,--only not for Problematic Characters."
"What do you call Problematic Characters?"
"It is an expression which Goethe uses in a place that has ever given me much trouble of mind. There are problematic characters, says Goethe,--I believe in his Fact and Fiction,--who are not equal to any position in which they may happen to be, and who are not satisfied with any. This, he adds, produces a violent contradiction, and leads to the consumption of life without enjoyment.--It is a fearful word of his, for it is a sentence of death pronounced with Olympic calmness on a numerous class of men, of whom we have but too many in our day, who are very good men and very bad musicians.--There is Czika!"
"Where?"
"Behind you!"
Oswald turned round. Within the open door which led out on the balcony stood the pretty child, surrounded by the red light of the setting sun. Her luxuriant bluish black hair fell in long ringlets on both sides of her face upon her shoulders, which rose from a blue Turkish blouse, while a light shawl of red silk was tied around her slender waist Turkish trousers reached down to her feet. When she had seen that there was a stranger in the room, she had been about to slip away again as stealthily as she had come, till the baron's words had arrested her and Oswald had turned around. At seeing him a joyous smile passed over her dark, solemn face, and her brown gazelle eyes looked almost tenderly up at him, as he now was standing before her, holding one of her hands in his own, and parting with the other her luxuriant hair.
"Czika knows you," she said. "You are very kind. You love the poor; the poor love you."
"A declaration of love!" said Oldenburg, who had remained seated at the table; "how many have you had, doctor, this week? Doctor, you are a dangerous man, and I shall see myself compelled to forbid you the house?"
"Why are you not always here?" asked Czika, turning her large eyes from the baron upon Oswald. "Czika will sit by you near the great water; Czika will gather flowers for you on the heath. Why are you not always here?"
"He cannot be always here, Czika," said the baron, "but he will come very often. Won't you, doctor?"
The door to the anteroom opened, and Mrs. Muller, or Thusnelda, as the baron called her, looked in.
"I cannot--ah! there she is! Where have you been, darling doll? Come, I will put you a little to rights. How you look again!--quite covered with heather, as usual; what are the gentlemen to think?"
With these words the matron led the child out of the room.
"You must know that there is a strong attachment between the two," said the baron. "My old nurse has had many blooming children who have all died young. Other women's hearts often grow hard under such calamities; hers has remained soft, and now she loves the Czika as if she were her first-born. But that is just as if a dove had hatched a falcon. Czika's determination to enjoy unbounded liberty causes the old lady ten times every day infinite trouble and despair. And then, another difficulty. Thusnelda is very pious, and Czika has--horribile dictu--no religion whatever, unless it be some mysterious worship of the stars, which she performs at night, when she steals away from her couch and dances in the moonlight on the beach, as Thusnelda swears she has seen her do, to her own unspeakable horror and disgust. And, to tell the truth, I believe Thusnelda is right. At least I have noticed more than once that if the gypsies have any object of worship it is the sun, the moon, and the stars."
"Have you often had opportunity in your travels to come in contact with this interesting race?"
"Oh yes!" said the baron, "even into very close contact, especially once in Hungary--now twelve years ago."
The baron paused, filled his glass, and drank the wine slowly, fixing his eyes on the tablecloth like a person whose thoughts are completely preoccupied with some recollection.
"Well," said Oswald, "how was that?"
"What?" said the baron, as if awakening from a dream; "oh yes; well, you shall hear what I had to do with gypsies in Hungary."
"I presume that was a romance?"
"Of course," replied the baron; "I was at that time at an age when every man is more or less romantic, unless he be born a mere stick. I was enthusiastic about moonlit magic nights, about wells and forest noises, and, above all, I was enthusiastic about slender maidens, with or without a guitar and a blue ribbon.
"All my views of life were eminently romantic, especially my morality. The whole of life had no more meaning for me than a puppet-show at a fair, and sovereign irony was the only real feeling which I appreciated. In a word, I was a nice fellow, and if they had hung me on the nearest gallows it would have been my just punishment, and, I trust, a good warning for others.
"I was heartily tired of my student's life at Bonn and at Heidelberg. I had looked in vain into a thousand books to solve the mystery about which so many better men have racked their brains, and I wanted to try it in a new way. I wrote to my guardian, and conveyed to him my intention to travel a few years. My guardian approved the plan, as he approved everything I ever suggested,--so he could get rid of me for a time,--he sent me money and letters of introduction, and I went on my journey. I travelled over Southern Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy. But if you were to ask me even for a superficial account of my journey I would be seriously embarrassed. I know as much of those countries as of the landscapes I have seen in my dreams. Last, I went to Hungary. Chance, which was always my only guide, had led me there. In Vienna I had become acquainted with a Hungarian nobleman, whose father owned large estates at the foot of the Tetra mountains. He had invited me to visit him, and I went. We led quite an idyllic life; the main features of which were wine, women, and dice. He had a couple of beautiful sisters, with whom I fell in love one by one. Then I became enthusiastic about the Frenchdame de compagnieof his mother, who had just come from Paris and put all the young Hungarian ladies to shame by the grace of her manners, her taste in matters of toilette, and her skill in conversation.
"Once I was roaming about in the forest, my mind full of this sweet goddess, whom I then believed in as I did in genuine pearls and real gold, but whom I afterwards met again in Paris under different circumstances; I was dreaming, and thus lost myself, or was led by my guide, Chance, to a clearing which a band of gypsies had chosen for their temporary encampment. A few small huts built of clay and wickerwork in very archaic style, a fireplace over which an old dame was roasting a stone-martin, deerskins and rags hanging on the branches to dry--this was the picture which suddenly met my eye. The whole band was away with the exception of the old witch, a few little babies who rolled about in the sand in paradisiac nakedness, and one young girl of about fifteen--"
The baron filled his glass and drank it at one gulp.
"Of about fifteen--perhaps she was older--it is difficult to determine the age of gypsy girls. She was slender and agile like a deer, and her dark eyes shone with such a magic, supernatural fire, that I was seized by a rapture of delight as I looked deeper and deeper into them, while she was telling me my fortune by reading the lines in my hand. My fate could be read much more clearly in her eyes than in my hand. I was delighted, enraptured, beside myself--the world had disappeared in an instant. You must bear in mind that I was twenty years old, and romantic as few men are, even at that early age; but I felt that to be a gypsy, to feed upon stone-martins, and to sun one's self in the eyes of a gypsy girl was the true and only purpose of life upon earth. I stayed with the gypsies I know not how many days. My friends at the château thought I had been torn by wolves. But one evening, when the sun had already disappeared behind the mountain wall which protected our encampment towards the north, and while the band were still away, I was sitting with the Zingarella at the foot of an old oak-tree, and was happy in my young love--when----
"I verily believe there is somebody coming"--the baron said, interrupting himself--"was not that a strange voice?"
"I hope not," said Oswald.
The door opened; old Hermann looked in and said:--
"Baron Cloten wishes to present his respects, sir; are you at home?"
"Oh no!" replied Oldenburg; "but, to be sure, I cannot very well decline seeing him; he comes to--hm, hm!"
"Do not let me prevent you from being hospitable," said Oswald, rising.
"I pray, stay!" said the baron; "I hope he will not remain long. He comes in a certain affair in which he wants my advice. That is all. Show him up stairs, Hermann."
A moment afterwards Baron Cloten entered. He wore a riding-coat and top-boots, and seemed to have had a long ride. At least he looked very much heated. Oswald's presence seemed to annoy or to embarrass him; at least he spoke to him with striking formality, after having shaken hands with the baron.
"Very warm to-day," he snarled, seating himself in the chair which the baron had offered him; "Robin is covered with sweat,---told your groom to rub him down with a wisp of straw. Keeps an animal marvellously well. Pleasant wine--what is it?--famous wine--had some the other day at Barnewitz--not half as good. Apropos Barnewitz--no bad effects, baron? Left somewhat early--heat really abominable----"
"Won't you put down your hat, Cloten?"
"Thanks! Am going away directly. Only wanted to see--quite near here--was at Grenwitz--everybody out there--came over here to see how all were."
"But you surely have a few minutes?"
"Not a moment--'pon honor," said Cloten, emptying his glass and rising; "call in to-morrow, perhaps. Good-by, baron."
Cloten again bowed very formally to Oswald and went to the door, accompanied by the baron.
"I pray, don't trouble yourself," said Cloten.
"I just want to have a look at Robin," replied Oldenburg, and then to Oswald; "excuse me a moment, doctor."
Oswald was alone. The remarkably cool manner of the young nobleman had offended his pride, though he tried to convince himself that he despised him. He walked up and down in the room, much excited. His hatred of the nobility had been fanned into a flame; even Oldenburg's manner seemed to him to have been less cordial while Cloten was there.
His eye fell upon the green silk curtain between the two bookcases, which had struck him before.
"I wonder what this veiled image means? Perhaps a voluptuous Correggio. At all events, a key to the better knowledge of this strange man. You'll excuse my curiosity,monsieur le baron?"
Oswald pulled the silken cord of the curtain, and the youth at Saïs, who lifted the veil before the sacred image of Isis, could not have been more startled than Oswald was when he saw, not a richly tinted Italian painting, but in a niche, a bust of chaste white marble, which, in spite of the antique hair-dress and a slight attempt to idealize, was nothing else than a striking portrait of Melitta. There was her rich waving hair; there her beautiful smooth brow, the straight, delicate nose; there were the soft lips, looking dewy even in marble!
Before Oswald could recover from his amazement to find himself thus face to face with his beloved one, the baron entered.
"Please excuse my indiscretion," said Oswald, who had not been able to draw the curtain back again; "but why do you keep veiled images here which belong in a sanctuary, and not in a common reception-room?"
"You are right," replied the baron, without a trace of confusion; "this green veil is, like most veils, only a provocation; and, by the way, it is very foolish to conceal the copy when the original can be seen at any time by those who will take the trouble of going to Palermo and asking for leave to see the villa Serra di Falco."
"Indeed?" said Oswald, annoyed by the imperturbable calmness with which the baron tried to make him swallow his story. "Ah! in Palermo? I had been tempted to look for the original nearer home."
"You mean in Berlin, at the Museum!" said the baron. "There is a Muse there which looks very much like this bust, but if you examine it more closely you will soon see the difference."
"Yes," replied Oswald; "the nose there is more decided, and the carriage of the head is slightly different, and altogether the resemblance with Frau von Berkow much less striking than in this bust."
"Do you think so?" said the baron, rising and going up to the bust. "Really, you are right. There is really a slight resemblance between this bust and Frau von Berkow. Well, that does not make me like the work any less, as there are few ladies in the world whom I love more to be reminded of than that amiable and clever lady."
The baron drew the curtain over the bust, as if he wished to end the conversation.
"Come, doctor," he said, "sit down and try to forget that Cloten, this cleverest of all young men, has ever been here."
"I believe it is high time for me to be gone," said Oswald; "the sun is near setting--I should not like to get home too late, to-night especially."
"As you like it," said the baron. "Welcome the coming and speed the parting guest! I have a great mind to accompany you some distance. Are you fond of riding?"
"Rather so."
"Then we'll go on horseback, if you like it I will take one of my servants. Excuse me a moment--I must change my dress and give a few orders."
* * * * *
"You sit your horse very well, doctor," said the baron, as they were slowly riding along on the height of the bluff a quarter of an hour later. "It is really remarkable what talents you have in these things. I believe there is no branch of bodily skill in which you would not quickly become a master."
"It is all the more remarkable, because my plebeian descent and my modest education do not entitle me to any of these aristocratic gifts."
"What a pity my name is not Cloten," said the baron.
"Why?"
"Because then I would not suspect your irony in the most remote way, and, on the contrary, be moved by your touching modesty to overcome an antipathy amounting almost to hatred."
"Is that Baron Cloten's sentiment towards me?"
"Do you think any dandy likes to see another man surpass him in pistol-shooting, dancing, courting, etc., if that is the pride of his little soul? Women and weak men never forgive that superiority. I amused myself royally that night at Barnewitz to watch the faces they were making at you, of course behind your back, and unfortunately enjoyed the malicious pleasure of doing everything to fan the flame of their jealousy."
"Why unfortunately? I assure you I mind very little whether these gentlemen think well of me or not."
"Oh, no doubt you do. But as long as you live in this neighborhood you are compelled to meet these people, and it is a rule of the simplest wisdom of the world not to offend your fellow-passengers by treading on their corns.--Who on earth comes racing over there across the fields?"
This exclamation was caused by the mysterious horseman whom Oswald had noticed at his arrival, and who was now trotting across the heath so as to reach the road at a distance of perhaps six hundred yards ahead of them.
Oswald told the baron his experience with the horseman.
"We must find that out," said the baron; "let us trot."
They had scarcely trotted a few yards when the man before them started his horse also. It looked as if he were stealthily turning round now and then, but as the twilight had come on it was not easy to be quite sure of that.
"Let us try a gallop," said Oswald; "I see the mysterious man is repeating his manœuvres of the afternoon."
They were on a wide level plain, which sloped off gradually towards the fishermen's village, following the stony and less level ground on which Oldenburg's villa was built. The soil was nothing but a thin crust of earth, covered with meagre heather, and spread directly over the rock itself, so that the horses going faster and faster beat hard upon the stony subsoil.
The mysterious man had no sooner heard the sound of their hoofs than he had followed their example; he was now galloping before his pursuers, keeping exactly the same distance.
"Stern chase is a long chase!" said Oldenburg, who seemed to take pleasure in the matter. "That fellow must have a capital horse. Just look how he flies, scarcely touching the ground! Don't you know, Charles, who that can be?"
"No, sir," said the groom, who was now riding in a line with the two gentlemen. "It cannot be anybody from the neighborhood, or we would have overtaken him long since."
"Charles flatters himself with the idea, you see, that he commands the best and the fastest horses far and near," observed the baron.
"He won't stand it long, sir!" said Charles.
"We must see that," replied the baron.
"Suppose we make an end of the matter by giving the reins to our horses," said Oswald, a few minutes later. "We shall then soon see whether we can overtake him or not."
"Very well," said Oldenburg, "en avant!"
The three riders gave the reins to their horses. The noble animals, delighting in their freedom, and as if they knew that their reputation as the best racers in the whole neighborhood was being tested, rushed along with maddening speed, first breast to breast, till Oldenburg's black horse took the lead and maintained it in spite of all efforts on the part of the other two horses.
The mysterious man had allowed his pursuers to approach him to within about four hundred yards. They thought already the chase was over and the groom had saved his own honor and that of his horses, when suddenly the man before them gave the spur to his thoroughbred, and, bending his head low down upon the mane of the animal, shot off with a speed which soon made even the incensed groom aware that it was useless to try to overtake him.
"I believe it is the devil himself," he said, through his teeth.
Oldenburg laughed. "So do I," he said. "Let us give it up."
It took some time before the excited horses could calm down again. The mysterious man was still riding at full speed, and in a few moments he had disappeared in the lane which led down to the fishermen's village.
Half an hour afterwards they reached the gates of Grenwitz. Oswald got off his horse and gave the reins to the groom, to shake hands with the baron.
"If you were not too much bored," said the latter, "I hope we may repeat the experiment soon again. Good-by!"
Oswald reached his room without having met a soul in the quiet courtyard or in the silent house. As he was leaning out of the open window and looked down into the darkening garden, he saw two persons walking up and down in the avenue, whispering and laughing. They were Albert and Marguerite. They had evidently improved the good opportunity to advance in their conjugation ofaimer.